something odd about Brian B's Spectacular

[Artemis]

I'm watching it right now, and I notice that they've added an applause-and-cheer track to the audio. There are many places in pretty much all of the performances where you hear cheering and applause, but if you look at the audience they're pretty much just sitting there.

I don't know which is a bigger shame: that the audience doesn't seem to be suitably appreciative of some really great performances, or that the producers though it necessary to tart it up with the artificial cheering. Now of course it may have been different live ... but that's the impression on TV.

[bbtano]

I hadn't noticed that the audience wasn't clapping, but did notice that the volume of the applause seemed louder than that size of an audience could produce. There are many empty seats, even several rows of emptiness within the first ten rows on one side.

I wonder if the differences in the applause is at all related to the retakes? (or lack thereof....I didn't attend the show this year, but the year I did attend there were no retakes. They just used footage from the dress rehearsal when there was no audience)

[sillyskates]

Originally posted by Artemis
I'm watching it right now, and I notice that they've added an applause-and-cheer track to the audio. There are many places in pretty much all of the performances where you hear cheering and applause, but if you look at the audience they're pretty much just sitting there.

I noticed that, too. It was a bit distracting. Overall, this wasn't my favourite of the NBC specials this year, but I absolutely LOVED the "In these shoes?" number by Caryn Kadavy, and I can always count on Yuka for consistently excellent performances.

[Sing_Alto]

My friend went to the show, and she said it was nearly a full house, and the audience was great.

[Meredith]

From what I read earlier about the show, all the skaters received a good reception, some better than others. Retakes (not many) were held.

In rewatching part of the tape (I noticed the audience seemed disproportionately loud too) a few sections seemed more vocal than others. I wondered where the microphones were placed.

[Alexa]

I didn't notice that but that is because there were a couple of other issues that really made this show hard to watch.

1) The color red was too much and on too long, and I found it hard to watch for a long time. I even had to fast forward through some performances I liked.

2) The camera angles by NBC are horrible. Often they are so far away, I can hardly see the skater. Then they zoom up for a close up, and then back to the skater being a dot on the ice.

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed really bad on Brian's show.

Other than that, I liked most of the show and performances. Wish I could have seen some of them closer up.

[FlowerPower]

I was thinking the same thing watching Brian's special! Why did they add an audience reaction track. They way over did it a few times. Oh well.

Also, Caryn Kadevy's costumes weren't up to her usual excellence. So I think they must have been just for this show. What do you think? I liked the music Not in these Shoes or Shoes or whatever it's called.

Kristi seems to have wasted no time getting back on the ice! Makes me think I should be exercising more! Now if I could just find 3 or 4 attractive guys to carry me around the gym between the treadmill and the bike and the weights.Hee Hee Hee.

Lots of original music and non English singing. I wonder if that was on purpose since so many of these performers are in all the fall specials.

[Tapper]

I found he applause track to be quite irritating.

[Artemis]

I loved Caryn's "In These Shoes" number too (heck, I love just about anything she does) ... but I think I would have loved it even more if Josée hadn't already done such a great job with this song a couple of years ago. (I believe it was sung by Bette Middler, BTW, for anyone who's interested.)

As for the audience appreciation and the applause track, it was most noticable (and most distracting) during each performance, not at the end. There were loud artificial cheers for a lot of moves that you might not expect a not-that-educated audience to applaud, and the cheers were the same volume and intensity for a spread eagle or split jump as for a triple jump or throw, for example.