July 11, 2010
America’s Got Talent 5: Editing during Las Vegas
Written by: MarianyaSign up to receive all the latest America's Got Talent 2010 News, Rumors and Updates.
There has been a lot of comments flying around in regards to several acts in the supposed “standby” group not really being in the “standby” group despite being televised as such.
One such group is Iron Horse. In the opening scenes they are plainly seen in Group A sitting in the lower right hand corner of the screen (two of the guys were wearing their blue “country-ish” shirts). If you look at the group carefully there are other acts that were in the “standby” show that were really in Group A.
- NU Covenant
- Cristina & Ali
- New Directions Choir
- Strange Familiar
So essentially the majority (if not all) of the Bands/Singing Duos, etc were in Group A rather than the “standby” group. As much as I wished they would not purposely rearrange people that way on television and were instead more straight up with their audience, I would have to suppose they did it this way to keep the audience on their feet in what I believe to be their version of drama.
At the same time, television (as a whole) and in particular reality television, I have found have been disrespecting their audience bit by bit with every passing year… particular when it comes to situations like these when they are trying to script a reality show and fall short because the audience could see which acts were really where and etc.
To me, if reality television producers truely trusted their audience and kept everything true instead of trying so hard to stick with a particular formula (it’s called thinking out of the box, all other industries are doing it) perhaps they will find that the audience they are trying so hard to entice to continue to watch television, will continue to do so.
It’s like any relationship… it starts with trust. 
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5 responses to "America’s Got Talent 5: Editing during Las Vegas"
I am so disappointed with some of the choices the judges made this year for the 48. I was so sad that the homeless shelter group, New Directions, that wonderful young Puerto Rican man with the powerful voice, the single mom hair dresser had a wonderful voice, the magician you let go doing the illusions with the red car was good, the group of musicians from Haiti were so much better and came from such a tough time just to have those instruments and have been able to learn to play them living in that poor country, then those young men trying to get out of the gangland surroundings and got together to form their dance and acrobatic moves. These were acts that said Yes, we can in America. To put through such lack of quality talent with acts such as an air band pretending to be a rock band, a horrid sounding woman screeching a song then yodeling, a guy who pretends to be a magician, the so called man in the black suit who says he’s a “comedian”. I would be very unhappy if I paid money and any of those acts showed up. I guess I just don’t understand what the producers are going for, shock value entertainment, the young crowd and to hell with the middle-age and older segment of the population? I watched the show the last 2 years because it was so wonderful to see undiscovered entertaining talented people. Britain’s Got Talent seems to have a much better handle on acts they vote onto the show, at least in the finals there are genuinely talented people. If this show is trying to get more controversy and draw more viewers, I think they have driven the interests of this viewer away. I no longer hold this show in as high regard as I once did. You messed up big time judges this year.
That is pretty lame that they would change the groups. I wonder if the 3 groups was just an afterthought or if it was part of the original plan. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t quite the way they had hoped. Who knows. Editing can do some amazing things.
I’d rather they just show ALL the auditions–in their REAL cities–some acts that were portrayed as auditioning in Portland actually auditioned in Chicago–Iron Horse being one of them. Then, just show the audition…no back story/sob story. I don’t think the back story should affect their talent abilities! (As for the formerly homeless veterans–when they first showed them, all walking together through and alley–did anyone notice how many of them were wearing a bluetooth earpiece? Makes for a great sob story, but it looks to me that they are doing pretty good now. Also, Micheal Grimm–whose grandparents were in Katrina and he tries to send them money from the few jobs he gets playing music–umm….he opens for The Doors in Vegas, and has other professional jobs…how does he qualify for this, and yet he is shown as being some poor pauper. While they are wasting time showing all these stories, the acts…and the acts with REAL talent get 8 seconds of their act shown on TV. Show the acts. Show the talent….I don’t care what happened to your neighbor’s best friend’s cousin’s roommate’s turtle while on a helipcopter flying over Kuwait while Katrina was occurring—the real question is, “Do you have talent?!” (That, and single singers should not be on this show either, there’s a show for that–American Idol.)
@Dana — I couldn’t agree with you more. I am so tired of these sob stories. Last year someone made a funny post somewhere about it how he or she has not much of a talent but has – a made up story with 4 or 5 calamities in one family: illness, death, murder, prison, etc. Everyone suggested this person should absolutely audition.
There is so much filler in this show, that they could have easily doubled the number of acts shown.
As to reality television being fake – this is true, and it’s really destroys the credibility of the shows. It also makes them more predictable and less compelling. Honest emotions and emphasis on talents is so much more interesting. But maybe the producers feel you’d then need fewer of them? Job security for producers?
The STrange Familiar was also in group A and was shown as a standby act.
I was at their origianal audition in Los Angeles (another editing mistake… they were televised as being from portland).
The judges went NUTS over Kira’s voice. I dont know why they didn’t get more coverage yet. watch for them to do really well.