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Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Models Inc.

There was a casting call for child "models".

We have both been told so many times that The Little One should be a model, including from a woman who has two child models. Apparently, they have made plenty of money so far to pay for college.

So, Mrs. Blogger took our Little One to the casting call. We figured we had nothing to lose. There were over 800 kids there. I guess it sort of works like American Idol where they select a few to "go on". Well, ours and about 70 other kids made the cut.

Essentially, what it means is we will go to Pittsburgh at the end of July where they video her and have her walk down a runway and she tries a few acting lines. The stuff is stored for future review, but there's also agents and marketing people from advertising companies there that can and often do select a child on the spot. If selected, they've been known to fly a kid to a destination with the parents and put them up, pay them and even pay the parents. We'll see, but its kind of exciting.

We're looking at it as an adventure and if it doesn't work out, no problem. Its just a little money out of our pocket. But both Mrs. B. and I agree its an opportunity we shouldn't pass up.

Then hopes were dashed. I am a bit more skeptical than Mrs. B so I researched the company and there were a number of complaints about them from both Attorney Generals and parents alike. Apparently, they prey on the vanity of people and get them to cough up an "entry fee" of $600+. Then later they get them a "gig", sometimes modeling for that companies own calendar for $50 - $60. Nice deal for them.

We think we should pursue other avenues in the form of head-shots and legitimate agencies and see where that takes us.

It pays to be skeptical at times, even if the answers aren't what you want to hear. And thank God for the Internet and its ease at finding information about unscrupulous business practices. Live and learn.


*** the preceding was my 100th post - wow***

3 kind commenters:

minijonb said...

hey! happy belated 100 posts!!!

as far as the model stuff goes, your approach sounds good. if you were all gung-ho about it i'd worry about a JonBenet scenario, but no fears on that.

Radioactive Tori said...

Happy 100th post.

When I was young, I did some child modeling. It did indeed pay for some of my college. I don't remember much of it except that when I got old enough to remember, I was told I was too skinny to work as a child model and not tall enough to work as a teen model yet. At that point, my parents had my brother and I did not do any more modeling.

I'm glad you checked out the company. There are good ones around, but also bad.

NouveauBlogger said...

No need to worry about a JonBenet thing, Minijonb...we're pretty well grounded there, lol

Oh you did R-girl? Interesting. I don't think this company was a TOTAL scam, but it seemed there were plenty of people expecting a lot more from them. We'll just try a different approach.