Picture Me: A Model's Diary (Documentary Film)

[turnofflights]

oh i dont know , im just a simple mind behind the computer.im just thinking away.

i wish they could establish something solid like that. the models are so young ****Edited****

 

[Thanatos]

^I don't know much about unions and stuff, but help is already out there for people dealing with debt, eating disorders, sexual harrasment ect.

 

[Elise1986]

well a union wouldn't work anyways. collective agreements, minimum wages, regulations for holidays etc. would be impossible to establish in that industry.

 

[Fontenrose]

In the UK some models are working with Equity, an actor's union, to improve working conditions. That seems like the way to go.

In the movies, the rules (breaks, safety, parents on set) are highly regulated by age. If a project is "exempt" then it might not pay very well, but still has to follow the rules.

This union exists for actors because highly regarded male actors with long careers made it happen. One former president of SAG (Screen Actors Guild) was Ronald Reagan. It's hard to get the same for teen girls without public outcry/legistation from above.

 

[Karen0193]

that girl's agency is really bad, How could they practically told her to sleep with a guy that she just met and probably doesnt like ?

 

[.amahlia.]

i guess i never really thought about it, but why doesnt the modeling business have a union?? or like health care??? idk. probably cuz its sort of a self employment kind of business.
but i just found that a bit wierd

 

[khyrk]

well with
*taxes/housing/legal help (scams/exploitation/sexual harrasment)/latepayments from agencies / debt

but also with

*nutrition/mental issues/pressure

i understand that models have motheragents and stuff like that ,but models should be able to get support from people who have no agenda and where they able to be helped in a discreet manner.

yes, i agree. like an organization of some sort

 

[wednesdays child]

The problem is as someone said so succinctly in another thread, is that of supply greatly outnumbering demand....

 

[modela]

what bothers me that high profile photographeres are getting away with such behaviour!

 

[isobelisobel]

^i completely agree, from the article it seems as if they feel they're exempt from the laws that 'others' have to live and work by

 

[khyrk]

Over the course of five years, Sara Ziff snuck her ex-boyfriend Ole Schell into fashion shows, shoots, and parties so that he could film "without other people realizing it." Sometimes he got thrown out, but they were able to collection hundreds of hours of footage along the way, which they edited down to produce Ziff's documentary, Picture Me, which exposes the dirty underbelly of modeling.

In it, the stories are hardly pretty. Ziff told the Guardian about a 16-year-old model who complained to her agency when a 45-year-old photographer made a pass at her: "Her agency said she should have slept with him." She captures another model talking about how weight is approached: "In castings, people have slapped my thigh, and I'm not in any sense overweight, I never have been. I've been the same weight for a long time, but they'll slap your butt and be like 'Oooh, fat' in Italian or in French. 'It's too big here.'"

Ziff, who started modeling at 14 and surpassed her father's income by the time she was 20, relates a story about her third casting ever:

We had to go in one by one. The photographer said he wanted to see me without my shirt on. Then he told me that it was still hard to imagine me for the story so could I take my trousers off. I was standing there in a pair of Mickey Mouse knickers and a sports bra. I didn't even have breasts yet. 'We might need to see you without your bra,' he told me. It was like he was a shark circling me, walking around and around, looking me up and down without saying anything. I did what he told me to. I was just eager to be liked and get the job. I didn't know any better.

Ziff filmed an interview with a model who was sexually assaulted by one of fashion's top photographers at a photoshoot in Paris, but the interview didn't make Picture Me's final cut because the day before the film's New York premiere, the 16-year-old model backed out, fearful of the repercussions. The Guardian reports the girl's experience, as told by Ziff:

She has very little experience of modelling and is unaccompanied by her agency or parents. She leaves the studio to go to the bathroom and meets the photographer — 'a very, very famous photographer, probably one of the world's top names', according to Ziff — in the hallway. He starts fiddling with her clothes. 'But you're used to this,' says Ziff. 'People touch you all the time. Your collar, or your breasts. It's not strange to be handled like that.' Then suddenly he puts his hands between her legs and sexually assaults her. 'She has no experience of boys, she hasn't even been kissed,' says Ziff. 'She was so shocked she just stood there and didn't say anything. He just looked at her and walked away and they did the rest of the shoot. And she never told anyone.'

Unfortunately, stories like these seem to be a theme among all the footage Ziff has captured. The film features an interview with another model, Sena Cech, who talks about a casting with a top photographer who asked her to take off her clothes:

She does as instructed and takes off her clothes. Then the photographer starts undressing as well. 'Baby — can you do something a little sexy,' he tells her. The photographer's assistant, who is watching, eggs her on . . . The famous photographer demands to be touched sexually. 'Sena — can you grab his **** and twist it real hard,' his assistant tells her. 'He likes it when you squeeze it real hard and twist it.' 'I did it,' she shrugs, looking into the video camera. 'But later I didn't feel good about it.'

The film is still touring the festival circuit — most recently, it picked up the audience award for Best Picture at the Milan International Film Festival. The Guardian deems it "one of the best films about the world of modelling and an honest portrayal of an industry built on artifice."

http://www.fashionologie.com/3271323#read-more

 

[Deleted member 1957]

on the topic of the photographers and agents all the rest that exploit the girls, they should be mentioned and charged with child molestation. Why would someone fondle a 14 yr old? This obviously explains the incidence of drugs, alchoholism, depression and suicidal tendencies in the industry.

 

[.amahlia.]

i also think these girls want to succeed so bad many of them came from nothing and want to make a good living. they are willing to risk being raped because it might get them a job. this is so sad. if this were happening in a different industry, the person would be busted in a second.

 

[model_mom]

....and if you speak out and create problems you are blacklisted. There's also dozens of girls waiting in line that will agree to almost anything to get their 'Big Break'. Money talks and no one is going to go near the fashion industry to blow the whistle on all the trash that goes on. 14,15,16 year old kids are molested,overworked,propositioned and worse....all in the name of 'Fashion'....and no one says a thing.

Ali worked with Sara in a few shows in her early years....I admire her so much for having the guts to do this film. I am hoping it all has a domino effect and more girls come forward.

 

[FrenchCactus]

Is the doc listed on IMDB yet? Can't wait to see it, hope it's released in France!

 

[L.A.Woman85]

***** Edited**** Resonse to deleted posts.

i think young models have quite a difficult choice when it comes to modeling.
most of them, especially the eastern european girls, come from poor backgrounds, so they are presented with the chance to make a lot of money and provide for themselves and also their family. their morals are questioned, but they end up caving in for the money because they have had such a poor background. I also think that the parents send them away for this reason, to make money, and the girls probably don't want to dissapoint them... but if only thier parents really knew what goes on in this seedy world...

 

[á la Balenciaga]

raquel zimmerman once said that she was nerves when terry richarson had requested her for a job because she had heard through others the type of work he did.


but it's not always the photographers fault, i'm pretty sure there are models that don't care who it is, they'll sleep with whoever, just as long as they book a good job. could you just imagine male models? gay men+ male models = sl*t fest!

 

[haksare]

^ oh totally!
I'm not sure how true it is, but I remember reading that Nick Lemons slept with the creative director (or someone else important) in order to score the campaign.

 

[haksare]

^ oops to late to edit, I meant to say Armani campaign.

 

[khyrk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W8FlOJbuhI&feature=player_embedded

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from ONTD

this is why 14 year old russian girls are used, not for the "amazing bone structure"

bitter,but so true


and according to some article on TFS, the 16 year old that "should've slept witht [the photographer]" was Cameron Russell

no, i think it's naive to think harassment is not ubiquitous. karlie herself said in an interview that you get over the nudity real fast. and i won't pretend to know whether she has or hasn't been, but super successful girls weren't always at the top.

There is another documentary called America the Beautiful, that I saw recently...It was about body image, but a large part of it focused on Gerren Taylor (modelled for Marc by Marc and Tommy Hilfiger when she was 12) Anyways, after the film there was a question and answer session and Gerren happened to be there and she said that she never stayed at model apartments, but apparently, there would be bags of cocaine left by the agencies to help girls keep their weight down and also, there was something about mirrors being left in the apartments, similar to the kinds you see at the circus that would distort bodies and making a girl look bigger than she actually was as a "motivation" to lose weight...idk how factual any of this is, but it was sickening to hear!