Once again, the American Idol season has rolled around. 30.1 million Americans sat down to watch the prospective contestants try, and in most cases fail, at winning a chance at super stardom. However, what they don’t see or realize is that not everyone who auditions gets to see Paula, Randy, Simon and now Kara.

The American Idol audition process is an elaborate, grueling process that the average American public only sees tiny parts of. A lot of the time, singers that have received considerable praise in other venues have not fared the process too well and obviously, the not-so-talented singers “somehow” get in anyways.

RT is giving you an insider’s look at the full American Idol audition process.

As most people who watch the show can tell you, American Idol holds auditions at big cities throughout the United States every summer. They have the first round at a big stadium, such as Javits Convention Center in New York City, where Jeremy Ragsdale, a jazz singer and pianist, auditioned in season two.

 Thousands of people come for the first round of auditions, all with hopes of becoming the next American Idol.

Jeremy, who had sung as a part of the Grammy High School Jazz Choir three years before, as well as with numerous famous jazz singers, was one of the many hopeful contestants.

When auditioning for Idol, contestant are set up for painfully long hours in a line to attain an audition number. When MHS alum Britany Poindexter auditioned a few seasons ago, she waited for a whole day to get a number. Britany said it was “pretty fun to see everyone else waiting in that line with you”.

Britany, who participated in chorus and received many choral honors, auditioned in Memphis, Tennessee. The second day, the opening scenes for the episode are filmed while all of the contestants are in the stands of the stadium; after a long wait, the auditions begin.

 “Then they call you down by section and section number. You then audition in front of a group of preliminary judges, with four other people. You all stand in a line and they just go down and point at you one by one.”

When Jeremy auditioned, he was placed in a group with two girls. He sang a Barry Manilow song, “When October Goes”. The producer dictating their group told him that they would come back to him, but told him to do a different song. He decided to sing “My Girl”, and the producer liked it enough to put Jeremy into the next round.

His two friends, who he had become separated from, and the girls next to him did not make it into the next round.

The first round is not based completely on talent.

Before Britany auditioned, the producers said that they were not looking for singing talent, but were looking for contestants with interesting back-stories, which was “odd, because it is supposed to be a singing competition”.

Britney sang “I Will Survive” for her audition, but in the end it was “not what they were looking for” and Britany was sent home.

After the long first three days of auditions, Jeremy checked into a decent hotel near the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where the next round of auditions was held, to have a good night of sleep before the second audition. By this time, he was worn out, and realized that he did not care about advancing farther than he already had gotten.

 For his audition he sang the Barry Manilow song in front of all of the producers. The producers, which included Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, said “Great voice, great stage presence, but we can’t use you right now-sorry.” As Jeremy puts it, “I think they already had a ton of really polite 22-year old white dudes that had gotten to the next round, so they really didn’t need me”.

It is during the second round that they also have contestants from each city sing the exact same song in front of the producers. They tape these auditions so that they can make a makeshift-medley of singers, which is vaguely entertaining. They often employ “creative editing” to make it seem as if the contestants are singing their “city song” in front of the judges, but this is not true. If you pay close attention to the montages you can notice that the judges and the contestant are not in the same room.

After the few hundred people are dwindled down to one hundred, the judges finally arrive. They see people for about two days. Eventually, the judges pick around 15 people and leave.

The system filters out most of the work for the judges, but they still have to sit through truly outrageous and awful auditions.

The producers keep these untalented contestants so that the show will be more interesting.

Often times, the contestants are encouraged to be as outrageous and crazy as possible.

For example, in season 5, Crystal Parizanski was encouraged by the producers to seem more ditzy.  She explained how the producers used her when she appeared on Mix 96 Montreal shortly after her audition.

They told her to put on more makeup because “Simon will like that”.

They chided her until she complied, and then they filmed her as she put on massive amounts of makeup, which made her look ridiculous and unintelligent. When her episode aired, they implied that she wore that much makeup in her every day life, which although entertaining, is misleading. Crystal did not make it to the next round.

In the end, about 20 people make it to Hollywood after three rounds of auditions, thousands of crushed dreams and hundreds of hour’s worth of footage. The film editors and producers then condense their footage into a couple hours of family-friendly entertainment which debuts all over the world, a few months later.