American Idol - Season 6 - Page 3

AI increasing viewership in Season 6 defies all logic. Truly amazing.

We don't see all the tryouts. We only see a handfull the producers want us to see for a show. Wait until you see them in Hollywood, there will be contestants that you say "Hey, I don't remember seeing them before", it's because you didn't. There could have been some disagreements and the editors didn't show those. But, they go to Seattle tonight, there is still plenty of time for disagreement between judges

Some newspapers have sent spies into the auditions to see how they work. When they evalate the thousands of contestants they clearly try to find people who have real talent and people who are freaks willing to humiliate themselves to make some entertaining television. These people get sent to the judges. I wouldn't say the show is "staging" this (the freak contestants are) but it is intentional.

Remember, each two hour show has tiny fraction of the auditions the judges had to see in that city. For every good and horrific audition we see, there are countless boring auditions where the person wasn't particularly good nor bad. From what I've read, the judges are rarely insulting or condescending to these people and even sometimes give them good advice. This isn't entertaining television though so we never get to see the judges being nice to people who didn't make it.

Great post sturmie.


There was a shot of the stadium where you could see the setup. There were about 12 booths in the center, where you got to audition with some low level functionary for the initial cut. From there I would guess there would be a couple more cuts, before the judges got to see maybe a hundred or two.


It's no secret they are showcasing freaks in this part of the season. I personally think it goes on too long, but hey 35 million people are watching so what do I know. Besides, I have a FF button.

The only really annoying part for me is when the judges pretend that they're surprised someone so bad got through the screening.


I noticed. Hopefully the producers will stop her from cutting off Simon's performance reviews when we get to that part of the season.

that's exactly what i've heard...couldn't have put it better myself.

I think they said they had 10,000 people audition in that one city.

9 cities * 10,000 = 90,000 auditions.

At one minute each that's 90,000 / 60 = 1,500 hours.

1500 eight hour days = 187.5 days.

I don't think Simon guys put that kind of time in.

They said each audition was 2 minutes in front of the Judges.

During the Minneapolis audition you could see the "screening" rooms set up on the main floor.

Since this is the HDTV programming forum, I'd like to comment on the PQ of last night's show. Overall it seemed pretty good. Obviously the pre-audition and post-audition shoots were done with handheld cameras so the quality was lesser but that is to be expected. The one camera shot that really bothered me was the long shot of the judges(where all of them were in the frame). There seemed to be some really bad jaggies/interlacing going on there. It was clearly noticeable on the teeth of all the judges and on any edge, particulary the edge of Randy's shirt collar. Did anyone else notice this? I have a 720p TV and my cable box was outputting 720p, and I didn't notice the jaggies on any other camera shot.

Looked like that camera was WS SD to me.

the media coverage in Birmingham was ridiculous...

And just like last season, the entire last segment (the one with the "Abba" guy) was in WS SD, not HD. Nobody ever seems to notice that, which (I guess) is why they can get away with it.

well, i guess that answers my question about whether or not the country is getting sick of the same old formula...

Some random comments:

1.I thought the funniest part was Simon pretending to be shocked at Randy's harsh criticism of the "vocal coach.'

2.Why doesn't Jewel get her teeth fixed?

3. They seem to have two audio feeds going now, a stereo mix for analog and 5.1 for digital.

4. Paula seemed to get higher as the show progressed. What's in the Coke glass that seems to fascinate her so?

Best line of the night went to Simon:

Super AI Fan: Is there anything I can do to improve?
Simon: Leave.

LMAO!

Cowardly Lion: "Would you like to keep the poster I made?"

Simon: "No."

her snaggletooth is a big turn on. She'd be way too hot if she had normal teeth. By having a goofy tooth growing out of her gums, it creates the illusion that she could be attainable for the average guy.



Voices.

From what I've read it's a massive operation with dozens of low-level judges evaluating as many as a hundred contestants an hour, running back and forth to their bosses to get second opinions. They get passed onto a second level of judges who ask their bosses what they think about sending in someone dressed like Apollo Creed or can sing like the lion from Wizard of Oz and so on. I don't remember if this happens in real time or in meetings after the auditions. Most people with obvious singing ability and no apparent mental problems fly right through this evaluation but not many of them end up on the show.

If someone appears to have talent and a heartwarming story, they usually get a sit-down interview on camera. If the producers like that, they may get put in a pool of possible contestants to have a special segment shot on them. This involves scheduling a crew to drive out to their home town or something like that so they have a day or two to decide which ones to pick. The producers are judging the contestants by their entertainment value just as much as the judges are evaluating their singing ability. The newspaper spies (who I think made up their heartwarming stories) said they felt like a second contest (run by the show's producers) was happening in the background and the contestants were mostly unaware of it.

I wish they would show more of the borderline auditions and fewer freaks. Standing up in front of some strangers and singing a song a cappella is really really difficult. It's easy to start in the wrong key and end up out of your range. It's easy to accidentally imitate another singer's style and end up sounding phony and unoriginal. If they showed more of these auditions I think more half-decent singers would have an idea of what they're expected to do in auditions.

One more comment: The acoustic isolation between the audition room and the waiting area was terrible. The noise from the crowd outside had to be distracting to the (sober) judges.

Its funny how they show the contestants in a totally random order on TV. When the biggest AI fan was talking to Ryan after her "under pressure" audition, you could hear the little african american girl singing Jennifer Holiday in her audition right through the doors. That little thing sure has a powerful voice, but she sounds exactly like Paris from last season.

I've not confirmed this yet but I've heard from a friend that a girl we went to high school with made it to Hollywood. I'm guessing she'll be on the NYC audition next week. It'll be interesting to see if it's true. She was extremely annoying at times so I'd like to see Simon go at her.

That might be one of the most inane things I've ever read, considering Fantasia couldn't hit a single note, screamed constantly with zero control, completely abandoned her poor child (except for the gratuitous use for pity votes onstage one week), and does the same tired ending of every single song with "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,..." that ranges to every off-pitch note capable of being heard by the human ear.

Fantasia isn't the worst singer ever to be on AI, she's the worst singer in the history of mankind.

I think Fantasia shares that title with Ruben Studdard.

I remember turning on an R&B station and hearing this horrible song "So Sorry 2004" with every line ending "Damn, so sorry."

I didn't know who it was by but I knew it sucked monkey balls. Then the DJ said it was Ruben Studdard's latest single and I laughed my a** off and was not surprised one bit.

Hey, I am not complaining! Helps to pay for my HD equipment so keep on watching!!

Jewel won't get her teeth fixed but it looks like she gets them whitened...go figure.

Couple of things stick out to me so far.

Some of the edits are WAY too obvious. Like the montage with all them singing "Kiss". They were obviously all asked to sing that song and you could tell they were singing at a cue card and there weren't any judges there, yet we see the judges reactions....

Also please tell me someone else has noticed this:

The lighting and or picture quality of the contestants in the audition room is HORRIBLE. Every one of them looks like they have jaundice (very yellow face). At first I thought it was my monitor, but then they look fine when they walk out.
I swear they look like death.

To be fair, this was there last season as well. Perhaps even two seasons ago. Everytime I've seen this throughout the seasons, it was obvious they were singing at a cue card w/o judges too.

i told myself i wouldnt watch this, but i cant turn my head away... i think HD helps the auditions, i felt like that unchained melody software engineer was in the room with me, and i was scared to move

Yeah, that train wreck just keeps us fixated!!

Here's one of the more obvious cases of jaggies last night:



Many of the shots looked like upconverted 480i.

ZITSMAN rules!


ANyway....two were great tonight everyone else was ookay at best.