Creep of the Day: Mr Big Promise

Easy identifier: I will make you a star!
The modeling industry is tough.
There are a lot of models and not enough assignments for everyone. Then, when you think things will move by itself, it stops. One reason is that customers want new faces together with their products, and different models to different assignment, so you will have to spend time finding new customers.
Or you are signed in a model agency and they are suppose to do it for you.

Model agencies are struggling hard to get their models out, and to get their money back on the invested time, they will only pick top models that are good for a lot of different jobs. The days of the glamourous super models are gone! Today, it is all about hard work, being professional (if you have the genes for it to start with) and trying to work with many photographer so you will get a wide range in your portfolio. The customer needs see = believe that you are suitable for their job.

But this "law of nature" does not apply for Mr Big Promise! Nah! Thing like gravity is not his thing-he is just flying high!
He will contact you and tell you that working with him, and only him (one guy), will launch your career. He is usually a fast talker. He got quick replies on everything. He will pick you up in his car, talk so much and waves his hands all over, that he almost forgets to steer his car. He might take you to shops making you to try a lot a different clothes and all of them "looks fantastic on you!" (especially the ones revealing a lot of skin) because you are such "a super-model!"

The strange thing is that he tells you he can give you a career but his own does not really be that great. He has a rather old car, his clothes (and fashion sense) are not that impressive, he is usually not that fit and he does not seem to know that many in the business. If you bring it up, he will drop some names and then change the subject, painting pictures about where you will go (together), the show in Milano you will open and all the magazines you will be working for. "Front page, baby! FRONT PAGE!!"
But if you do your homework and check his company up, it might not be active any more,  may just be an extra name of his plumbing business, may not be registered for tax since five years back or not even his!

If you remove the pink little curtains from your eyes and think when you are with him or talk to him, you will feel something is wrong. It is too much air. Too many words. And over time, too many things that never happen.

Some of these guys are hard-wired. The actually believe what they say. When you are trying to burst their bubble, they just reject you and move away to the next target. Or maybe, I should say, the next partner to play the game with. You see, if there where no ears to listen, his talk would not work. Two believers = the perfect mix!

The more dangerous type of Mr Big Promise is the tactical one. That is the guys who has a plan, a purpose of why he is doing and saying things. He wants something from you. Often to be alone with you. Have you to come with him on that trip. Just you and him. Somewhere away from anyone…
This type is more likely to spend money on you. He might buy you clothes, trips and dinners. He is not as fast talker as the other type. This one sometimes waits a while before replying. If you take a look you can tell that there is something going on. He thinks. Or, if he is really disturbed, he has ideas, fantasies that he really can not tell anyone. You sense it, but you can not be sure. But the nagging feeling is there.

This latter type is very dangerous together with a type of Model I will talk about next week: Miss I Know I Can! To kept it short for now: What happens if the tactical type of Mr Big Promise meets a young girl who everyone said she cannot be a model, but believes the contrary and really, really, really want to prove everyone wrong?

How does Models-n-Shoots try to keep Mr Big Promise out:
*Models-n-Shoot is about the work. You can not contact a Talent unless she/he has said Yes or Maybe on a job offering/Assignment Request. So as a Customer, you can not just promise a job, you have to create an Assignment Request and fill in Payment, Location to shoot, when and a whole lot more.
*All customers in Models-n-Shoots have to have a registered, active company. OK, we can not be totally sure that the person saying he or she is working for that registered company, but we will import the company's official address and contact data, and show the face, name and contact data of the Assignment Request Sender, so you can call the company and ask about the guy/girl before saying Yes or Maybe to an Assignment Request/job offering.

Creep of the Day: The Stalker

Easy identifyer: I want you now, you you you, now now now!

It normally starts with a quite normal email, talking about how he wants to take your pictures. When you look at his pictures you might find them fairly good, so you answer the email.

What surprises you is that his answer is really quick, and has a strange feel to it. The phrases are normal: "When can you shoot?", "Can you get here this weekend?", "What is your MSN and mobile?" but the whole message has a kind of a hectic, stressfulness to it; he feels to eager. But, since you do not trust your gut feelings you send him your contact data.

He is then most likely to call you soon. He will talk a lot about himself and he may talk trash about other photographers. When you talk about the work/pictures he will quickly move into questions like "Shall we meet for a coffee or a bar?", "When can you come here?", "You can stay at my house." or "I can come to you this weekend." Once again, it is mostly normal questions but the main part of the discussion is not about the pictures, but about him, when to see each other and, as before, it has an eagerness to it.

If you say no to him, he will get irritated and argue with you. The bad cases will even be insulting. "Who do you think you are!?", "I can pick any model I want! You are too new to understand what you will miss!". But if you steer the conversation towards when to meet, he will calm down and become nice again. It is all about their egos. The Stalker has a big ego and it is not really in line with the real world.

If you decide to meet or shoot with him, he will give you a lot of personal compliments. If you, as he asked, go out for drink after the shoot, and you politely turn down the upcoming offering of having sex with him, he is most likely to be abusive and insulting again; even violent. For most models, the limit is reached and you tell him to f*ck off and go to hell. If you are smart you do this when there are a lot of people around you and he will most likely leave. If you have had your guard down to long, you might get the offering when it is late, dark and you are all alone with him. Now you have so much less options!

Let us say he left you in a storm of abusive words. But! Even if you basically told him, screaming to his face, that he was a scum, he will not give up! Some days later, or at least the next weekend late at night, you will get MSN messages or an SMS about seeing each other again. At this point he will explain that you are something special; not you as in you singular, but you as in you both. Together. As a couple. Soon. If you turn him down, he will once again become abusive. And ask you to give him a chance. He will tell you how good boyfriend he is.
And this goes on, and on, and on.

What stops him/makes him react: Save all his text messages, MSN logs and emails and go to the Police. Then tell him you did it. In that order. Just threatening of going to the Police does not make him stop, since he knows most of you are too lazy or too much of a chicken to actually do it.
Even if the Police may not be able to do anything at this point, the records will be there when he will do it to someone else. And trust me, he will. Is it not sad, that first after a major crime (rape or murder), big enough to written about in the papers, a lot of models come forward and tell their stories? Isn't that a bit too late?

How does Models-n-Shoots's Creep Defense try to keep The Stalker out:

• Your name and any contact data is hidden until the last step of a deal, when you Confirm you will take a job.
• Only customers with companies can sign up as customers. The Stalker is seldom interested enough to have a registered company but there are actually a few who have.
• The is always full information to you about the Assignment Request Sender's company, taken from a central database directly linked to the registry in that country.
• The Assignment Request Sender, the person who sent the job offering, has name, contact info and ID picture shown in the job offering. This way you can ask other in the business and you can call the company and verify he works there.
• If other Talents have worked with the ARS and/or the company before, there will be Trust feedback about him/the company.
• Models-n-Shoots will have contact forms for sending in tips and logs, anonymous but traceable. For now, you can send it to me: morre@morre.se