“I felt fine! I didn’t expect it to
be so relaxed and easy. I wasn’t tired but I felt inspired to do more shoots with you.” (Jessy, Nov 2022)
Our policy for offering a model more shoots applies in several situations;
- For the next shoot in a block of shoots (ie, the model is already in the Shoot City);
- When booking new shoot blocks; and
- When booking new individual shoots.
(a “block” of shoots is when we fly a model to a city where one of our Shoot Producers works, and book several shoots over a few days).
Generally, more shoots will be offered if the model is;
- Comfortable with that shoot type
- “Good” to work with
- Meets our grooming requirements
- Under-quota for a given shoot type
- We need shoots of that type
While that may seem like many difficult “hoops” to jump through, we typically offer every model we work with between three and ten shoots (that’s a generalisation, not a promise!).
The model is comfortable with that shoot type
We offer most models of our Shoot Types (more info on the Shoot Types we offer). If a model chooses not to participate in that shoot type, we will not offer that shoot type in the future, unless the model asks us about other work opportunities. If the model changes her mind after previously rejecting work for a given Shoot Type, we’ll likely (but not definitely) be open to offering work within that Shoot Type again.
For Solo shoots, after the first Solo shoot the model appears in, we may let the model choose her preferred Posing level, or we may offer a specific Posing Level, for example;
The model wants to earn the most amount of money for her next Solo shoot, so when another is offered, she requests the Insertions Posing Level (more info on how Posing Levels work).
But the website actually needs more Open-Leg Solo shoots (not Insertions), so the Open Leg Posing Level is offered to the model for this shoot.
Open Leg Solo shoots pay a little less than Insertions shoots, so the model can choose to accept or decline that shoot offer.
We never offer or encourage models to participate in a higher Solo shoot Posing Level than they say they are comfortable with.
If the model declines the Solo shoot Posing Level we offer now, our offer for Solo shoots is unlikely to change in the future (ie, the next Solo shoot we can offer that model will be at that specific Posing Level, whether the shoot happens next week or next year).
Declining an offered Solo shoot will not affect other work we may offer the model, but it may mean a block of shoots over the span of several days will be shorter because there are fewer shoots.
How “good” a model is to work with
We want to make shoots of models that are great to work with, by meeting the expectations we have of models, and by being happy and engaged in the shoot. We hope you’ll agree, these are quite reasonable!
We have plenty of models we can work with, and we prefer to work with models who are a pleasure to work with. 😌
For example;
Model Angela responds to emails from the Model Liaison promptly when organising the shoot. She knows some of the tasks (like sending Grooming Images) are a bit annoying, but understands that how she looks really matters to our customers, so she sends the images that night – even though she’s tired from her day-job. A few days before the shoot, she checks the FAQs again to make sure she’s fully prepared.
When she arrives on set, she brought a cupcake for the Shoot Producer, and helps them carry some of the gear upstairs.
Having done a few abbywinters.com shoots before, without being asked, she lays some possible outfits out on the bed, giving the Shoot Producer some options to choose from, and suggests some accessories that might work well – the SP agrees with all and teamwork is the real winner today 🥇.
Angela encourages the Shoot Producer to do some extra stretches before the shoot and offers to share her skipping rope for some extra warmups. Exercising with another person always makes it less tedious!
During the shoot, when the Shoot Producer asks some questions Angela would prefer not to answer on video, Angela asks the SP to stop recording and shares her concern. She works with the SP to plan out some similar questions on a different topic, and says she’s ready to start recording again.
After the shoot, in their notes, the Shoot Producer recommends Angela for more shoots, because she was so engaged in the process (plus, the cupcake was delicious! 🧁).
When Angela gets home and reflects on the day, she realises there was an aspect that was surprising to her – while she was actually ok with it, she imagines other models might not be so comfortable. She checks the FAQ’s to see how that’s presented, and finds that it’s not really made clear. She emails the Model Liaison with a suggestion to improve that part. 😍
You don’t have to do everything Angela did, but her approach was excellent.
Consider another example;
Model Mary is booked for a series of shoots over five days. On day 3, she arrives late and decides she wants to wear makeup in the shoot… maybe because she thinks she’s not looking so good – getting home a 3am with a 9am shoot booked is a problem! Wearing makeup is not suitable for our shoots, but Mary insists.
The shoots on days 3, 4 and 5 are cancelled (and are unlikely to be rescheduled), because we find that Mary’s being difficult to work with.
We’re unlikely to offer any more shoots with Mary because people like Angela are better to work with.
Meet our grooming requirements
Because we do not use makeup or Photoshop, we have moderately strict grooming requirements (more info).
If a model does not meet our grooming requirements, we typically reschedule the shoot, to a time when the grooming issue is resolved – that is, the shoot is not canceled (more info on the difference between cancelling and rescheduling shoots).
For example;
Model Jane is booked for a series of shoots with us, over four days (we call this a “shoot block”).
On day 2, she has a grooming issue that cannot be fixed. The shoots on days 3 and 4 are rescheduled to next month.
We’ll always make a best effort to reschedule shoots, but it’s complex and expensive to do so, and we may not be able to reschedule as promptly as the model would like. While it can be weeks, it may also be months.
Per-model quotas for shoot types
While every model adds her unique flair to our site, our whole site full of vibrant models is greater value to our customers than just the total number of shoots.
That means, we need to keep a variety of models appearing on the site each month.
Also, it’s likely your third Solo shoot will not be much different to your fourth solo shoot (for example). We don’t have unlimited money to spend on shoots, so we limit the number of shoots any one model can appear in – we call these Shoot Quotas.
In an effort to satisfy our customers and offer models more work, in 2021 we developed “Special Redux” shoots, which are a deep dive into a specific theme. These often require specific props and locations and are more complex to organise.
Models who meet the other requirements on this page are likely to be offered Special Redux shoots when they are available.
The shoots we need to update our site
We release new shoots on our site every day of the year, so we always need to make new shoots. Different types of shoots are released more and less often, but we aim to have many of each shoot type “in stock”, so we have time to edit them, and keep a variety of models appearing each month.
But, if we have a surplus of one type of shoot, we may make less shoots of that type for a time. This matter rarely affects the work we can offer models, but it is possible.
