My seventh month old has just been signed with Future
Stars agency here in Seattle.
They wanted to see her in person to get a sense of her personality
and how well she responds to strangers.
(There are a lot of cute babies, but to be successful as models, they also need
to have a certain amount of "sparkle" that will come across in the ad and
which will give the photographers something to work with.)
Once they decided they wanted to represent Leia, I had to have pictures taken,
from which they compiled a "zedcard" -- a folded over brochure which shows
three pictures of her, along with her statistics (eye color, hair color,
length, weight, and clothing size, plus her birthday). 100 of these were printed,
and we paid for the pictures as well as the zedcard printing.
When a casting director calls teh agency, the agency will send out the
zedcards of the babies who fit the characteristics which they are looking
for. THen the casting director will tell the agency which babies s/he
wants to audition. Only after going to an audition and passing that
hurdle will the baby be hired for a job.
Being signed with an agency doesn't guarantee your child will be hired
as a model, but it does include an agreement that you don't sign the child
with another agency without breaking off your relationship with the first.
That contract can be broken at any time, for any reason.
I was surprised to find out that although babies do change quickly,
the zedcards we just had done are supposed to be good for at least a year.
Evidently they will provide the casting director enough of a sense of the
child's appearance and personality to form a basis for them to ask for an
audition. Read More
