Wednesday, October 21, 2009

America's Next Top Model Recap: Cycle 13, Episode 8

Cover Girl Commercial time came early this season! This week, the remaining 7 models were tested on their ability to perform in front of a video camera instead of a still camera. As usual, some were naturals while others simply fell apart.

For this week's challenge, the models were sent to the set of The Insider, with host Lara and her crew. They were taught some basics about interviewing techniques and then thrown in front of the cameras to do an interview with 90210's Jessica Lowndes. As a trick to see how well the contestants think on their feet, their teleprompter was blanked out after a question or two, leaving them to rely on their own quick thinking to keep the 2 minute interview going.

Jennifer and Erin were memorable as the two that really knew the actress and were able to keep her talking naturally without any dead air time. On the other side of the spectrum, there was poor dyslexic Laura. She started to panic when the teleprompter blanked. She has a hard enough time reading and when they blanked out the prompter, they had a bunch of random letters, and she couldn't tell if she was just having trouble reading or what. I truly felt for her, but she really didn't get over it and find her rhythm. Instead, she did the one thing you can't do on TV, she cursed. Ouch. Of course, that was nothing compared to Nicoles faux-pas of asking the young actress if she'd ever had children before. Awkward! The rest of the group was just so-so.

The challenge winner got a highly coveted reward: A beauty shoot for Seventeen Magazine. Erin was declared the winner and she chose Rae and Jennifer to go with her. High on her win, Erin thought she was the bomb, apparently getting a bit too cocky, which came back to bite her on the ass during the Cover Girl Shoot.

After the challenge, the girls returned home to find a set of boxes waiting for them. In each box was a set of Exact Eye Lights Mascara and shadow along with a stopwatch and a pad and pen. Their instructions were to write their own 25 second script, memorize it, and be ready to do a commercial the following day. Erin, feeling over-confident, was finished in minutes, happily calling out "Done!" and going to bed without much work on memorizing. Others like Nicole and Jennifer stayed up for a long time working on their scripts. You have to wonder why everyone wouldn't take such an important step in the competition more seriously. Everyone who's ever watched the show knows that the commercial is one of the most difficult shoots of the entire competition. It's easy to get rattled or nervous or tongue-tied.

And for Erin, that's exactly what happened. Even though she was happily saying during makeup that she was a winner, she walked onto the set and fell apart. Nigel, who was directing the shoot, was extremely disappointed. He had to call for makeup to fix her face FOUR times because she was crying so much. She never got it together, and I was honestly just rolling my eyes. She should have never acted so cocky, trying to intimidate everyone else, when she wasn't willing to put the time in that was required in order to do a good job.

At the top of the pack was Jennifer, who came across approachable and charming. Nicole also did a great job, finally showing the judges that she is able to put inflection in her voice. She also looked stunning! Brittany, though somewhat robotic, pulled off her lines flawlessly. Sundai had a good script, but geez, the girl had a hard time sounding serious. Her commercial was uncomfortable to watch! And not just in my opinion. Guest judge Kim Kardashian (who is not technically a model but has certainly become comfortable in front of a camera - and is famous for a sex tape she did so needless to say, she's comfortable in front of the video camera), also said Sundai was hard to watch.

The bottom two this week were Erin and Rae. Rae didn't mess up quite as badly on the commercial as Erin did, but in both the challenge and the shoot, she just wasn't memorable. She didn't seem to have any kind of spark or intense desire to be there. In the end, the panel chose to send Rae home. I don't think she minded terribly much either. She was mostly just happy to be going home to see her daughter again. That gives Erin another shot. Let's hope she can find an true inner confidence instead of just that fake mask she tries to put on to intimidate everyone else.

Next week: The model's house is condemned for being a mess! Tyra tells them it's so bad they can't live there any more. Does this mean they are heading out to a foreign country? I wonder where they'll go this time!

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