| | allow us to introduce the
newest member of the Urban Angels Modelling family: Tien-Long Nikosis
Phi! they called to express their interest in representing our baby
shortly after the interview/photoshoot. less than a week later, Jenny
called to say that he had been offered a casting opportunity for a John
Lewis baby catalogue! John Lewis is one of the big national department
store chains (think 'The Bay' but much more upmarket). our favourite
grocery store, Waitrose, is also part of the 'John Lewis Partnership',
known for its worker co-ownership, and its increasing practice of fair
trade with food producers. for castings, a casting agency browses
through photos from different modelling agencies, then draws up a
shortlist from these photos. the chosen finalists are then offered a
casting call, where a polaroid is taken of each child. from this
casting, the actuals for a shoot are chosen.
Tien-Long went to Code London (specialists in catalogue
design) for the casting, which unfortunately was at 10am, pretty much when he is due
for his morning nap. we had the pleasure of meeting some of the other babies and
mums there. it was interesting hearing which agencies the babies were
from, and who had done which work. all of the babies were interesting
in their own way. some had piercing eyes, others could speed crawl or
stand up. one waved at Tien-Long, and Tien-Long laughed to another boy.
one mum, who was leaving the casting as we were arriving was kind
enough to give us some tips. her daughter did a shoot for Cow&Gate
(a major baby formula brand) and she said that often casting sessions
are impersonal, where a baby is quickly ushered in for the polaroid,
then sent on his/her way after only 2 minutes. she also kindly
mentioned that we should not take any rejection to heart (which easily
happens) because often there are hundreds of candidates for just a few
places. well, Tien-Long sat up for the casting agents a couple of
times, but was clearly restless, and didn't want to stay upright for
long. on top of this, the flash wasn't working on the polaroid camera,
so if i'm right, the picture they took of him was a little unfocused.
and after a couple of minutes, that was it: "thanks for coming in.
we'll let you know..." we left and gave Urban Angels a call to let
them know how the casting went. the whole, brief experience was over
before we knew it, leaving us with question marks, and as soon as we
stepped outside, Tien-Long nodded off to sleep.
later in the day, we received a call from Alysia, the director of Urban
Angels just to inform us of the outcome of the casting. apparently, the
casting agents liked Tien-Long, and they picked him for the shoot!
Tien-Long's first casting, and he was selected for the job!!! we are so
excited and proud we are of him... sniff!... more importantly, i had
the chance to chat with Alysia a little, and the overall first
impression we get from Urban Angels (including our experience at the
initial interview/photoshoot for Urban Angels) is that it's a friendly,
family-run business, with people who are genuinely interested in how
their models are doing, and not just the professional success of their
models. if our hunch is right, that should make the collaboration all
the more fun and enjoyable. Urban Angels will be giving us a few pics
from the 'interview' session, and as soon as we get them, we will try
posting one for you to see--watch this space. for now, here's a pic
of our friend Julia with Tien-Long in Regents Park, and slightly older
pics of our dear friends 'Auntie' Collette and 'Uncle' Srboljub, who
adore Tien-Long, and without whose support we might not have made it
this far. last is one of the dragon posing during his 'pre-modelling
days' in April. enjoy. xx
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| | Posted 6/14/2006 6:54 PM - 79 Views - 0 eProps - 1 Comment
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