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THE NEW LOOK OF MODELING

Modeling expert C. A. Passinault takes the lead in defining a new modeling industry.

Cover photograph credits - Model: Sarah Bray. Photography: Photographer C. A. Passinault

THE NEW LOOK OF MODELING: Current Issue, Issue 14, Volume 1, for Tuesday, October 19, 2010. New Issue published every Tuesday, and updated throughout the week. Next issue due online October 26, 2010.

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INITIALIZING

ISSUE INTRODUCTION BY EDITOR AND PUBLISHER C. A. PASSINAULT

For this issue of Frontier Pop, we cover a topic which is very, very important to me. It has become one of my main careers.
And that topic, my friends, is the modeling industry. Well, actually, it’s the modeling industry that I’ve taken the lead in defining. We are talking about the next modeling industry, the modeling industry for the 21st century, a new modeling industry which effectively displaces the old, and brings true balance and integrity to the business.
Usually, I write for modeling industry professionals, and for people who want to get into modeling. For this issue, I’ll write for the layman who thinks that modeling is about “hot” women, which it is not. It’s far more varied, and complex, than that.

What is modeling?
Modeling is, basically, a visual form of marketing. While modeling can be about beautiful women, in the field of fashion modeling, which most are familiar with, modeling embraces a wide variety of types and looks. Basically, if a person can pull of a look that someone is looking for to sell their product or service, then they can model.
Modeling is marketing based upon a visual presentation, and it involves people, primarily, as the subject, and the product for the marketing job.

What is a model?
A model is a professional who is able to provide a look to an advertising campaign, or some other form of marketing. Some models directly promote products and services, marketing face to face with the target market.
Since it is a visual business, and a lot of resource are usually suck into a job, a model must be reliable, as well as be able to pull off the required look. A professional model also has to have the right tools to promote and market themselves to prospective modeling jobs. Like any professional career, it requires an investment into effective career promotional tools, which for a model include a modeling portfolio of pictures which demonstrate their range of looks that they can pull off, as well as their experience, and composite cards, which are 5 X 7 inch cards which summarize their portfolio. Some models invest in other specialize tools, such as business comp cards, web comps, and web sites.
To obtain job leads, a model usually allows a modeling and talent agency to represent them. The modeling agency works for the model, finding them job leads, and refers them for the job. The modeling agency then makes a commission from the job, and from the model, once the model books and works the job.
The smarter agency models refuse exclusive representation contracts, and obtain representation from several agencies in their local market. Even better, the new breed of professional independent models also find, and book, work on their own, saving themselves, and the modeling job, agency fees. Independent models who book work on their own compete with the agencies who work for them, too, and it forces the modeling agencies to work harder to refer the model to the job before the model can book themselves into the job, as the agency does not want to lose out on commission from a modeling job that the model can book either with, or without, them. This competition is a good thing, and it brings balance to the market. Independent models also have an advantage over the models who depend solely upon the agency to obtain modeling job leads.
Of course, the new modeling industry is all about independent modeling, as the agency way is no longer the only way to have a modeling career.

What was wrong with the modeling industry?
The modeling industry is backwards, and has always been backwards since it began early in the 20th century. Yes, agencies are supposed to work FOR the models who they represent, but because of the misconception that you have to go through modeling agencies in order to have a modeling career, the modeling agencies have always overstepped their bounds, acting like employers of the models as they manage them and tell them what to do. This, of course, opens the door to a monopolistic business environment where politics, manipulation, and abuse occur.
The misconception of the agency way being the only way, and the gatekeeper, to the modeling industry also enables modeling scams. These scams often sell the model on their agency connections, and use modeling agency representation, and modeling jobs, as bait for their unethical businesses.
Modeling agencies, too, had the problem of being working conflicts of interest, as well. The problem with modeling agencies was when they tried to manage the models, tell them what to do, and guide their careers. How was this? Well, the problem was that the agency also worked for the competition of the model, who were other models which they worked for, too! How would you like it if someone who worked for you not only told you what to do, but worked for your competitors, too? This was a bug problem in the modeling industry, and it set up a shady business of manipulation, politics, and unfair leverage over the models. The power in an agency-only industry, where models had to go through the agencies to have a modeling career, was both unbalanced, and unfair.

What needs to change in the modeling industry?
In my opinion, the reason that there so many modeling scams, and horror stories, in the modeling industry are two reasons. The first is that a lot of people, and many women / girls in particular, dream of being a model. They think that it is glamourous, and that there is a lot of money to be made in a modeling career, and that perception makes it a highly desirable career. The second reason is that there is little balance in the modeling industry, and the modeling and talent agencies are portrayed as the only way to legitimately have a modeling career. This misconception, which is kept alive by people who want to control models, enables modeling scams, politics, and situation where unethical people can take advantage of models, benefitting in a variety of ways at the expense of the model.
Sure, contacts are everything, and because modeling agencies do find job leads for models, agencies are important, and still do have a place in the career of the professional model. It’s just that the modeling agency should only work for the model, and not overstep their bounds by telling models what to do, trying to manage models, and referring models to businesses to obtain their career tools. Worse yet, the agency can make money by selling models portfolios and comps, short for composite cards, and also known as zed cards (A comp card is a 5 X 7 inch card, usually with a headshot on the front, and around four different pictures on the back. It shows the range of look of a model, and is used for reference by prospective jobs). When a model comes into an agency to be considered for representation, they are what is known as a captive audience. The agency can hold the potential of jobs over their heads, and make buying portfolios and composite cards a condition of representation. What happens then it that the model is forced to buy services from the agency, and the agency no longer has any motivation to find actual modeling jobs, which is much more difficult that selling services to models. Think about it: Even after agencies refer models to a job lead, it’s still up to the model to interview and book the job, and the agency has no say-so over which model is booked. As a result, the agency can always say that they cannot guarantee jobs, and even have the model sign off on that statement while the model is buying services from them. This is a legal loophole, and, as a result, the agency ends up in the lucrative business of selling services, which are often overpriced, to models, instead of doing what they are supposed to do by finding them jobs. Sure, there aren’t any jobs.... There were, you see, but the model just wasn’t right for that job, they‘d say. The model, of course, has no way to verify if the jobs even exist to begin with. As a result, the agency gets away with the easy sell of being in business selling portfolios and composite cards. This dangerous ability to scam models is one of the reasons that Florida had to make laws specifically forbidding talent agencies from making money by selling services, or by splitting fees be referring models to services. Some agencies still do this, however.
Even worse than that, keep in mind that most states regulate modeling agencies, and it opens up a type of scam which depends upon the dominance of the modeling agency (note that, in Florida, it is a felony to operate an agency without a license, or to make money referring models and talent into jobs without an agency license, which, of course, is highly regulated). An agency, of course, works for the model by finding them jobs, and referring the models who they work for to interviews, called “go-see’s”, for those jobs. This makes the modeling agency a middleman. There are companies which advertise modeling jobs which are not agencies, and which are not legally able to make money referring jobs to models and talent. With them being unable to make money doing what they advertise, how to they make their money? Well, what they do is they bait in models with the promise of jobs, or referring them to an agency which can get them jobs, and make their money by selling the models portfolios and composite cards, which an agency cannot legally do. This gives them all of the allure of an agency, by advertising modeling jobs and the potential of jobs, without the pitfalls. Of course, without them being able to make money referring models to the jobs that they advertise, there is no incentive to actually find jobs for models, because all of that work would be for free. This is why some of these operations refer the models to agencies, which have the potential of being a source of modeling jobs. Of course, the models “need” modeling portfolios and comps, anyway (regardless of whether this is true or not. You see, there is a paradox here. Models should not be responding to modeling job offers, to attempting to book jobs, if they don’t already have a portfolio or composite cards. If they have those, then they are qualified to try to book jobs, but that qualification, by default, means that they are not in the market for any services that anyone would be selling; they already have a portfolio, after all. Models who do not have a portfolio and composite cards are not qualified to try to book jobs, as they have not invested in the appropriate professional career tools, and they would be unable to compete with professional models who had portfolios and comps, anyway. Thus, the only people who would be in the market to buy the services that these companies are really selling after they bait them in with the promise of modeling jobs are people who are not qualified to book those modeling jobs to begin with! These schemes often get around this by telling models who are qualified, and who do have portfolios and comps, that they modeling tools are flawed, and that they need to update them before they can be considered for referral to the modeling job.)

What needs to change in the modeling industry?

How will the modeling industry change, when will it happen, and where will it happen?

How did C. A. Passinault take the lead role in changing the industry?

How much does it cost to become a model?

What modeling resources are available for the independent model?

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This was one of the first things published on Frontier Pop, and was online before the site officially launched. We added video excerpts of the play.

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READER REACTION

Posted Opinions and Debate by the Frontier Pop Readers

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C. A. Passinault - Posted 10/19/10: 0843

I will be doing a lot of work in the modeling industry in the near, and long term, future. Frontier Pop will also be getting a new sister site next month, Advanced Model, which will be a monthly online magazine for the modeling industry and my modeling resource sites, while Frontier Pop stays a weekly online magazine. I'm excited about what is coming, and so are my models. With the addition of the Model Dominion, an association of professional independent models, more progress will be made in 2011 than in any other year in the past decade!

Changeling - Posted 10/19/10: 0900

I used to be a model, you know. I even did runway modeling in Madrid. I was the ultimate model, too, because I can look like anyone, and any gender. Need Gisele? I'm there! Need Heidi? I can be her, too. Need Fabio? I've been him. you solids are so limited, being locked into one look. I miss modeling, but since I can live forever, as I don't age, I can do it again at any time, when I make the time to model. It's just weird when I'm a pretty girl, or one of the beautiful people, and losers treat me like gold because of the way that I look (this is not the case when I look like I usually do. They usually look at me funny and avoid me). People are so superficial and simple. You solids need to expand your perception as you sell yourself short by allowing the way that people look to influence who you are friends with. Ah, another reason that I have not modeled in a while is because everyone wants to have sex with me. It was very strange when men who were players touched me when I was a female model, and I then smiled, pointed downtown as I grew a body party, and told them that I could be bigger than they were. Of course, they no longer wanted to play, then. Other guys are so sensitive about such simple things! I would then change my appearance to look like them, while retaining my enhancements, and sleep with their girlfriends. The looks on the guys faces when their girlfriends left them, after finding out that it was really me, and that I was a "fulFILLing" sexual jackhammer, was priceless. I love stealing the girls from jackasses who hit on me when they thought that I was a beautiful woman!

Evil Nolan - Posted 10/19/10: 0904

Changeling, you are a freak! A FREAK! You creep me out, dude. You can't steal my girlfriends, either, because you cannot take what I don't have! And Passinault, how DARE you publish a issue of Frontier Pop about modeling! I cannot compete with that subject, as I know nothing about modeling or even women! The problem that I have about Frontier Pop, and the reason that I cannot compete with this site, is that you, Passinault, know a lot more, and about a lot more subjects, than I do! I'm stuck writing about the same boring crap every week, and most people don't care about the obscure things that my fanboy nerds and I care about! I cannot compete! Curse you, Passinault! Curse you! You keep beating me! I, however, will never give up, and I will never bow before you, because I am jealous of your majesty!

Tez - Posted 10/19/10: 0920

This issue of Frontier Pop makes me sad. I want to curl up in a hole and weep openly. It is manly to cry, and to express your feelings, too. Why does it make me so sad? Because I want a model! I feel that it is my destiny to be with a model, forever and ever. Nolan, I am so sad. Can you be there for me, my friend, in my hour of grief? I just need to be held! Cuddles.

Monica Stevens - 10/19/10: 1009

Wow, Chris, we have some real winners on here! Tez, you need to realize something. The reason that you don't have a model is that you pathetic men need to realize that models are not objects. We are people, too, and just because we make money with our looks does not necessarily mean that we, as individuals, are defined by those looks. The reason that you don't "have" models is that you are boring people, and we have nothing in common with fanboy nerds (and you ARE, in my opinion, a sad little nerd, and a boring nobody). Sorry. That, and I'm not into balding half-men. If you were actually an interesting person, though, we could probably look past your physical shortcomings. That isn't happening, though, because you don't have anything to offer. Too bad, so sad. Also, are you into girls? I'm not interested, but I am curious about exactly what kind of model that you're into.

Crazed Blog Grrl - 10/19/10: 1100

When I was a little girl (and by little, I may not necessarily be referring to age), I wanted to be a ballerina! I wanted to put on my little pink tu tu and float delicately, like a whirling flower, across the dance floor of a huge stage, and win the heart of the man of my dream! I had so much beauty, and I wanted to express it to everyone. I was beautiful, like a model on the inside, and I still am! It's just too bad that the only men who pay me any attention are fanboys, as I am into what they are into. Yes, I have hardly no competition from women in my chosen hunting grounds! I have total domination!

Monica Stevens - 10/19/10: 1110

What in the holy hell does that have to do with modeling, crazy blog girl? You know... Speaking from the viewpoint of a top independent fashion model, which I am, I can tell you that looks will only get you so far. You have to be intelligent, and an interesting person, as well. Are you interesting? Are you even interesting to the fanboys? Could you get a man if you looked like me? I'm beginning to wonder. If you had my face, and my body, and you sat down (yes, it is possible to sit down) with a man, I suspect that they would run for the door after a few minutes of talking to you. Even my looks could not give you an advantage. Can you relate to anyone, anyone at all?
Anyway, not really wanting to come on here and be mean to lesser people, I’m very happy about this issue of Frontier Pop being about modeling. We are doing a lot of great work redefining the modeling industry, and the new sister site of Frontier Pop, Advanced Model, will be launching in November 2010! The models and I will be working hard on each and every issue of Advanced Model every month, and, as for myself, I even get to return to my regular modeling mail bags, answering letters emailed to us by our readers each and every month. I can’t wait!