Lessons

Lesson Info

Mandatory Lessons

so I'm gonna break into the mandatory kind of. I guess you could say lessons that are crucial to being successful in the modeling world. Um, and one of them is taking advice on changing your looks. Okay, I can't emphasize this enough. How many girls come wanting to remain? Miss Congeniality, Miss Cheerleader, Miss, You know Jennifer with the beautiful long hair that everybody loved and voted for in high school. And the agencies, like, chop it off, lighten it, do this. You've got to be willing to say okay and let go. If you can't let go of bleaching your eyebrows, lightening your hair, doing whatever the agency says, then this is not the industry for you because you're going to be signed up to do all of these photo shoots and probably half the time you'll hate the styling. You're not thrilled about the direction of that. It's going, but it's really it's not. It's not. I don't think girls understand that it's not your vision. It's collected vision and we'll get into that. So, yeah, today...

modelling can be very lucrative, and most top earning girls are multi dimensional. I don't want girls to get carried away with thinking that they have to be stick thin in order to make it. Orphan Agency tells them to lose £15 they're already a size two or four. I would say to them, Screw you, I'll find someone else. And the reason being because so many girls and even in the top agencies have problems. A lot of the girls are genetically blessed. They could be tall, skinny, eat whatever they want and stay that way forever and ever and ever. And then there's other girls who have to maintain their size like myself, who have to work out and eat a certain way. And, you know, it might be a little more challenging. I kind of think I got a little carried away after Top model because I was living in New York running around, trying to be super healthy fit, and I got so, so skinny that my mom one day was like you kind of like, overdone it and so I didn't know that. I thought I looked great. So it's important to kind of check yourself mentally. Am I happy and my healthy? How are people reacting to me? Um, I've worked with photographers complained about girls being so undernourished that they start getting like that, that buzz instead of hair on there arms their their face, starts looking grey. Their skin is kind of transparent. Agencies will talk about this because they want you to be healthy. Teoh. I mean, they want you to be thin for certain reasons and maybe certain markets. You have to be a little leaner, but they don't want to send you out. If you're looking ill, that's a reflection on them. So it's really important to kind of get ahold of health. Or if you need a nutritionist, Teoh, reach out to one to kind of balance out how to look your best. Okay, so yeah, so you know, this is me being healthy, happy, healthy, you know, important. Teoh and I changed my hair a lot. People say I wanted to go back to this or go back to that, but really, it's at the time. You know what I'm doing? A project or agency. So I'm I'm always open to change. I'll go lighter. I'll go darker. I'll go less highlight. It'll go more highlighted depending. And that should be in communication with your agency. One thing I learned and these are all the top tips I've learned from, like people from my AMG and from the agencies of Kind of like I didn't know starting out. And it took me a good three or four years to get a grasp of how they wanted me to look and what I was supposed to. Where and how are we supposed to present myself? But it's important that skin care, you've got to take care of your skin, not only for the sake of the photographers, because how many times do they complain about? Oh, my God. I had to retouch the heck out of her. And I was, like, stuck forever. And then the girl, the shows up to the client, the client, like she smokes or, you know, they'll call and tell your agent and she smoker drinking too much because they look, people are not gonna want invest money if you're gonna come sloppy. And if you're gonna come, you know, if you have breakouts, which is normal, especially if you're traveling or Homo, No, just try and find a way to take care of it. Don't go out and buy a ton of like radical products. Go to a professional, spend that 50 to $75 for the initial visit and just get take care of your skin. Photographers will love you for that. You'll get more jobs from that. Yes, care of your body and health. Um, buzz. Wondering about height. Yeah. A lot of agencies I've talked to said that 57 is the cut off point that you have to be at least 57 to get into the modeling industry. But I know that some models like cake Kate Moss are a little bit shorter, and she still needed What advice ing out for that? Well, with high, it's crucial to be tall if you want to do Runway K Mosses like one in the BA. Gillian, she had something that was like the it factor. She came in at the right time. It was it was just different. Now you could be 57 and still work. You might not be doing high high fashion runway shows. You could do a lot of catalog work. You could be doing more commercial work. So we're gonna touch on the various forms on various markets of modeling and how high embody and all of those things play into those markets. All right, so apart from skin care, I'm gonna get into hair. I can tell you this was like my biggest blunder, and it sounds so silly. But just having fresh, clean blown out here to see clients. When I was growing out my hair from top model, I would go with dippy doo in my hair. I have the Bobby pin and they were like, What is she again like? Take that out and you know that they're gonna talk to you like that. Take it out and you just have to have fresh, clean, blown out hair. If your hair is naturally curly, where Curly. If it's not naturally, curlett. Don't put some problem curls in there. Don't go and buy like the You know those little like, quirky screw things and sleep with it the night before. If that's not the way you naturally where your hair clients don't want to see you coming in like that. Okay, so that's really important. Um, ask your manager. Your agent. How should I wear my hair? You don't want to lose out on a $5000 paid Camp air campaign gig. Just because you didn't know how to wear your hair that day, How frustrating would that be? You know something so simple that you could have just found out. If you are planning to do hair campaigns, no hair extensions, you cannot show upto Loreal. I did that once was doing this show I came in. I paid all this money to have longer hair. When I was going out, I was like, Oh, my God, I'm so ready that call me in for a hair campaign there, Like you were in extensions. I'm like, Yep. They're like, OK by I was like, Why? Because they can't. Can you give more reasons why we're seeing like, 200 girls for hair campaign will ask. Is this your hair and girls sometimes to the truth. Sometimes they will lie. But sometimes we'll have a hair stylist at the casting and he'll go in and check the hair on the casting. Like you said, it was your hair. It's my guys, So tell the truth, But yeah, and tell the truth in your natural hair color, because they Well, I've done hair campaigns. They will die you're here right there. If you get the job and say, What was your natural color before? Through a piece of stuff on top of your hair. Rinse you out in the sink at the studio and on you go. It's happened. I didn't complain too much. I got a great paycheck, so I thought, Whatever. But they need to know your natural hair color to when you go in there. Well, let's see what else? I'm teeth, which might sound really like really teeth. They need to be naturally looking white. Okay, no electric blue teeth whitening that freaks them out. I've heard agency. Oh, my God, Her teeth were so creepy. Like what is she doing like over bleaching terrifies casting directors. They should just look natural like healthy teeth. Approachable. No one wants to feel like they're talking to someone like, you know, when you look at someone's had a lot of work done on their face. It's like that uncomfortable kind of feeling. So just be natural, you know, and take care of that. Most importantly, learn how to dress like a model that took me a long, long time to understand. That's my casual look that's me going out at an event. This is one of the things the agency emphasized. Every day that I walked in, they would analyse what I was wearing. Okay, you have to dress the part. You have to wear heels all times. When you're going to see a client, you have to look tall. You have to have your posture. You have to learn how to walk in is if, like I'm the bomb. Don't mess with me. I walked into the agency before when I was like, starting at and I'm like, Hey, and then all of a sudden you've got one of Victoria's secret models walking in like like you know, and it worked because she sold her confidence. She sold who she waas and, you know, no one's gonna if you come in like high. Here's my book. He they're gonna be like, No, they want you to come in with a presence, be strong or, you know, be who you are. But don't. It's intimidating because you're automatically going to get judged as soon as you walk into the room and the P person saying, Do I want invest in this girl? So that's important OK. If you need to learn how to dress like a model, there's blog's. There's Model Lina, which is a great website. It tweets pictures all the time of really popular famous models and what they're wearing. Current trends. You do not have to spend a lot of money. I love forever. 21. I was joking with the makeup artist this morning that I go every week. Um, just for, like, little things, you know, like black shorts or tank tops, things that you constantly need to, you know, have in your wardrobe so you don't need to spend a lot, um, high heels. Super important agency always said they need to be super high and non trendy. Okay, so no buckles, no sparkles, no weaves, no trends of the moment. It's got to be something that they could look at five years from now. And classic. If they are a trend that could be a boot or something. But it's gotta be of that season. Unfortunately, it's a pretentious world. The fashion industry. If you're wearing boots from four seasons ago, they're gonna be like, Oh my gosh, you never know. I'm just saying that you have to come in to where you don't want to ever be. To trendy to where that takes away from presenting the best form of yourself. Okay, one handbag when you go in to see clients on castings. Super important, I would come in from New York on the subway. I'm gonna take my gym bag. I went to my favorite vegan restaurant. I packed my kale chips. I'm coming in to see the client there. Like, who is this gypsy that walked in the room? So you need to have one handbag, and it should just really have your portfolio. If you need to stop by the agency and leave your gym bag or your luggage because you're about to leave and they still want you to see a client do that? Um, only come in with one handbag. Nothing trendy. It could be super, super simple, like a $10 handbag. It's got to be simple. No buckles, no sort of adornments. Or it's got to be a handbag of that season. So that's important. Um, all right. Be punctual, super important. I know that so many girls think because there, you know, late I didn't know where it was. going or that they can kind of buy time with the smile or I'm so sorry I'm late. No time is money, especially castings on photo shoots. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was getting booked on a catalogue drop that paid me a ton of money. And I showed up 45 minutes late, and I had never been late. And the reason I was like, I didn't know there was 1/12 Avenue. And I didn't know that you were supposed to cross the highway to get to this studio. And I was late. And the client said she was wonderful to work with. She was 45 minutes late, will never work with her again. So I lost a potential catalogue client that could have paid my rent, You know, for the next few months, because I was 45 minutes late on. That is, I'm sure is a photographer. Absolutely. I'll be going crazy. Like, where is she Free five minutes late. Yeah, If you're going to overtime. All these things that clients thinking about. If you are running five or 10 minutes late, call your agent. Let them make up something to call the client and say she's on her way. She just finished blah, blah, blah, blah. And she's coming right now, so they'll be like, Okay, you don't call the client. Your agency calls the client, they explain what's going on, and then that'll buy you a little more time or more sympathy. Okay, um, we talked about learning the navigation of the city. Okay, if you're traveling abroad, study it because I'm guaranteed the day that you land, they're going to send you on castings. Go sees possible testings. So you need to know the layout. Um, they will leave you to your devices. They're not going to be. Here's one thing that I've heard models come up complaining about is when you go broad, the food is absolutely delicious. You get so excited you're in Italy, you know you want to eat your in Paris, you've got to try those sweet, delicious pastries and you make it a food trip as a model instead of an actual trip. You've got a lot of time and it's happened. I can't tell you how many times. And then there go 10 £ and three weeks go by and you're sent home and you can't understand why. So it's really important. Teoh, carry whatever you learn as a model over traveling, making sure that you know what you need. If you need to go get your market foods or fresh vegetables or snacks for your hotel room, do it before you start a two week trip for our three month stay in a country, get familiar with their cuisine and learn how to take care of yourself, Right? Have you ever had Well, can you say about that? If you hire a girl and then she doesn't show up how you expected? Well, it's funny because girls to come up all kinds of ways, think about the casting you're talking about earlier girls come in dressed all kind of ways, and that does make a difference on a big casting. I'm looking at how they come in. How the dressed, if they're coming in on their phone, if they're tweeting, makes a big difference because that first impression is so very important. I mean, my first time meeting, Tyra. I mean, all that first time meeting. How did Clooney remember all those? And they were tests. I met both of them doing a test. I remember how they came in. I admit them and this is years ago. But it makes a big impression on what you remember. And it starts a relationship with you and that client or that photographer. Even that job where you're minutes late. I remember having times when girls have come in late and the entire crew is going crazy because the client is thinking about not just you but how it's gonna back up the entire day in the whole crew. Hair makeup stylist, 15 different people going toe over time. So that's why I like I'd never hire again. I don't think about all that stuff as you go into a job. It's not just about you. It's the entire team about team later on. Yeah, we're gonna definitely talk about Team. And that's why you know, even being on time, sometimes learning to keep your mouth shut. If you don't like the way the makeup looks or your hair feels unless you're in severe pain, that's when you can probably say something. But that's normally not the case. Um, all right, so we've said that Now I'm gonna tell you about etiquette on the set. No answering cellphones ever. Okay, if your mom is calling you and she wants you to walk the dog after the shoot, she context it. Maybe when you're in a bathroom, you can read it. It's not a time for you to chat or to text and all that. Maybe if you're backstage sometimes that fashion shows you can be on your, you know, whatever. If you need to take a phone call, it will be from your agent and you say, Excuse me, that's my agency calling. That's really the only time you should be answering your cell phone. Okay, Also, this is super important, and I This is new because now, social Media, we're on instagram or on Facebook. We're on Twitter. We want to show the world where we're at. We want to tell the world were on a photo shoot, and I want you to notice me. Well, you need to ask permission. Can I take a picture? Um, myself on the set, Most the time photography like No, because they don't want you to reveal the project. They don't want you to reveal the styling, the makeup, the hair, the location It's very territorial in that sense. Okay, A lot of times all be able to I won't even mention where matter what I'm doing. If I'm doing a shot and I asked, can I take this photo? They're like, Yeah, but kind of big. Don't really tell people what's going on. And then once product is made, then you can kind of say Okay, this is what Matthew I did with Matthew for this publication. But most the times, it'll just be in makeup, hair and makeup high. Something like that. Fun. You don't want to give away the photographer. They will be ridiculously angry. And IPad a photographer, Say to one of the girls, You put a picture of our shoot on Facebook. I'm not gonna do your images anymore. You've already ruined it and killed it for me. So you don't wanna upset upset the whole team that's working really hard to put this together. Matthew, can you kind of say something being problem for sure on jobs? You don't want to put anything out there if amazes coming out three months from now, you don't want to have a picture of you on the set giving away everything before the magazines published or the ads out. If you doing a test is very different, ask the photographer if it's cool and those things are usually pretty cool. I'm fine with that when I'm doing a test on a job. Definitely not. That's not just for the models. It's for the hair makeup, everybody. No one's allowed to things on social media because you're giving away everything that you're doing to other magazines, other photographers, other artists who copy that and have it out before you can. So be very careful about that. I know we all want to go up there and take our pictures together and you know that's for you. That's great. But don't put it out there on your social media right yet. Not yet. Any questions way do have questions? Can I just say that I am absolutely fascinated by everything that you're saying? OK, I'm hanging on your every word. Okay, great. How you ladies feel that I just like this is cool? Yes, we do have questions. I'm ready with a question. This is a big question for all the photographers watching because for most of us, way always hear about model May. That's like Do you know about Mom? Okay, so Chris Wall, ask his model mayhem. Oh, MP, except for a good way to start or something to avoid. And that question is both for the models and the photographers watching OK model May ham and other sites. I want to be really careful with what I say, because I do feel that there are legitimate people on there at the same time. There's people that are just wasting everyone's time. There's no really, I'm gonna I'm gonna let Matthew talk about it a little bit. How do you feel as a paid photographer? Would you scalp for your models on model mayhem? It depends on the project, and I have at times when, uh, areas in New York I would not in Los Angeles, I would. It depends on the market, but, uh, you're you're opening yourself up to meeting girls who are not professional, and it's a big difference. If you'll have a girl from a site like model mayhem. You try to book her for a job. Even she may not show up, and there's nobody to call to say. Where was this girl? An agency I know I have a professional model. I know she's represented. I know I can pay her through the agency. Everything is legitimate. Um, I have used model mayhem, defined talent outside of modeling hair, makeup and stylists there. Some very talented people in this fight, 5% of them are talented. The rest not so much. But there are better sources to finding talent, like Lebouc dot com or going through a modeling agency or hair and makeup agency. So you'll find Jim's out there every blue moon, but not as many. You'll find much better girls at agency, and I'll think better of you being with the agency as well. And one thing he was saying, especially a model May ham. If your photographer and you're trying to look for legitimate talent, you can reach out to these agencies and we'll get into How do you do that, even for hair and makeup? I can't tell you how many amazing, amazing. Her makeup artists may have a free Sunday afternoon or a free Saturday. They don't mind going to trade with you and work for free long as they get an incredible picture out of it or something They'll do that as long as you're communicating what your expectations is when you're seeking out these kind of social media platforms. Okay, so and one thing I've also I spoke about this with a photographer friend of mine who is testing a lot of the Miami girls. He's getting his work published in a lot of the Indy magazines, he said. You know, I don't really have a lot of Facebook followers. I think he's got like, 700 but he's been published like a lot, he goes. But my my calls it my rival my art. I don't know what you call margin nemesis or whatever. He doesn't get along with other photographer. He's got like 15 1000 followers and he's got it like within six months has never been published. But he shoots all the time and, you know, it's kind of theirs. That gray line of popularity being linked to followers. So really, I think the work should speak for itself. Absolutely, you know? Yeah, I just started Facebook a year ago. I started Twitter yesterday. I've been working on that because I have X amount of followers that my work is better or not as good. It's like, say, a girl who is in Seattle who has 30,000 followers. So I mean, it shouldn't be about your following or your social media. Um likes because sometimes you know Auntie Betty might think that photos fantastic and someone in New York be like nothing's. This is from Cindy Couture, who says, I used to model for a local agency and I had a gap in my front teeth. And Ford models told me how to get braces if I ever wanted to go anywhere. Is that still the case these days are straight teeth mandatory. I have a crooked tooth. I have another tooth. It's crooked. I have had images in my book with me smiling and agency loved it. They said it showed personality. I did one time get insecure and I went to a dentist, said, Should I get veneers? Or like, you know, um, it can show a character trade if one agencies telling you that's not enough for you to make a solid decision to change your look. It's got to be, like 10 again because many girls have come to me and said, Oh, this And she said this the same thing that said that. But it's just one Booker poison. Their opinion granted others. When Tire first started, she was turned down by 12 agencies. Since you couldn't do it, she didn't have the look for that over and over and over again from several models who had who are big models now but had hard times getting started in the beginning of the career. So that's just one person's opinion. If you have it be, you know, courageous and keep going out there, you never know. Yeah, it takes more than one opinion on dykan. Say things to you know about that where people say, Oh, she'll never do this. She'll never try that 34 years later, I'm doing exactly what they said I wouldn't be doing. So you really got a kind of navigate your way through the truth. Now, if it's something that's pretty easy, like her hair or this and that and you're hearing that a lot, then do it mean it'll grow back. You can change your hair color back things like that, but radical life, investing all this money to straighten your teeth. It's kind of something you need to really find out. It's just one person's opinion. Or if it's something that really needs to be taken care of. Yeah, but one person spinning know if you hear over and over again, it's different story, but not one person at one agency. Can I ask one more question? Okay, this is from Fashion TV from Singapore. Who asked you on a Is it true that having tattoos and body piercings on our body will reduce our chances in getting a job during casting, especially for international brands? Yes, absolutely. OK on. It's great if you're that edgy, high fashion check, but it's not bookable for Dove. It's not bookable for Pantene. It's not bookable for the high paying gigs. How many girls want to be so high fashion that they're not thinking long term? Can I make a living off of this? Um, keep your piercings and all that fun Step. I'm edgy. You know, I like that stuff, but for your personal life, not something you want to really carry over to clients tattoos. You can have them if they're minimal or they're not seeing. Tons of top models have tattoos there. Stephanie Seymour, Heidi Clue. But then again, they are Stephanie Seymour, and so they either got that after they became a household name, or they have something so small that it can easily be retouched out. But I really wouldn't get too caught up in making drawings on your body, and, you know, being too edgy, too, where it's kind of makes you that one dimensional girl or guy.