Canada: Le Cercle looking for contestants

[Blaq]

In another thread, I've posted about Le Cercle, the French-Canadian version of France2's successful La Cible. I just learned that the application form is now online!

Go to tva.canoe.com/emissions/lecercle/ for details. The show is open to all Canadian residents 18 and over. Believe me, you'd better have a damn good mastery of French to play this pressure-filled game!

[Fedya]

Have you applied to be a contestant yet?  We eagerly await news of your next game show experience!  :-)

As for me, I'm not Canadian, and don't speak French anywhere near enough to be a game show contestant.  Quel malheur :-)

[dougal18]

La Cible is on TV5 Europe sometimes.  It's a superb little quiz.  I can understand the rules and occasionally answer (Ecosse!).  It's not as tough to understand as Pyramide or Questions Pour Un Champion though.

And my favourite mistake from the show is the woman who said forceps when they had to name a muscle in the body.

[vtown7]

*runs to find printer for application form*

[Blaq]

[quote name=\'Fedya\' date=\'Jul 22 2005, 10:27 PM\']Have you applied to be a contestant yet?  We eagerly await news of your next game show experience!  :-)

[snapback]92092[/snapback]

[/quote]

Thanks! I whipped it out the very same day. (The application form, that is B^)

Not to jinx it, but if I made it onto Ultimatum, I can probably be selected for Le Cercle. It took me a few attempts to get onto Ultimatum, but the times I failed the test, it was by the narrowest of margins. Given that Le Cercle will need 10 players/week compared to Ultimatum's 5, doubling the contestant pool needed should assuredly extend the passing grade to include me.

[quote name=\'Fedya\' date=\'Jul 22 2005, 10:27 PM\']As for me, I'm not Canadian, and don't speak French anywhere near enough to be a game show contestant.  Quel malheur :-)

[snapback]92092[/snapback]

[/quote]

I share your feeling of being on the ouside looking in; it's how I felt as a kid watching those darned California-based game shows!

I'm excited about Le Cercle. It'll be my first experience at a high-speed, high-pressure game show! (apart from Lingo, for which I had really high skills and the realm of answers could be studied in advance...) I'm TiVo'ing La Cible every day, practicing, taking in the rules, and strategizing even as we speak. B^)

[Blaq]

Here's my audition story:

Having sent the application form just before going with my husband Michael (a.k.a. "Mike" on First Comes Love, sheesh B^( ) on a week-and-a-half trip to Provincetown and Montreal, I had emailed the production company to let them know when I'd be in town, just in case they wanted to slot me in for an audition spot during those days.

Picking up my voicemail on Sunday at my parents', I was overjoyed to get the message from Patrick, contestant coordinator at Le Cercle, asking whether I'd like to be a part of their auditions scheduled for the next Monday/Tuesday! Yippee! I was going to do an audition without encurring travel expenses!

I called on Monday and spoke to Patrick, who said (I'm paraphrasing here):

"Yes, we do have auditions for tonight. Now, as you know, Le Cercle puts a lot of pressure on contestants --"

Yes...

-- So let's start now. What is the capital of California?

And he proceeded to fire off about 8 questions at me, without warning! I loved it! My heart was racing, not only from the impromptu experience but from my performance: I nailed all but one question, answering promptly, calmly, and with personality! When we were done, he told me I had passed the test and gave me the directions to that evening's audition!

The audition was held in the building which once was the headquarters of TQS, the Quebec lowbrow equivalent of Fox, where I'd once taped La Roue Chanceuse (Wheel of Fortune). Patrick told the group that we were all winners, having landed here due to our knowledge or, in certain cases, our personality! Such honesty was refreshing and comforting: even if I didn't get great marks, I might still be picked based on charm alone. B^) The 8-minute written test had about 40 general-knowledge questions ranging from average ("Which band recorded the albums Bridges to Babylon and Voodoo Lounge?") to hard ("What does a cornac [mahout, in English] take care of?")

I was particularly tickled to see that last question: it was the last question on one of my episodes of Ultimatum, which I'd answered wrong at the time, causing me to lose the game! Revenge was sweet.

I sailed through the general-knowledge questions. With about 3 minutes remaining, I then got to the second part of the test: word lists. As you know, La Cible and Le Cercle mostly involve open-ended questions for contestants to answer until someone chokes. Some of these lists are knowledge-based (for example, "Movies with Harrison Ford"), others are strictly vocabulary (as in, "adverbs beginning with 'ob'" like obliquely, obviously...). The word lists are a weak spot of mine, one which I'm practicing until I get called.

First list: common names beginning with "POUR". I came up with two. (My friend Mariane had a half-dozen!)

Second list: common names ending in "IO". I eked out radio and ratio, also desperately trying "deuxio" (misspelled) and "tertio", which turned out to be adverbs. B^( I missed portfolio, imbroglio, impresario, studio...!

Last list: teams of the National Football League, with their names and city/province. I totally blanked out. B^( B^(

Finally, the brief on-camera interview, where I shone. B^)

In the end, I think I'll get on the show. Did I mention this version keeps its contestants for a full 5-episode week?


One last thing: they were also casting for their two days of pilots! I really hoped to be selected, since it would give me 5 games' worth of experience before we played for real money, later in the season. It would also give me a warm, fuzzy feeling to play a role that my beloved Randy Amasia played so often. Unfortunately, I didn;t get the call. But I'm holding tight for the "real" call... more news later.