© 2010 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.
With all the technology at his disposal, meticulous preparations dating back to January and expertise marshaled by the roughly 50 members of his crew, for Executive Producer Robert Deaton emotion is the key to documenting this year’s CMA Music Festival.
All of the footage that ABC unfurled on Wednesday, Sept. 1, in “CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night to Rock,” was inspired by the fusion of audience and artists that happens at this annual event. This is why Deaton always looks for an opportunity to briefly leave his post in the video truck during the nightly concerts at LP Field and walk through the crowd.
“Normally I can’t do that until we’re on the last artist of the night and we’ve already got the song that we want,” he said. “But when and if I can, I’ll go out by the stage and watch the rest of the performance. It feels totally different than it does in the truck, and I want to be reminded of how awesome an experience it is to be out there.”
The goal of conveying that feeling to viewers took on a new dimension this year. Deaton understood that four months would separate the epic Nashville flood of early May and the ABC broadcast. Yet the story of recovery, unity and celebration would remain vital, which is why that theme surfaces right at the top of the show, with an opening that differs dramatically from those in previous Festival specials.
Without giving it away, Deaton noted, “I love that at the very end a woman is holding up a poster that says, ‘There is no flood that’s going to stop this party.’ That’s really the attitude of the musicians and the neighbors who gave back. That’s why we ended up with that opening.”
Immersion into the spirit of the Festival guided Deaton’s approach. Working for the second consecutive year with a time slot expanded from two to three hours, he was able to feature several artists doing consecutive songs rather than cutting from one artist to another in a more constricted time frame. “There’s more breathing room,” he explained. “And it just feels better to me. It feels like what it is. It’s CMA Music Festival.”
To deepen that feeling, Deaton’s crews went beyond the LP Field shows and into the heat of the action in Downtown Nashville. One spent a full day with Lady Antebellum, tracking activities that included an impulsive, unscheduled visit to the Greased Lightning Fan Fair Hall. There are “Nighttime Nashville” segments too, capturing two all-star performances before a jam-packed crowd at Fuel Bar & Nightclub. Also, “skits” feature artists riffing and ad libbing, often with sly humor. (Note to viewers: Despite what you’ll see in one sketch, Brad Paisley actually does know who Carrie Underwood is.)
To put a final unique stamp on the package, Tim McGraw was brought onboard to debut as host. “If you can get Tim, you get him,” Deaton explained. “It had been years since he played the Festival, so when I invited him to perform and he said yes, I got to thinking how cool it would be for him to host as well. He turned out to be incredibly quick and fast and completely awesome to work with.”
As Deaton’s crews roamed the Festival grounds, so did a five-person ABC Digital Media crew gathering material to produce about 30 one-to-two-minute viral segments to promote tune-in to the ABC on-air special. Beginning Aug. 9, these clips will post on www.ABC.com and other Disney Web sites as well as on Hulu, YouTube and other online destinations. Here, too, the goal is to evoke the Festival experience through a “you are there” perspective.
“There wasn’t a lot of pre-production in the sense of scripting and arranging schedules,” said David Beebe, Director of Video Production, Disney/ABC Television Digital Video Group. “A lot was shot on the fly. Most clips focus on single artists, but we’ve got some that put them in skits. We have one with Blake Shelton bringing his dogs and his mom over to Kellie Pickler’s bus and asking her to watch them while he goes onstage. We go to fan club parties with artists. We talk with Martina McBride at her Blackbird Studio. So there’s a wide range, from newcomers to bigger names, all of it with a feeling of exclusivity and intimacy.”
