Journalist turned video vixen: An Undercover Project

A look inside at the day in the life of video vixen hopefuls.

Buffie the Body, Melyssa Ford, Karrine “Supahead” Steffans. What comes to mind when you think of those names? Of course! All of these ladies made a career of being video vixens and made/make a pretty decent living from it. It’s the mentality of “Using what you got to get what you want.” Many young women believe that in order to be successful, they can just be sexy, shake their butt in a video and boom- Success.

Maybe that’s why at the CandiRedd video shoot Wednesday, January 13, many girls were a little overly anxious to get their face in at least one of the shots. CandiRedd, who is known for her hit “Independent B*****s” recorded her first video in the lavish Arena Towers Penthouse and was directed by Mr. Boomtown. Atlanta natives Kandi Burruss (Real Housewives of Atlanta, Xcape) and rapper Rasheeda, who are featured on the remix, were also in attendance to record their parts for the video.

Ladies who showed up for the shoot were able to get their nails done by Minx Houston, makeup done by a professional makeup artist and hair touched up by stylist Divo J. Sure the pampering was nice, I even enjoyed that part, but the glitz and glam definitely stopped there.

This video shoot was a looooong, all day event in which all of the ladies practically competed to get in shots of the video. The decision is ultimately up to the director to choose which girls he wanted in the shot or not. The girls who weren’t chosen just sit around for hours waiting to do the next take and only hoping to make the next cut. For an unpaid gig such as this one as far the “models” are concerned, my guess is that they felt that this video may be their ticket to stardom. That one half second shot may get them noticed and they could become the next Melyssa Ford (chuckling as I type).

One young lady I spoke with drove all the way from Dallas to be apart of the shoot. She was turned down for one of the shots in which the “models” were required to wear bikinis. She was told that her body didn’t fit the requirements. I watched this young lady change at least 4 times throughout the day and was barely chosen to be in one of the crowd scenes.

Let me stop right there at the crowd scene….

Seeing as though myself and my friend Ashley Wyatt, a publicist, were doing this gig undercover, we had to partake in one of the shots. This is when it got funny. Prior to the shoot, I mentioned to Ashley that perhaps during the editing they wouldn’t use our take. The look on one of the “models” face was priceless. She looked at me as if I had just said the building was on fire. “They bet not” she said. As much as I wanted to stay in the back, Boomtown kept moving me closer and closer to the front of the shot. One young lady even hackled him about moving her out of the shot completely. He had to calm her down by telling her that he would use her in another shot so on and so forth. After calming her down, the filming began….As Ashley stood there during the shot just smiling, texting and twittering (hilarious) the girls behind her told her “Girl you betta get your shine.” Ashley told the girls to get in front of her and allowed the girls to “shine.” Hey, if their definition of shine is perhaps getting a second of camera time, get your shine on!!!

And lets not even mention when the food came! The people on set devoured that food like they had been living in third world countries. Later that evening, I caught a glimpse of CandiRedd (the star of the video) complaining that she and her crew had not yet eaten and didn’t even know the food had come earlier. “I didn’t know anything about no food,” she said sounding irritated (which she should’ve been). “The people that’s doing the real work haven’t even eaten.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of that. The girls who were just standing around waiting to get in a shot had eaten up all the food before the crew and the star of the video had.

Basically that’s it in a nutshell of my first “video vixen” experience. Beautiful and not so beautiful “models” waiting around for hours and hours hoping that their shot doesn’t make the cutting room floor. I’m sure the final product will look amazing and I’m extremely happy for CandiRedd. Instead of MTVs Making the Video, this is A.D.s Making the Video. Much love and success to CandiRedd. Can’t wait too see the final product.