passed test. did not get video interview.

[ghostjmf]

Test was effing hard. Hardest BAM test I've ever taken.

Wasn't sure I had passed 'til # was called. Wasn't sure had remembered # right & hadn't written it down. Except on scantron card I of course had to hand in.


But they called my name for interview, eventually, so I did pass.

They asked me Qs showing they hadn't read my form, I thought I had them intrigued at one pt, but no video.


More recap later maybe.

[SpacemanSpiff]

Damn Sorry to hear about the no-video.

[tlynn78]

Dang!

[T_Bone0806]

At least you continue to fight the good fight. It's all you can do.

I doubt I could get all that far on the show now...it's barely recognizable as BAM. I've seen it only a couple of times in the last few years to be honest. Don't think it's sour grapes syndrome..since I'd have an awful tough time participating on the show now even if I could get past the interview....just don't care for it with all the changes. Oh, and just to clarify the "tough time" comment..I can't travel very far distances these days and my diction gives out after I've run my mouth for 10-15 minutes...and I don't have tremendous lung power anymore, mostly because of the lousy posture associated with the wheelchair. Can't sing anymore for that matter..of course, some will offer the opinion that nothing's changed in THAT regard But sour grapes? nahh..I've made my peace with it. I had TWO freakin' shots at the HotSeat. 5 Fastest Fingers. I had 5 more chances than most. 3 second place finishes and 1 third place. Which is perfect really, since that's usually where I finish in LB and Vandal's games...hey, there are worse things than being Miss Congeniality, right, Vandal?

If someone I knew from here was on, though, I'd be sure to watch. I watched Rafferbee when she was on 5 gazillion Questions, and WoF when Chad was on. The only game show I watch regularly these days is Jeopardy, though. My point, which took forever for me to get to, is that I'm happy to see you're still gunning for 'em, ghost. I'll continue to pull for you to get there.

[TheConfessor]

Congrats on making the effort and passing the test. Sorry if you didn't fit what they were looking for.

[ghostjmf]

expanded recap, but will still try to keep it briefish: I knew I should be 1st in line, but wasn't. My own stupidity. I didn't even print out the application 'til this morning. Guess I didn't want to jinx myself by overthinking. But didn't have time this morn to cut & paste Qs onto a form I could type onto, so was writing in longhand again. However, so did many who did get videos.


They picked people they really liked out of the line to jump the queue & get tested with the 1st group in the door. This didn't make the rest of us super-happy, & some people commented, as non-passers exited from that 1st group, that one of the selectees was among them. Not the contestant's fault of course. They definitely had the stand-outish personality the show goes for, whether naturally or acted I can't say.


Moral is: be 1st in line, or stand out so much wherever you are in line that the staff hand-picks you to jump the queue. But then you also have to pass.


There were passers who hadn't yet been called for their interviews by the time 2nd-group passers started getting called. This made one person very perturbed & a staffer told them "no-one else is complaining". They were, just not to the staff.


One 1st-group passer who was waiting a long, long time did get put in the "video" group, though. They are an actor. Young, gorgeous, but not any ethnic group the show wants more of. They are also smart; a former child J! contestant.


One of my group (2nd group given test) is also an actor. Older. Also knows how to be peppy in ways that win auditions. They were an adult J! contestant. I will be rooting for both these people on show if they get on because they're not just pretty faces, despite their professions. And in the case of 2nd person, it was not a career because they at some point decided it would be better for their mental health, & also income level, to keep it as a hobby.


Person 2 looks a bit like me, & has had on paper anyway a more interesting life; is married (their spouse is a nice person too & also passed, but I didn't hang around to see if they made the video cut), has kids or some other kind of local dependents they had to get back to if they didn't get an interview soon. So I could kind of see why the show wouldn't pick 2 curly-haired women in a row when one is more interesting to them. It may have come down to something as simple as that.


What I'm trying to pull apart is why when I thought I had the interviewer interested, & asking questions, they then pulled back & told me to be sure to check my spam file. Honestly, that's exactly what they tell you. Apparently their messages get treated by mail servers as spam.


We were told, before we took test, that if we had a truly outrageous thing about ourselves or that we would do with the money, write it briefly on the scantron. And people were prompted to tell jokes to get t-shirts. The married couple fellow-passers at my table both did. I just couldn't think of any joke that wasn't already being told. Note to self, if I ever do this again; memorize some stupid joke. It doesn't have to be funny at all; you just have to show you can put yourself out there.


The actor at my table is also a singer, but I didn't hear them singing in interview. I wanted to; its my one demonstrable talent. But I was afraid if I burst into song they would boot me right out the door. It is how I got my one shot at the show, though, but this time around I didn't have a parody song worked up. I could have, but hadn't, as didn't want to overdo stuff. I might as well overdo stuff.


One thing the interviewer did whiz through is "are you married (even though I had checked "single"), do you have kids, are you involved". I could have lied about my 14 adoptees from foreign lands. Needing the $$ to care for them & all. I'm just chicken to go that route.


This test had 30 Qs, which is usual, but they only gave us 10 minutes. I remember in previous years getting 15. Some people didn't even finish it. I had only finished double-checking the 1st 15 Qs when time was up. This had never happened to me before, even on the 2 tests that I didn't pass out of the 14 or so I've taken.


It did not help that the scantrons had A-B-C-D circles so small that many people with far better eyesight than mine, people young enough not to be developing cataracts & who do not have astigmatism with their glasses off for near vision, couldn't see them well. Every circle I saw was doubled & fuzzy. The staff offered to give us "bad vision" enlarged versions. None of us took them, & we all should have. It also didn't help that we were tested in a bar with poor lights, & colored lights for some people. It also didn't help my table that one of the contestants was either sloshed, high-level Aspergers (I say this because of some of their other behavior too), or just a jerk, as they kept muttering about how bad a question was every time they got what they thought was a hard one, &, as I said, this was a hard test. They didn't pass, but were going to come back at 5:00pm for the movie test (which is allowed).


And while the actor at my table saw Qs familiar from the show, I did not. Maybe that's because of the amount of shows preempted in the Boston area this year by bad weather, but they were local enough to have had some of that weather too.


My almost forgetting my # could be considered a sign of early dementia of some form. Except the test for dementia gives you a # & then has you count backward from 10 or some such thing, then checks to see if you remember your #. I don't think taking a BAM test is the same low-ish level of distraction as counting backward from 10 for a few minutes. But I'm still worried. Honest.

[jaybee]

Back when I was auditioning on a regular basis I used to beat myself up after each successful test without moving on further. "Could I have done this, should I have done that?" "Next time I will try to ........"

Then I became a part of the reality audition process from the other side of the coin, being a part of a 7-person pre-production team tasked with casting contestants from thousands of applicants. Two of us had absolute veto powers in the selection process - If I or the supervising producer said no, even if the other 6 said yes, then that contestant was out of the running. Even at that, we were strictly governed by network mandates, where all the power really was. It boiled down to this:

95% Demographics. - Network knew (or thought they knew) what they wanted. (And it wasn't MAWG's in blue shirts). Less than common nationalities of origin, decidedly non middle-American accents were looked for. If casting couples as we often did, a mixed race couple had to be really sucky in personality to NOT be cast.

4% Some interesting hook. - Anything unusual in background, family, job whatever. Just something that could be worked into a running OTF or worked into the script to add some excitement or interest.

1% Other. - Every once in a while we got to cast someone just because darnit, we just liked them or thought they deserved to be on the show.

Who we almost never cast - The 'professional' applicants. Those who's initial application tape was obviously the work of a professional. We weren't looking for actors, we were looking for people who could act well enough to do what we wanted while acting poorly enough to look somewhat real.

That 1% is where most of us sit in our chances to get on a show. Slim odds made even slimmer by things like Ghost pointed out - if they chose someone who looked similar than the second person in that line doesn't have a chance. Nothing you can do about that.

[ghostjmf]

Line was pretty MAWG. Very MAWG. Well, many were MAWW, with a few YAWW, so you could say YAWW passers were likely to get video.


Also, line was 2 groups of 100, with 25 or 30 passers in mine, followed by a much smaller 3rd group. It was 2:30pm when I left. A retired firefighter at my table thought they had lowered the curve to even get 30 from that hard test . I hope they make it on show too. Hope all my table does, but one ahead of me was also sent out w/o video, & they were Y-ishAWG.


Interviewer asked me to confirm my age, which they had already calculated from my birthdate, 1st thing. One thing weirdish about interview is that they broke into seeming interested & asking me leading Qs I should have answered w/ bs instead of conversationally to say "we make these interviews short because we have so many people (to interview)". Then they seemed interested again. Then they told me "check your spam file" & that was it.

[The_Raven]

Sorry to hear...

I agree that the test was surprisingly tough, definitely tougher than the other test I took back in 2013.

[Vandal]

I hope you get another chance and get the call.

You would make for good TV.

[ghostjmf]

Reject e-mail just came.


Dammit.

[Beebs52]

That sucks. You have more gumption than I. Kudos.

[ghostjmf]

Beebs, you gotta try out again if they come near you. I know I'm on their shit list. You're not. You just have to be there when they have that you-niche they've gotta fill.

[Beebs52]

You are really too kind to say that. I'm not the demo. Sort of like you, they laugh, they do the convo, etc. Same with J. I think, besides the fact that I don't have any massive hook, maybe they can sense that I'd probably meltdown in the spotlight. I think it's my own internal stoplight.

[mellytu74]

That stinks, ghost. Sorry. But I'm glad that you went for it.