When I was 13, I was part of my first TV show audience. It was for the channel 7 show The X-Factor Australia and I went with my then best friend, my mum and her mum. I was super excited to get tickets to be a part of this audience. I had applied all because I had seen an advertisement that Ariana Grande was meant to be making an appearance on one of the episodes. So naturally the 13 year old Olivia started applying to get tickets every single week! Just to get the boring details out of the way, no she was not on the first show I was ever at and no I never got to see her perform live on the show and yes I cried about it.That first show though, was amazing! I had never seen or understood how a TV show was filmed. Many of the special guest artists who performed were not recorded live but sang prior to the show’s start time. This confused me a lot but looking back now, I understand why the show was filmed the way it was. The time it took to set up their sets and then to pack them up and then film the judges arriving, filming the contestants and even filming the audience, it took a lot of time. More time than allocated for the show on TV.
At the time, the only negative aspect of being a part of that particular audience was how long we stood in the MoshPits. I was on the right side of the judges. Although waiting around and standing there was tiresome, overall I enjoyed my time. It was an amazing experience and one that is very memorable.
One of the most important things I took from being part of that audience was how hard the jobs of the stage crew and even the cameramen were. They were rushing around on stage or setting the cameras, checking their angles, finding the best places to set up their equipment or the sets for the performances and even dealing with the cheering. That day I found a new appreciation for those who work in the TV and film industry.
BCM110 this past week we looked at audiences, active and passive. I learnt that we have a choice in each audience, whether we want to be active within that audience or if we want to be passive and accept what we are an audience for. In my experience, I chose to be active. I chose to clap and laugh and sing along to the performances. I also learnt that an audience is anyone who connects to what they are watching, whether they watch live, a few hours later or a month later. An audience can be one individual person connecting to a show or 100 000 people watching the same show.
Tell me in the comments below your experiences in an audience or even if you have ever seen how The X-Factor Australia is filmed live.
-Olivia
Olivia Lopez 