I’ve already discussed all the time we performers spend at the GU clinic too. Going for tests, picking up certificates. Team that with the fact your local clinic, as I well found out, might not be sufficient to provide you with the relevant paperwork so more travel is involved. The two main clinics for the business are both in London. I’ve know people who had to travel down from oop north just to get tested once a month then pick up results 7 days later.
Then comes the part that no one thinks about. The admin and back end. The time I spend checking my emails, scouring for work, networking, and marketing myself.
In those early days there were no such thing as Facespace and MyBook. Now managing my office time is an even more impossible, never ending job in itself. I often think I should employ a secretary. Many girls do have secretaries in the form of there pimpy, lecherous partners. These guys act as managers, sometimes calling themselves chaperones. They do all the organising and communication, often pretending to be Sally Ann on email and over the internet and you will find them feeding Sally Ann lines when she speaks on the phone to producers etc. Sally merely has to turn up to the job and do the business, for which her fella will have driven her there and will more often than not enjoy perving in the back ground at his girlfriend or wife getting fucked by other people. He will of course enjoy the money she has just made him.
But more about these sometimes unbelievable arrangements later.
This admin side of my job is time consuming but very necessary. Without it I simply don’t work. Yes I have several agents but I only remain at the forefront of their minds in my early days. Once I’ve been around the block and some fresh meat has waltzed into town I can pretty much wave goodbye to any help I see from my agents unless I’m specifically cast in a part which is rare. Or that I’m called in last minute to fill in for someone who’s no showed.
I’ve made quite a good business for myself just by being flexible enough to cover these flaky girls. I’m centrally located and can always be relied upon. Yeah it’s not so soothing on the ego knowing a large percentage of my work only happens by accident but it is a business and the aim of the game is to earn money.
I get emails from my ads on the modelling websites daily. In fact the volume they come in I found it quite a quick process to learn to sort the wheat from the chaff. I categorise emails into three sections.
Genuine interest. These people are known to me and often professional companies who write helpful, detailed and informative emails supplying links to work often through a website of their own.
Then there are the idiots who I have already discussed. They are fantasists and time wasters. They will write mails like “how much to fuck you?” Yes really that’s it. No please or thank you or even a hello. Or they will make up elaborate stories about running professional companies but not be able to back these claims up. The emails will be so detailed you fall asleep half way through. They describe things so obvious such as “then you will insert a well oiled dildo I have that is 12 inches long and 5 inches wide slowly into you soaking wet shaved pussy” rather than simply state “you’ll do insertion with larger toys”. Yawn – delete!
The last category is in between. They could be genuine but not so good at articulating. Maybe shy or just new to this and not know the lingo or how things work in the business. These people I will entertain until they prove to be examples of the second group. Its these people who eat your time. You waste precious minutes and even hours with email correspondence asking questions to establish how valid they really are, giving them the benefit of the doubt but also getting excited that potentially this is another job. Then it all goes south and you’ll have put off a real job in the vain hope this prat is serious.
Sometimes you don’t get so lucky and you go all the way only for the guy not to show up on the day. I said I worked out quickly how to identify most time wasters but I’m not an enigma machine.
I also have to learn to master the art of self promotion, setting up and maintaining all my adverts and profiles. Tweaking the text so that I sound as appealing as a pair of Jimmy Choos to Paris Hilton. I have to update my images regularly. It’s like having an online portfolio and only the best five or six images will do. You have to keep your images fresh as many people will look at your profile one day and not feel drawn to you but maybe three months later they see a different image and forget they ever saw that dodgy old snap of you or just feel that maybe you are worth booking after all.
I spend time mailing people who advertise for work on message boards. I scour the World Wide Web looking for more and more modelling profile sites to join in the desperate attempt not to be missed by any potential employers.
Then after all that I have to be my own PR agent. I have to create a successful fan base and market myself to them. This will ensure I remain popular enough to stay in demand with professional companies and studios. This as you might imagine means replying to fan mail, sending out signed pictures and DVDs. Uploading images and movie clips on the net and setting up my own official fan pay site where I can promote myself to the world letting them know all my latest movies and movements. Creating my own hype and making people love me.
Monday, 30 March 2009
All Work and No Play
Labels:
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cons,
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modeling,
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money,
no shows,
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time wasters
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