Day #1

My feet are killing me and the balls of each foot feel like I am stepping on fire, but other than that today was pretty darn good.

Started the day off hitting the open call at NEXT, which was a pretty rough start. I got there at 1025am hoping to be one of the first girls in there because our schedule was pretty packed and they didnt end up seeing any of the people for open call until 1105am. So not cool, especially when its a no! After NEXT I was off to VNY for their open call. After looking through my pictures and then taking some polaroids they decided that they didn't like me. 0 for 2 so far so I was a little bummed. REQUEST was next and after looking through my book they asked to keep one of my cards, wrote down my age and phone number and said they would discuss taking me on and call me tomorrow. So by lunchtime I had 1 maybe and 2 no's...not a great start but that's ok, 16 more agencies to see!

After lunch I hit my appt at RED down in Tribeca. I met with Wendy and she was actually pretty cool. She liked the pictures in my book and thought I was a "very beautiful girl" and asked for me to take some natural snapshots and email them to her tomorrow to make sure I photograph well normally without all the makeup and lighting. So another maybe but a stronger maybe than REQUEST. The highlight of this stop was walking down the stairs to street level only to have the doors locked and arrows diverting down one more floor which happened to be flooded. I had to walk through about an inch of water through some hallways to get out of that building. I should have just waited for the elevator! :)

After RED I headed uptown to stop by MARILYN and TRUMP to drop off my pictures/info hoping to get some interest from them since they don't hold open calls. So awkward! You walk into the agency and the bookers look at you like "um, who are you? do I have an appt I dont know about?" The bookers at MARILYN were nice and told me to leave my pictures on the table with my contact info and they would look at them. I cannot say the same about TRUMP. One booker had a mouth full of food, took one look in my direction covered her mouth, shook her head, pointed to the other booker across the table from her and walked away. That guy, upon asking what I wanted, held his hand up to his ear and pretended to have a hard time hearing me. Now, those who know me know that my voice is quite audible so that guy was just being an ass. He asked me to leave my info and pictures so I did and left.

Next up was the open call for FORD. I was running a little ahead of schedule and got there about 15 minutes early, hoping again to be one of the first seen to help expedite the rest of the open calls/appts this afternoon. Unfortunately about 10 other girls thought the same thing. But this one went really well. They took about 12 girls' information to start and about 10 minutes later, the guy came back and called out my name only. He said that they wanted to meet with me to discuss things further. So I went back and met with 2 of the guys that run the commercial division there and they are interested in representing me. YAY! We talked a bit more about how the market is in NY compared to LA and what my living situation would be so that they could get an idea as to what would need to be fronted by them for me to go with the agency so they were obviously relieved to find out that I have friends to stay with and wouldnt need housing, which is a big expense. I told them I was making the rounds at the agencies in NY and that I would make my decision by Thursday or Friday on who I would be going with so they took my card and gave me their cards and said to call or email on Friday or Monday to let them know what my decision is.

WILHELMINA was next and that sure was an interesting one. After rejecting everyone that was there the girl asked me if I would be interested in doing promotional modeling for their W Media/W Runway division. I looked at her puzzled and asked what that was exactly. To me, I associate promo modeling with bar girls pushing beer. She said that was not the type they were talking about so I went in and met with a booker there to get more clarification on what exactly it was. Its not the type of modeling I am interested in doing but if I came out here and needed "filler" work to get some quick money to pay bills this would be an option since they said it was on a non-exclusive basis.

MAJOR was the last stop of the day and probably took the longest and was the most "interesting." I BARELY made it there for the open call because FORD and WILHELMINA took so long since I spent time talking with each about representation. So there were 4 other people there waiting to be seen so they had all of us line up in front of a door to the room where the bookers were and told us that we would introduce ourselves by name, location and age and then proceed to do a runway walk around the perimeter of the room as each booker watched us. There was a nice, but intially snotty, French woman running it that turned out to be the main lady at the agency. So after our walk they invited each of us back to talk with the French lady. When I went back to meet with her one-on-one she looked through my book and liked my pictures a lot and asked if I had modeled before. After talking about my history in the business she told me that she looks at me and sees a "money machine" but wonders if she has the clients for me. She then calls for one of the main bookers to come into her office to meet with me as well. That goes well and she then tells him to take me and introduce me to each booker and have them look at my book. So I make the rounds and meet about 9 people at the agency who all seemed to like me and my look. After all that was done she tells the guy to make sure to get my info, he then asks if he is to put me in their system right now but she says no, that I am doing the rounds and they will all be having a meeting about me later tonight. I take that as a good sign :)

So that was my day. Pretty busy, fun, disappointing to start but things ended on a good note. Tomorrow will be even busier with some BIG agencies so hopefully I have another good day! Even if no other agency is interested in me, with FORD in my corner this trip was worth it :)