Ryan Seacrest says that “thousands” of people turned out to any given city to audition. But if each audition lasts for one minute, that means that in a 14-hour day Randy, Simon and Paula can hear 840 people at most in one day.
I’ve seen clips (they last for a few microseconds) of people lining up at football stadia and the like. I presume that at this point they go through a pre-screening of sorts where they audition for one of several panels of judges (Fox employees, maybe?) and only the best & worst are sent to Randy, Simon & Paula. Is my thinking on this correct?
How much time passes between each round? For example, Mandisa managed to audition for RS&P, make it to Hollywood, and see her own initial audition of Fox (and hear Simon’s remark about her weight) before confronting Simon about it at the end of the Hollywood auditions.
Can anyone give me some idea of the time frame involved?
Finally, when the contestants perform for the country (as they did last night and the night before), are they pretty much given free reign to sing whatever they please? Outside of “theme” nights, of course. Has anyone ever sung anything really off-the-wall or unexpected?
This is correct. This also causes “the worst” to get their hopes up.
I don’t know about your other questions.
I think they have a approved song list; it may be very long, but it probably doesn’t have Frank’s 2000" TV.
I wondered about this before aswell, those poor soul with tortured-cat voices get put through and filled with false self confidence only to be ridiculed by the judges and the public.
But that’s entertainment! Seriously, the ridiculing and belittling of some contestants is part of the remit of the show. I remember there was a TV show in the UK in the 70s/80s which showed clips of Japanese shows in which contestants were publicly humiliated to great audience applause and laughter. We winced and laughed and felt smugly superior to the Japanese who could put on such dreadful things. It would never happen in England!
These days half of British TV is taken up with humiliation-type shows/reality TV, a concept which we’ve successfully sold on to you guys in the States. I have a terrible feeling these things are going to be with us a long, long time, and may get much, much worse.
They say thousands turn out, they don’t necessarily say that RP&S listen to all who turn out.
1001 qualifies as “thousands” – more than one thousand. More than one of anything - even if only fractionally more than one - qualifies grammatically for the plural. It does not have to be multiples of one.
They might have auditions for more than two days – I don’t know.
There is a particular show I was told to watch by a friend called “Takeshi’s Castle” on Challenge TV which Craig Charles “commentates” on and it is basically Japanese hurting themselves but oh it’s funny. Would never be allowed to film such stunts in the UK!!
I’d always assumed there was off-camera staff to do initial assessments on the contestants. The (relatively few) camera-worthy ones would get passed by the underlings to RP&S for their auditions. But the vast majority would sing for some AI intern, get rejected, and go home.
I don’t know how long the intervals are, but Mandisa didn’t necessarily have to wait until the show was broadcast to see it. They may have screened it sooner for the finalists, or they could have shown her own audition to her 5 minutes after it happened.
This show is called MXC in North America - they take the best clips from Takeshi’s Castle and make it into a ridiculous new game show.
As for the OP, a guy I knew auditioned for Canadian Idol, which works basically the same way. Months elapse between the auditions in cities and the actual live shows in the main location. I think he auditioned in March or April, got his Gold Ticket and didn’t go to the main show until June. He was forbidden from telling anyone whether or not he got a Gold Ticket until the show aired.
AFAIK from the behind-the-scenes footage of Canadian Idol, all contestants are pre-screened by other judges, then they get the okay to see the main judges or not.
Are the current episodes from LA live? If so, we had auditions here in Austin back in November or so, so that’s an idea of about how much time is between the auditions and being in Hollywood.
Initial auditions were August - October with about a week between each city.
Hollywood round was the week ending December 11.
(Chicago auditions with Mandisa were televised on January 17th.)
Top 44 “Hollywood” episode was filmed on January 24th.
Current performance episodes are filmed a day or two ahead. I think it’s mainly so they can be edited to fit the time slot. Results shows are live.
Grammar Nazi here. It takes at least 2,000 to qualify for “thousands”. It is “thousand” that is pluralized. It means more than one of the thousand-things — e.g., two of them, or two thousand. Same same if you have a cupcake plus a crumb, you do not have cupcakes.
Practically speaking, that is how most people interpret it. But technically speaking, the singular is used for up to and including one - 1/2 pound, 1 pound - and the plural is used for more than one, including fractionally more than one - 1 1/2 pounds, 2 pounds. In your example, you have 1.001 cupcakes.
I’ll add a related question for one of you guys: (might be silly)
Potential royalty payouts for the live performance of songs (even a snippet during tryouts) must be pretty expensive. The show is going into syndication - will those royalties be paid each time?
I think that there’s an equivocation afoot. The plural may also be used for fractions, as in “half a million dollars”. But in that case, “dollars” is modified by “million” and thus is plural. The post I addressed implied that “1,001” could be refered to as “thousands”. It can’t because there is only one “thousand” there.
No, there is not. There is more than one thousand. 1001 is more than 1000.
Look up “plural” in the dictionary. It doesn’t say “at least two” of something. It says “more than one” of something.
The plural is not used for fractions that comprise less than one. “Half a million dollars,” whether you parse it as /half a million/ (= 500,000) /dollars/ or as /half/ /a million dollars/ still clearly refers to more than one dollar, so it is plural.
It takes at least 2,000 to qualify for “thousands”. It is “thousand” that is pluralized. It means more than one of the thousand-things — e.g., two of them, or two thousand. Same same if you have a cupcake plus a crumb, you do not have cupcakes.