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Welcome to Water and Shade. I'm Nelal Hurcran.
This episode will be all about America's Got Talent. Because it has, and that's amazing.
But the dogs won. The freaking dogs.
More on that later.
To start with, I'm just going to touch on how ridiculous it is to pick the headlining act for a LIVE SHOW based on their TELEVISED performances. Anyone who has ever tried to film - or even watch a film of a stage show can attest to the fact that it doesn't work. It's absolutely impossible to capture the full experience regardless of the number of cameras and microphones. The television can only be focused on one small piece of the stage at a time.
And I have to say to whomever was in charge of all the sound engineering; stop. Really, just, don't do this anymore. If you can't be bothered to properly optimize your mix for TV, what are you doing behind the board?
True, you obviously had a separate mix going for the broadcast then was happening in the venue. This is a good thing. This is a very good thing. But whatever you were doing, it wasn't right. And I'm going to focus on the cloggers, because that's where the problems really stood out.
I've seen, and heard, really good clogging before. When seven to fifteen people start pounding on the ground with all the strength of their legs, the audience can feel that power. It's a great wave of sound. You absolutely CANNOT capture that with just little boundary mics.
Beyond that, though, realize that the majority of people will be watching on a TV in their home, using only it's built-in speakers. So mix to that. Hell, set up a TV to BE your monitors. And set it up as far away from the stage as you possibly can.
I'm going to be done ranting about that, now.
The inherent problems with broadcasting a live show do mean that the winner will almost always be a solo act. In the past several years, this has meant "singer/musician." The judges worked really hard to make sure that didn't happen this year: of the acts that were actually voted on by america, there were very few singers or singing groups, and none of them made it into the finally. In fact, there was only one musician at all.
Speaking quickly on the judges - not their personalities or the infighting or anything, but how they actually judge: I feel that they're too quick to determine wether or not a performance will make a good show. It's called America's Got Talent. During the first stage of auditions, that should be all the judges are focused on. Too often I saw Howie in particular give someone a "No" during the auditions simply because he "didn't think they'd make it all the way."
That's not the right time to worry about that. Right now, you tell them wether or not you think they have talent. If they do, they go on to Las Vegas. There you decide if they will make a good show. Not before. So shame for that.
But the finally. That happened tonight. I'll talk about that.
It was apparently two hours long. I came in at the halfway point to discover that they hadn't given ANY of the results yet. Mind you, I'm fairly certain that was because of all the Finally performances. With six finalists, rather then the usual four, they would have needed more time to perform them all.
I only regret missing the "Favorites of the Audition" performance, because it's always an interesting affair. So that's on my list of things to watch as soon as I have internet again.
And as long as I've been talking about the sound engineering:
Screaming girls. Ow. Really ow. Really guys? Can't we not transmit that? I don't really WANT to listen to Justin Bieber, but even he is preferable to the screeching coming from the crowd.
However, in the end, the dogs won. The Olaté Dogs, if you want the actual name. And I just about threw the remote at the TV. I honestly cannot understand it. They should not have even made it into the finally, let alone have won. Especially not above William Close - the amazing musician who built his own instruments - Tom Cotter - the only comedian to EVER make it this far in the competition - and even LightWire Theater.
LightWire. They didn't even make it into the finally. And there's only one reason why. It's because most the people who voted thought like I did: LightWire is a shoo-in. They're safe; enough other people will vote for them, so I'm going to spend my votes on one of the underdogs.
Considering who one, that may have been taking literally.
But everyone voting for the underdog led to LightWire being ousted. And I wouldn't be surprised to find that a similar circumstance led to the Olaté Dogs taking the victory.
Here's my big problem with the dog show - every performance, they got 90 seconds to wow the audience. And each and every time, at least half of the tricks were the same. When they can't even come up with a full fresh 90 second routine, how in the world are they going to fill a 90 MINUTE show?
I wish them luck, but given the opportunity, I wouldn't go watch their show.
But William Close, LightWire and even Tom Cotter? I want to attend one of theirs. In fact, I want to see ALL of their shows.
And if ever I get to, I'll be sure to let all of you know how they are.
Until next time, may you find water and shade.
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