Hello all!
I thought you might want to know how my audition for TvTropolis’ Inside the Box went. FWIW, TvTropolis is formerly PRIME tv, a specialty channel under the Global Television banner.
I applied about 10 days ago through the website. This past weekend, I was away on a dive trip in Western Ontario. Yesterday, I was scheduled to have a PD Day at work (I teach at a high school) but I figured I’d better check my email. So I did when I got up in the morning.
I saw “The Producers of Inside the Box want to meet YOU!” and I figured oh crap, I’d better get things organized.
When I got there, before everything started, I filled out a standard info form – that included a six question grammar quiz (?) and a question that said “how would you introduce yourself on a game show?”. I intertwined my interests and my job.
At 2.15 I found myself in the lobby of the CBC building in Toronto (yes, it’s for Global, but they had the tryouts at the CBC…). At about 3 pm, with a 8.5x11 paper pinned to my chest with my name (like
Idol, only cheaper), I was called to line up in a group of five and then we were paraded to
another part of the lobby.
We met with two producers from the show and they explained that we’d be doing two basic games.
The first was an association game. You were given a letter, and had to intertwine a tv show character with an interesting sentence. For example, I used “Greg Brady is a nice guy, but he’s destined for Surreal Life infamy”. Something I noticed at this point was that I was last in line for both rounds, so I made sure to have something ready for when my turn came around.
Next came the trivia. We went around the horn – if you didn’t get it right, they went to the next person. Questions ranged from the reasonable (What planet was ALF from?) to the very specific (What food did character X like the most?).
The thing I noticed was that it was the most relaxed interview I’ve ever been to. They told us before that it was more about personality than knowledge (but you should still know your stuff). I think this must have put me at ease.
At the end, we were ushered over to an area away from the producers. A production assistant came over and said “Ryan and Jeff…”
At this point I’m expecting them to say “Thanks for playing but we won’t be needing you today”.
Although what came out of her mouth was “… the producers would like to ask you a couple more questions”. I took this as a good sign! At this point the other three candidates left.
We sat back down on the couch and the more senior producer said “You guys are on our contestant list”.
I wasn’t sure what that meant so I followed with “Does this mean we’ll be on the show?”. And the producer said YES!
I was most happy at this point as you might imagine! Basically, we were told it’s a three player show (ie. Three individuals a la J!) and it’s also against the clock. We were told to start figuring out how long a minute EXACTLY is. (I know, that’s ripe for the picking!)
They’re starting to call people with tape dates next week, and they’re taping through July in the afternoon and evening.
I will happily post more when I get it!
Ryan
