THURSDAY 21/05/09
6.30 start for the day and were taken to Milk Productions where Charmaine introduced us to Olivier Henry who would be our photographer. He explained the concept for the shoot to us and told us we would be wearing little to no makeup – no foundation and very little eye makeup with Vaseline to highlight the cheekbones etc, basically it would be a very raw shoot. I was a little horrified of the prospect of being judged on a shoot where I wouldn’t be wearing makeup but Olivier showed us some examples of some shots in the same sort of style and they looked great. He also told us it was going to be a very tight headshot and that based on the acting lessons we’d had the day before we had to use our facial expressions to portray an emotion. Of course the eyes were going to be the focus of the shoot and he explained that all the emotion would have to come out through the eyes.
We drew lots and I was the 2nd last girl, Olivier said that we would each have 10mins max for the shoot and that if we couldn’t get a shot in that time that we would be wasting his time and ours. It was quite a scary experience and we were told Olivier was a very interesting photographer to work with and was known for making models breakdown.
Evelyn and Jenny came out crying from their shoots and I didn’t understand why and how it had happened. When it came to my turn I started off with an angry expression trying to evoke some sort of emotion, then moved to smiling/happy faces and for some reason I’m not sure why, whether it was the intensity of the shoot or the feedback I was getting or whether it was just a way for me to release my emotion from the shoot I just started to cry too. It was the strangest feeling because I had no idea why I was crying, what I was crying about and what had triggered it so I came out from the shoot feeling quite perplexed. It was just an extremely powerful shoot and was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I wasn’t sure how I had performed but i definitely knew that i hadn’t faked an emotion and that i was as real as i possibly could be so hopefully that was a positive.
After we had all done our shoots we left the studio and headed home to watch a bit if TV and take our mind off the pending eliminations. The wait just seemed like forever and the tension in the air was extreme. When the judges finally came to their decision they announced Kat as the challenge winner and gave each of us individual criticisms and things to work on. They didn’t tell us who were in the bottom 3 for the week so we were taken outside to await the decision. Finally it was revealed that Ciara was the girl being eliminated and unlike the rest of the eliminations no one cried and it was really quite awkward to say the least. Everyone just stood there uncomfortably, Kat even laughed a little but eventually we all tried our best to comfort Ciara as weird as it was. It was a lot easier because Ciara didn’t seem that upset, I can just imagine how awful it would have been if she was bawling and we were all just standing around clumsily.
Everyone came inside except for Ciara who did her interviews and shot the last scenes and we all talked about the awkwardness of it all. For me it was a surprise that Ciara was eliminated, I can’t say I was extremely upset as was the case for the other eliminations but it was sad to see someone go. We all felt a bit guilty and we all decided that tonight we should sit down with her and just let her know the reasons why we didn’t get along with her and why she had become an outsider so when the show aired she wasn’t shocked to find out that we all had said things about her in confessions and to each other.
The guilt was really setting in for me, as much as I meant everything I said or thought about ciara i knew it would come across really badly and i didn’t want her to think that I hated her or something it was more of a case that i couldn’t be around her 24/7 because it was so draining and such an effort. I’m the type of person who generally doesn’t confront people as i’d rather keep my feeling to myself but it really needed to be done for both ciara’s sake and the sake of all the other girls. We all had our confessions and then setup for the sit down chat with ciara.
It was quite a bizarre conversation and it was almost like an intervention but it had to be done. I started things off and i think once the ball was rolling it became easier for everyone to vent their frustrations and say exactly what they were thinking. Christabel, Kat & I were very honest and didn’t sugar coat what we had to say because, for me anyway I just wanted to be upfront and say what was on my mind. Evelyn and Jenny were a little more mild and I’m not sure if it was because they felt bad or just didn’t want to come across as the bad guys but they really did chicken out (which we had all discussed we wouldn’t do earlier) which was a little frustrating but at the end of the day as long as I said exactly what I wanted to say I was happy. Ciara seemed to take everything pretty well, she cried a little but she seemed to have an excuse for everything we told her. After the group discussion I chatted to her for another hour or so and I really felt it was a genuine conversation but after i was done the other girls were saying they felt it was all a load of bullshit and that she was being her usual plastic & fake self. It might be because I’m slightly naive or try my best to see the good in people but I believed most, if not all of what Ciara said but i definitely could be wrong because I’ve been told I can be too gullible before, so who knows. Either way I felt better after the discussion whether or not it achieved anything.
My final photo
