Model Book: What It Is and What to Put in It

Today, we will talk again about five important keywords that are a must to know if you want to be part of the model industry. Last episode, we talked about final rehearsal, fitting, go-see, payment, and introduction. In this episode, we will cover introduction, look book, facial expression, model book, and new faces. Attention.

So let's start with the introduction. The word introduction is always connected to a short video of yourself. If your agent writes you to send an introduction, that is what it is about: to introduce yourself. The client will get a fast impression of you, your facial expressions, how you talk, how you move. Depending on the jobs, videos have a certain structure. Usually, you will say your name, height, and your agency. Depending on the inquiry, you have to pose a bit, do a short walk. Sometimes you will have to dance or say some lines for an e-casting. You can take the video with your smartphone. Just put it on a table or a suitable spot or have a good friend taking it. For the introduction videos, it is a fast video, not the perfect camera or perfect lighting are required.

The next term is the look book. The look book is a catalog of the fashion label in which fashion is presented by pictures and runway pictures. For a look book shoot, it is very important that the showed clothing of the designer or label will be done with great light and setting. The single garments have to be photographed and show fabric, design perfectly. The different color of a fashion collection has to be well-presented. Darker and lighter colors should stand out.

What exactly are facial expression in regard of the model industry? They help you being versatile. Your facial expressions and the use of them will define your chances of long-lasting success. If you are shooting a campaign or commercial, you have to be perfect regarding your facial expressions. Facial expressions are just as important because editorials will get more demanding, and your facial expressions will be the criteria for the later advertising or selling. Depending on how you get the attention, show emotions through your eyes, a product will be more or less successful.

Note: if you are a new model and just at the beginning of your career, playing with your facial expressions may not be as defined yet. Don't worry about that too much. Particularly for new faces, a blank doll expression works great on pictures. If you had ten or fifteen different photoshoots with photographers and clients, you will learn, and one day you will be perfect at doing facial expressions and be able to control and portray different emotions directly.

What do you need to know about the model book? Your model book is absolutely important for you and your career. In your model book, you are collecting your best pictures of test shoots with photographers or jobs. You should start your model book with the strongest shots. Remember, quality before quantity. Then some other versatile shots, which will show your facial expressions and different looks of you. Fashion shots, sports pictures, or smiley ones, but also some where you are interacting, happy, love, cool, et cetera. With a versatile book, your chances of getting jobs and clients will increase. The stronger your book is, the easier clients or casting directors will find a suitable picture, and that increases your chances of getting jobs.

In your book, you should keep the highest quality of pictures and photographers. Many young models tend to make the mistake to fill their book with a lot of pictures. Usually, many test shoots will be done so that the model is featured in accounts, pages, channels like blogs, Facebook, and Instagram. But what is important for a young model and his or her book is the quality of the pictures in it. If you have patience, your modeling agency will arrange great test shoots with photographers, and your book will become better and better, and so will your clients.

Last but not least, what is a new faces? They are newly discovered models. New faces are models at the beginning of their career. In other work fields, you would call them newcomer. If an agency sees a person with potential, they will approach that person and tell him or her that they want to represent him or her. With test shoots and first smaller jobs, the model will then gain valuable experience.

Those were five important keywords you have to be familiar with. In the next episode, we will talk about option, overtime, plus size, POS, and PPM.