Ray’s Discoveries

Everyone wants to be famous. Have you ever noticed this about humans? Oh, of course you have, because you want it too. It’s only natural to crave recognition, popularity and oodles of cash. These are attributes that often make the world easier to live in. And so tons of aspiring stars try their hand at success every year. This is how every talent search across the country makes its money. They feed off of the American dream. Now, I can’t say that I can truly blame them. It is a smart way to make capital and folks will certainly buy into it, because they naturally hope to succeed. But, I implore you to STOP and think for a moment before you empty your savings account.

I can speak from experience when it comes to the standard talent search. I actually ventured off on two of these back in the 1990s. One was entitled IMTA, and the other was called Manhattan Model search. Both seemed like decent competitions at first. I was promised to see dozens of scouts all in one room. You see, this is what went down with IMTA. They had me fork out almost five grand for a plane ticket to L.A., 6 nights at a hotel, and other fees I didn’t entirely grasp at the time. Hey, I was only 19 and this was in 1996. Anyway, I was able to do a few competitions, and go into a room for a few hours with a bunch of agency reps and scouts for modeling and film. All seemed okay for the most part. I made two connections that panned out to something. But, why in the world did this talent search cost so much. I had to find out. Well, sure enough I discovered that we were paying for the agents to fly in and stay at the hotel. How bogus can you get! For me, this talent search turned out a scam in the end. As opposed to paying all that money and flying across the country, one could just take a few snapshots and send them to whatever agencies they please. You don’t even need a professional photo shoot done. If an agency is interested in you, they will set one up.

It’s sad to think that I went to a second talent search after IMTA. I guess I was getting anxious for something. Fortunately this one only cost me 300 dollars, which is much less than the prior. My advice to aspiring talents and models is to get online and send information and pictures electronically now days. The web can save you some major bucks.