thank you so much prosperk.... **edited**
so if we take out expectations for free shoots, do you have an idea of what we should offer to pay without insulting them? i.e. 200? or more like 500.. again for newer faces
thanks again!
I wouldn't offer to pay them if I were you! None of the Condé Nast titles on which I worked ever paid models, as far as I recall. Of course, they have more weight than a new independent title. The magazines usually paid their expenses as well as those of the photographer and his crew, including hair and make-up. On the rare occasion that a photographer was paid - their agents usually tred to get as many pages as possible and, obviously, the cover rather than fees - it was around $200 and that was for a cover by a top smudger.
Of course, you need to watch it with expenses because middling to top girls often demand business class tickets and expensive hotel rooms. Newbies are content to share a cardboard box on the Bowery with Bourbon Bill or to sleep ten to a bed in some lice-ridden rat hole because it's sometimes better than where they grew up.
Seriously, though, there is a trade-off in that photographers, stylists, hairstylists, make-up artists and models will do magazine fashion stories or "editorials" FOC as long as they are good enough to go into their books and on their websites and attract advertising contracts. That's their goal when they look at any magazine, established or new.
So you need to offer a certain amount of artistic liberty as well. The stories need to be really well-conceived. Of course, many photographers and stylists will propose their own ideas so your fashion editor's ego shouldn't be too big, if you get my drift. A good magazine, like a good party, should involve an eclectic mixture of people, styles and tastes.
There again, they will also often demand certain models and that's where what was shaping up to be a really great shoot becomes a headache, because the model's agents will start trying to scalp you. This is where you have to take a deep breath, forget that you are dealing with Photographer Numero Uno, and say "No, we can't afford their expenses. Sorry!" At this point, many photographers will actually cover those expenses themselves, if they are rich and successful.
It's just another variation on good old-fashioned horsetrading. There's no handbook. You just have to get in there and sink or swim. Another booby trap to watch out for is the location. I consulted to a start-up a couple of years back. The editor/publisher/fashion director/any cool title she felt she deserved was a pathological egomaniac with various 'issues', including the conviction that she should not have to pay anyone for anything.
So, there we all are, with an iconic photographer, the requisite new model of the moment (only because of the photographer), a good crew and so on. First the photographer switches locations from somewhere around Paris to Spain. A polite but firm telephone call later, telling him "No Way José", and it's back to Paris but in a top studio. I rang all the alarm bells but my client's ego had taken over. She had appointed herself the stylist on the shoot and she would have killed for the fix.
As they were doing the last photograph of this shoot, which turned out to be a three-legged dog of a series that you couldn't even sell to Vague Mars, the studio manager turned up with the bill, wanting immediate settlement as he'd sensed 'doomed newbies'. The Ego threw a tantrum before collapsing in tears because the bill was higher than it would have been had they gone to Spain.
So, watch out for the hidden traps. Establish your budgets and don't be scared of telling anyone, no matter how important they seem, that those are the budgets, full stop. If they're talking to you in the first place, they want something you can give them, right? Most of the time, anyway. So bluff them. If that shoot brings them some advertising work, you won't get a commission! You won't even be thanked. So treat it as the trade-off it is. They're good for you but you're good for them too.
All this said, I approve mightily of the suggestion that you cast your models in the street. Walk down Spring Street on a sunny day and you'll be spoiled for choice. You'll also create more interesting shoots. We sent one young but very interesting photographer to Africa one time. Cheap tickets. He got off the plane with the stylist and someone carrying the clothes, charmed the locals and got one of the only non-patronising "Black" stories I can remember in a house where I was once told to tell Peter Lindbergh that the Rachel Roberts cover he had shot for Australian Vogue couldn't be used because the hairstylist hadn't straightened her hair and the local publisher felt people might think she was a "half-caste" with her "velco hair and thick lips". With all credit to the owners, this dinosaur was sacked soon afterwards. But that's how it was and how it remains in many areas of Planet Fashion.
So, moral of that situation: do your casting in the street by all means but remember whose clothes and accessories you're gonna be putting on those people and remember that some of your potential advertisers - the people getting those brand credits on the story - are raving bigots who tend to use Aryan models because that's the image they want to promote. Plenty of anecdotes along those lines too, but I've rambled on long enough and I have an appointment with some pain down the gym. Gotta keep that belt buckle in plain sight...
Levity aside - and you do need a sense of humour to launch a fashion mag - feel free to drop me a line if you need any serious advice because you're obviously approaching this mission in a thoughtful way, and asking some very pertinent question, which sets you aside from the atmosphere whistlers.
PK