Elimination Night - By Anonymous Page 0,35

could have waved to each other. So much for camaraderie. As for the executives, they flew American Airlines, as planned. Meanwhile, me and rest of the staff were rebooked on cheaper tickets, the kind with multiple layovers—Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albuquerque—to at least give the appearance of trying to stay within budget. It took us fourteen hours to get there, at a cost to the Rabbit network of $103.47 each.

The tab for Bibi and Joey’s flights? $734,677.27.

That, I swear, is no exaggeration.

I should probably explain that Houston wasn’t going to be a normal casting call, largely because of the long delay in signing the judges’ contracts. In fact, to keep production on schedule, the entire Project Icon crew had already been to Houston over the summer, to get pretty much everything in the can apart from the scenes involving the panel. Not that the viewers at home would ever know the difference. After the credits sequence, there’d be a long, swooping shot from a helicopter over Creamywhip Megacheese Stadium, revealing ten thousand or so screaming teenagers in the parking lot outside, waving and jostling their signs (all this taped back in August); and then, after a few zany interviews, tearful backstories, and scene-setters from inside the grounds (also taped in August), the screen would cut seamlessly to contestants entering the judges’ audition suite, one by one—as if it were all happening on the very same day—to do their thing.

In reality, of course, the auditions in front of the judges would be taking place months after the original cattle call. What’s more, of the ten thousand contestants who’d originally showed up, only a hundred or so now remained, because most of the vetting had already been done by yours truly, along with a hastily assembled team of my fellow junior producers/office punching bags from Rabbit, Zero Management, and Invasion Media. Again, this wouldn’t be clear from watching the show. It would look as though the panel had sat through the entire thing—what troupers!—when in fact they’d skipped the whole seething-mass-of-humanity part of the competition altogether. In fact, they wouldn’t even have to go near Creamywhip Megacheese Stadium, because their scenes would be shot twenty miles north, in the penthouse suite of an eight-star downtown hotel. (The only issue with this being continuity: Some of the ditzier contestants would inevitably forget to wear the same clothes for both shoots, meaning I’d have to take them shopping for the closest match possible. Which I knew from experience could be infuriating, especially if they’d turned up to the first audition in costume—try finding an inflatable banana suit in a Houston mall at eight a.m.)

As for the original cattle call: Hell.

It goes like this: Day One, you get to the stadium at five a.m., and there are twice as many people lined up in the parking lot than can actually fit inside. That’s because those ten thousand contestants bring another sixty thousand friends, pets, and family members. Most have camped out all night, making the place look like a postapocalypse refugee camp. And only about—oh—a dozen of them are talented. As in, could-be-famous talented. The rest are either delusional, in it for a laugh, or willing to do anything for attention. Hence the stripping Benjamin Franklin on a unicycle, and the woman who turned up to sing a duet with her parrot. And of course a few are genuinely deranged. It’s scary, actually, when you think about the dozen or so Project Icon suicides, including that guy who broke into Nigel Crowther’s house, left a demo of his album on the kitchen table, then hung himself from the upstairs balcony using a microphone cord.

Day One is the easiest, though, because all the contestants really have to do is line up for wristbands—in return for which they must show some ID and sign a wad of paperwork, promising they won’t post any YouTube videos, tweets, blog entries, et cetera, or even tell anyone if they make it through to the next round, as this would destroy all the tension when the show finally airs. Day Two is when things get seriously intense. In total there are probably twenty prejudges, and we sit behind long tables positioned in the center of the arena, separated by black curtains. You feel like some exotic creature in a cage on display at the county fair. And what with the background noise—a stadium full of kids reciting lyrics, trying to find their pitch, strumming guitars—it’s a struggle to hear your own voice,