If I Can Dream

Have you seen If I Can Dream? It’s sort of like The Real World meets American Idol crossed with Big Brother and America’s Next Top Model. The concept is that five young artists (an aspiring musician, model and three actors) live in a house together and are on camera 24/7 (the house has 60 cameras covering practically every corner of the place) while they pursue their dreams to make it in Hollywood. The cameras are fed live onto the web where viewers can both watch and comment directly into the house (or onto the cast members’ laptops) via twitter.

The raw camera footage is distilled each week into a show that is available for viewing each Tuesday.  Because the concept is a creation of Simon Fuller and 19, there is a lot of cross-pollination between this show and American Idol. Several Idol personalities have dropped by the house already, including David Cook and Kris Allen. Word is that Alex Lambert will move into the guest room of the house on Thursday for an extended stay and Justin Gaston (the aspiring musician of the group) will have a guest spot on Idol sometime in the next few weeks.  (He’s sort of like a young Pete Yorn, if you’re wondering).

The show/concept walks a very fine line between helping these young people with their careers and shamelessly exploiting them. There is no question that these kids are talented (some more than others: so far Justin and Kara are the obvious ones that seem to have a good chance of success) but there seems to be an inordinate amount of time spent getting the young female members of the cast especially to part with their clothes. One of the cast members seems only too happy to oblige and there was a minor scandal last Sunday when she was displayed fully nude on the web during a fashion shoot.

Whatever your feelings about the voyeurism involved here, there’s no denying that the cast is drop dead cute and the show is pretty fascinating. It will be interesting to see if this concept is more or less likely to lead to success in entertainment than say, being a contestant on American Idol. With the show available only on the web, it’s unlikely to get Idol-like attention in the mainstream, but with 24/7 viewership, it’s like a never-ending audition which some of these kids seem perfectly capable of acing.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

http://www.hulu.com/embed/6gWp8WDEbqxK6xGwnNb_vQ/i21