Making of "The Next" on The CW

A very big thank you to all of you who tuned in tonight and watched our premiere. Your comments on Twitter and Facebook were really great and on behalf of myself, Joe, Nelly, Gloria, John and Allison, we really appreciate all of the nice things you guys wrote.

While ALL of our Orlando contestants did a fantastic job, ultimately, the audience chose MICHAEL RAY to represent their city in the semi-finals.

You can all go to iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMultiRoom?fcId=548301090

and get any of the fully recorded performances tonight if you would like.

Next week we’re in Baltimore- the episode is really great.

I’ll continue to take all of you behind the scenes this week as we are editing, promoting and preparing for our LIVE episodes in Los Angeles just 6 weeks from now.

Thanks again guys!

Dave

Hi Guys-

WOW! We are just about there. Months and months of planning and pre-production, 6 weeks of taking 6 semi-trucks on the road loaded with a huge set and massive amounts of gear and it all BEGINS tomorrow night for us!

But before we get to our premiere episode tomorrow- there’s just one little thing we need to do tonight- and that’s make our 6th episode here at the Orpheum in Los Angeles with 4 great contestants!

After tonight, we’ll have our 6 semi finalists- and we will announce a surprise in tonight’s show as well so a 7th contestant can re-enter into our competition- chosen by ALL OF YOU! More details on that soon.

Tonight’s show is going to feature a special performance by our very own JOHN RICH- and he’s going to be joined by his partner- BIG KENNY- which means BIG & RICH will perform their new smash hit “That’s Why I Pray”- so you guys are in for a treat tonight.

Right now, Joe, Nelly, Gloria and John are in their round-table press interviews- by tomorrow morning, you guys are going to see a ton of stuff online in your papers, on your local radio stations, etc.. on the premiere tomorrow night.

We’re also going to be celebrating here in downtown Los Angeles after our filming- it’s our premiere party- and we might just have a birthday cake for one of our mentors :)

Back to rehearsal now guys- look for some great pictures and video not only here, but on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/thenextcw

Dave

This is the WEEK! 

We are about 72 hours away from the premiere episode of “THE NEXT” and we couldn’t be more excited!

This is an insane week for us. Today, we started filming here in Los Angeles for our 6th episode. Joe, Nelly, Gloria and John all ambushed their contestants earlier in the day and they went great.

We’ll be filming all over Los Angeles tomorrow and then Wednesday is the big show at the ORPHEUM. If you’re in the LA area and want to come to the show, please go to our Facebook page for ticket info- www.facebook.com/thenextcw- The show is going to be memorable!

Of course, Wednesday also happens to be Joe’s birthday- but I didn’t have to tell any of you Joe Jonas fans that- you’ve already had it marked on your calendar for 365 days.

THEN- it’s all about THURSDAY and the PREMIERE episode at 9pm 8pm central.

We’re all doing a ton of press and interviews so be sure to be on the look out for lots of great stuff on the show.

Of course, while all of this is happening this week, I will be continuing to edit the the rest of the episodes that you’ll be watching until the end of Sept.- where we will begin our LIVE episodes from Los Angeles- and that’s when all of the fans across the country will be able to vote- lot’s more details coming on that in the next few weeks.

Thanks for all of your continued support- and please keep spreading the word by sending people to our Facebook page and “Liking” us!

More pictures and behind the scenes coming tomorrow.

Dave

Hi Guys We are exactly one week away from our premiere on August 16 and I wanted to blog today to all of the millions of viewers out there who might not be thinking that they’re going to watch our series because in their minds it might be “Just another Music Competition” show. We all know that there are a lot of shows in this space on television, but I want to take this as an opportunity to say that we are truly trying to do something cool, fresh, fun and different than what you’ve all seen. If you’re looking for aspiring singers to be made fun of, or see huge (staged) fights or watch contestants leave on a stretcher, then there are plenty of other choices on TV for you to watch and if we were to do that, then the naysayers out there would be right- we would be just another music competition show. But if you give The Next a chance, you’ll see communities and cities across the country support four of their local home grown talent as four of the most respected artists in the music industry in Gloria Estefan, Joe Jonas, Nelly and John Rich help to take them to the next level by putting themselves into the lives of their contestants, having some fun with them but also giving them the help that’s truly needed to be a star. Don’t get me wrong- this isn’t one big love fest- at the end of the day, we’re a competition and each one of the contestants wants to win in a big way and each of our mentors wants to win as well- but they’re also here to help each other and give credit where credit is due. We feel we found some real stars so far- and we still have one more city to go- Los Angeles next week before we have all of our semi finalists in place. I know you guys are going to feel we have some great talent as well. For the fans reading my blog and to the fans of Joe, Gloria, Nelly and John- please take this blog and share it with as many people as you can today and please let them read it. For those of you who weren’t planning on watching because “It’s just another singing competition” I ask you guys to give us a chance. I think you’ll not only see from our first episode but over the course of our entire series how this show is different and I believe you’ll love watching it.

I’m on twitter at broome88 if you want to hit me up and our Facebook page for The next is www.facebook.com/thenextcw

Dave

Hi guys-

Been a bit absent from my blog over the last day or so- just juggling our shoot here in Dallas and getting our first episode locked and ready to air on 8/16.

I’m happy to say we are feeling great about what you guys are going to see!

I’m in the control truck right now going through our rehearsal for tonight’s show which we film in about 3 1/2 hours.

We have a huge surprise performance tonight by two of our mentors that have never performed together until tonight!

Any guesses on which two I’m talking about?

Hi Guys-

Got off the plane yesterday morning from Chicago and came back to LA for 2 days so that I can finish up editing our first episode. We are two weeks away from our premiere on August 16th.

This is a really slamming time frame for us and as promised, I wanted to take all of you through the entire process from day one of filming to the day you see these episode air.

Within the next 2 days we will have what’s called a “locked” cut- which means that any edit changes to the episode are all done. What you guys may or may not know is that we shoot over 80 hours worth of footage from all of our cameras in order to make a show that’s about 42 minutes long- so lot’s of decision have to be made as to exactly what footage you guys are going to see- in a show like this, we have tons of stuff that you we will not be able to get into the episode due to timing- so I’m thinking that it might be cool to post some of the footage either on the show’s web page on the CW network- or on our Facebook page.

There will be lots of great things that we’ll try and get online as the series airs.

Anyway- once we have a locked cut, we then move on to do something that’s called “Online” edit- and that’s where we do an overall audio mix and adjust all levels so that all of the audio is clean and the same. We also do what’s called an “up-Rez” output- which basically means that up until now, we edit the footage in low-resolution- actually 20-1 of what the actual show will look like at 1-1. Another way of saying this is that we edit at 1/20th the final picture quality.

Then reason why we do this is purely the size of the media files- it’s no different than what you guys have to deal with when you edit your homemade videos- sometimes those files get too big and you can’t do anything with them. The same here- we don’t convert the video footage into full 1-1 HD until the verity end- and that’s the up-rez (or up resolution) process.

While we do that we also do what’s called a “Color Correction”- again- this is a process where we look at everything we shot and fix any of the colors that are out of whack- due to either weird lighting conditions- too much sun, not enough sun, etc…

Once all of that is done, we do a “Layback”, where we roll off the final episode ready to be delivered to the CW fore them to air it.

Lot’s of quality checks need to get down once we deliver the episode to make sure that it’s up to the specific requirements from the network in order for it to air.

This entire process will be taking place over the next 10 days or so- just in time for us to air two weeks from now. 

And we do this entire process for EVERY episode EVERY week. 

And if you guys don’t already know this- starting in our 7th episode, we are going LIVE- that’s where America will get to vote every week until we crown a winner- so I’m very excited to be producing live television for the CW- something they have rarely done.

I leave to go to Dallas this Saturday morning- our next stop for our 5th episode.

Look for a lot more pictures and videos to be posted tomorrow morning.

Hope you guys are enjoying!

Dave