When Ye Ke and Huang Xiaoming's relationship rolled through several rounds on the hot search, the celebrity training class once again appeared in the public eye. Those really expensive training classes are destined to be far away from the average person, and this time, young people have found another way to get closer to celebrities more quickly - to take socialite-style photos.
Someone made a special trip to find a photography agency, holding a photo of Ye Ke and saying "I want to take the same picture". There are also people who step on the heat, start a business quickly, start a business of celebrity appointments, and squeeze into this blue ocean.
I began to wonder what the celebrity appointment is like, what is its relationship with the celebrity training class, and what happens to people after taking pictures? With doubts, at the beginning of November, I spent 699 yuan to experience a 1-hour celebrity appointment. This short 1 hour, for me, is like riding a "pumpkin carriage at midnight", not only the time is limited, but also the wind leaks on all sides along the way.
Text | Chinese wolfberry
Edit | Yang
Operations | taro
"Pumpkin Carriage"
No one can really say what kind of style the celebrity style is. When I opened the social media platform and typed in "celebrity appointment", the page was immediately occupied by all kinds of extravagant scenes. Floor-to-ceiling windows, giant bouquets and balloons in high-end hotels, plus luxury bags that seem to be casually placed at your side are standard in every picture.
The protagonists of the photos are often dressed in dresses, with exquisite makeup, holding red wine glasses or small cakes, and do not look directly at the camera, creating a sense of casual atmosphere.
I, a "codeword worker" who earns money from writing all year round, can't imagine what it would be like to be in such a photo.
When I started to really contact those photography teams, I found that it was not as smooth as I imagined - I had to look for clues in the account avatar, background board, etc. like decryption, so that I could add customer service WeChat. I contacted several photographers at the same time, and the customer service was surprisingly similar, with a profile picture of a woman with exquisite makeup, and a parenthesis after the WeChat name: There are many people and the reply is slow.
At this time, I learned the first lesson of being a socialite - waiting. Wait for the customer service to go through the friend first, this step usually takes a day or two, and you have to keep urging in the private message on the social platform. Then I started to wait for the customer service to reply, and almost all the inquiry information had to be received every other day to receive feedback. All kinds of information sent a signal to me: these days, there are too many people who want to spend money to be a celebrity for one hour.
▲ The reply received when communicating with the customer service of the shooting team. Photo / People of the Day
Usually, the introduction sent by the customer service will include multiple scenarios such as high-end hotels, golf, sports cars, etc., and different scenarios correspond to different prices. The cheaper ones include golf courses and gyms with floor-to-ceiling windows, most of which cost three to five hundred yuan, and the most expensive ones are private jets, close to 10,000 yuan. Some of these presentations are long pictures containing different kinds of samples, and some are made into PDFs, and the advertising slogan in one of them is: "More important than taking pictures is to enhance values, broaden horizons, and have the right to make your own choice." ”
In the end, I booked 699 yuan for an hour (without makeup) for the shooting at the Beijing Legendale Hotel. But when I paid the deposit, thinking it would be available immediately, a new round of waiting began. The usual pattern is for the photography team to gather a few people who want to take pictures, get together at different times on the same day, and then book a hotel. This way, the photographer only needs to wait in the room, and customers come to the door every hour. In order for the team to be able to get a "car" of people, I waited for half a month.
In Beijing, the price of filming hotel scenes ranges from 600 yuan to several thousand yuan an hour, and the higher the hotel grade, the higher the price. The five most frequented luxury hotels are: Rosewood, Legendary, Park Hyatt, Waldorf Astoria and Bulgari, among which Bulgari has the highest price, and the cheapest room costs five or six thousand yuan a night, so the auction price is about three hundred yuan more expensive than other hotels.
In order to make myself look more like a celebrity, I did a lot of preparation before I went, deliberately chose the whitest foundation shade, put false eyelashes, folded shiny glitter on my eyelids - to hide the smell of class in my eyes, and practiced twisting my ass in the mirror for a long time.
The moment I stepped into the hotel, I found that no matter how delicate the makeup could not hide my own emptiness, I was not a regular guest of the hotel, and I was surrounded by a sense of cramped from the moment I first entered the door. A staff member came to ask me where I wanted to go, and I panicked and threw down the phrase "go upstairs" and went to the elevator.
I made an appointment with a female photographer, Tingting, and according to the agreement, I waited in the elevator room for her to come down and pick me up. While I waited, I walked slowly back and forth, pretending that I was waiting for the elevator, and I didn't even dare to make eye contact with the staff standing next to me. Inadvertently, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, shoulders buttoned in, body curled up – a cramped, unconfident body language. Tingting did the same, when she picked me up, she didn't even get out of the elevator door, she only poked her head out and asked like an accomplice: Is it you, come in. The eyes also avoided the staff.
Entering the room, the interior layout was much simpler than I had imagined. The elaborate furnishings are mostly concentrated on the coffee table, a large cluster of flowers hanging from the coffee table to the floor - fake; A couple of Dior and Chanel bags – empty; There's also a huge bouquet of 999 roses on the ground – plastic. I also saw the standard features in the photos on social media: luxury bags and a Doll of Lena Belle, "all fake", and Tingting did not shy away from it at all.
▲ On the day of shooting, part of the scene was set. Photo / People of the Day
At this moment, I suddenly realized: in the celebrity style photo, the largest and most extravagant set seems to be the hotel itself.
Tingting was at the door of the toilet, spreading out a huge suitcase stuffed with clothes for taking pictures. She pointed to a pink puffy dress, "the most commonly worn, like a little princess", and as she spoke, she turned out a few short skirts with raw edges, and shook her hand casually, and some lint fell off, she said that it was newly bought, but "it is also fake".
I didn't see any professional camera equipment at the scene, Tingting said that she used her mobile phone, "which looks more natural and has a sense of life." The light is filled with a hand-held face lamp, "also for more naturalness". At the scene, only Tingting was busy with herself, holding her mobile phone in one hand and a face lamp in the other, and sometimes she had to be a scene worker. When she moved to the bedside to shoot, she quickly picked up the pink tutu skirt that was still curled up on the bed, threw it on the sofa next to her, and stuffed the fluffy skirt back into the suitcase.
▲ On the day of shooting, the shooting props provided by Tingting's team. Photo / People of the Day
The hardest part of the whole shoot for me was building a sense of belief. Maybe in order to make the film more abundant, Tingting also took me to the corridor of the hotel. In the common area, there are staff and tenants who come and go, and when I follow Tingting's request to pose as "natural" and "seemingly casual" as possible, I am always worried about the eyes of passers-by at any time. Celebrity style photos, beauty needs to be supported by stretching movements and natural expressions, and behind this, there is a belief that "I am the most beautiful and worthy of all this", I keep reciting this sentence in my heart, but I clearly know: these are all fake.
One of the scenes I couldn't understand the most also appeared in the hallway. Tingting took out a few luxury paper bags as props, while I wore a short skirt, sat on the floor in the corridor, stretched my legs in the direction of the camera, tilted my head and covered my mouth and smiled, "This can show my legs." I looked at the ashes on the carpet and couldn't help but wonder: which celebrity would sit on the floor in the hallway?
For me, this hour, it was like spending 699 yuan to take a "midnight pumpkin carriage", which was not only limited in duration, but also inevitably leaked on all sides along the way. In the photo, there is a high-end hotel with a neat background and exquisite decoration, while outside the photo, there is a suitcase lying on the ground with a fluffy imitation dress popping out.
▲ In the corridor of the hotel, part of the film was taken. Photo / People of the Day
Explosive tracks and chains
In my communication with Tingting, I learned that she is an independent photographer with her own studio. In her previous work, most of her work was shooting in the studio, or cooperating with magazines to take promotional photos for celebrities, "(celebrity appointments) is a side job, doing fun." It seems that this is a track that makes sure that there is no loss, the props are all imitations, almost not investment, and there is no need for an assistant on the spot, "just recruit a customer service (online) to help".
The hotel where I took pictures that night was booked for less than 2,000 yuan, and as long as there were enough people for two or three people, the photographer could pay back. But Tingting usually takes four or five people to open a hotel once, "otherwise there is not much money, which is equivalent to doing it for nothing."
Many of Tingting's customers are bloggers with a certain number of fans on social platforms, and they don't need her to guide the action at all, "they will swing when they come up". Several times, as soon as I entered the room, I waved my hand directly to Tingting: I don't need you to come, I'll take a selfie. Taking a selfie is also a very important part of my experience. In front of the mirror with plastic roses, Tingting asked me to hold my mobile phone and "play freely". It makes it more realistic, she says, and creates a sense of actually living here.
▲ Under the guidance of Tingting, a selfie of "free play". Photo / People of the Day
For bloggers who need to maintain a high-spending persona online, this kind of photo mode is more cost-effective. In Tingting, "it is equivalent to opening a room with a single order", and as long as it is less than 1,000 yuan, you can shoot the scene of a high-end hotel.
Miki is the founder of a daughter's photography studio in Chengdu, and in his impression, around 2015, photos of celebrities have appeared, and at that time they were still concentrated in Beijing and Shanghai, and he still remembers a news 4 years ago that "63 people in Shanghai celebrities put together a single pair of stockings", which hung on the Internet for a long time.
This year, he just came back from studying abroad, and he caught up with the news of Ye Ke and Huang Xiaoming's official announcement. At that time, some people even took Ye Ke's picture directly and came to the filming team to say "I want to shoot the same". Miki saw a business opportunity in it, and he calculated his resources, and the friends around him all had good backgrounds, not only luxury bags, but also many of them were frequent visitors to high-end hotels and golf courses, "There are a lot of resources, and it feels easy to do."
Miki asked people in the industry that the auction industry in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai was "too volatile", but Chengdu was still in its infancy, and he soon hired a few photographers and assistants to form his own team.
In this industry, the most important thing is the source of customers. Because of catching up with the popularity of "Kexue", business is hotter than expected. Miki would book a hotel once a week, and every time she would shoot all night, "every hour someone would come and shoot until noon the next day, and in the early hours of the morning."
Unlike Tingting, who is responsible for everything, Miki has "5-6 (crews)" for each shoot, and the set is a little more complicated, which means higher costs. Miki said that the total cost of a hotel with a typical room price of more than 2,000 is about 5,000 or 6,000 for a night.
▲ Some props that will be used during shooting. Photo / Courtesy of the narrator
Even if the cost is high, the hot business still makes this track full of quick money. Hotels are one of the hottest scenarios, and "the gross profit margin of a single game can reach 50%". The most difficult scenario to do is private jets, the domestic charter business is not yet mature, and the price is very high, "a charter will cost about 200,000 yuan".
The fastest way to make money is customization. Once, a blogger approached Miki to do a video of a Rolls-Royce pick-up. What Miki has to do is very simple, that is, the car dealer finds a Rolls-Royce, puts the name of the blogger next to it, and it is done, "I earned 30,000 yuan at a time, and the gross profit margin directly reached more than 80%."
From the perspective of the big industry of private auctions, the celebrity style is a new style that has become popular in recent years. In Tingting's impression, at the beginning, people who like to take photos are more inclined to the studio, with more professional sets, lighting and equipment, and the later refinement will take care of every detail.
For a long time, going to the photo studio to take pictures on holidays is a popular way of life for young people, and as soon as the Spring Festival, Christmas and other holidays arrive, the circle of friends is covered with photo photos with similar styles - templated backgrounds and retouching with a unified aesthetic.
But nowadays, celebrity style photos are also pursuing nature and authenticity. The highest level is that the posture is posed but not deliberate, and the picture is repaired but there is no trace. At a glance, this picture is "more life-like, more real, better".
For Miki, taking photos is just the first step in starting a business. In the more than a month that he has been running a celebrity appointment team, nearly 20 customers have revealed to him in the chat that they still have marriage and love needs. In Miki's vision, he can also build a high-end marriage and love platform in the future, "specializing in collecting venue fees".
On social media, behind some auction agencies, there is also a business experience of creating "real celebrities". They make an appointment to find people who meet the conditions and have a strong will, and then carry out in-depth packaging - a format that is more similar to a celebrity training class. A related practitioner told Daily People that there are many kinds of courses for packaging celebrities, not only to learn wine tasting and perfume selection, but also to involve theoretical courses such as economics. This is a longer-term project that usually takes a year to bear fruit.
Celebrities disenchant
Throughout the photo shoot, Tingting said to me most often, "It's too stiff, be natural".
The core action of the celebrity style photo is: twisting. Almost every joint of the body is twisted out of an angle that rarely appears in daily life. The most uncomfortable thing for me was the movement of standing against the table, which seemed simple, but in fact it was very mysterious. The legs are overlapped, and one leg should be extended as far as possible in the direction of the camera - showing the length of the legs; The arms should be opened outward as much as possible and supported by the table - the body will be triangular at this time, and the composition will be beautiful; At the same time, bend your waist to one side as much as possible while keeping your upper body upright – accentuating your body curves. After such a set of movements, you have to keep upright, and it is best to have one foot on the tip of your toe to create a lazy and playful feeling.
▲ Uncomfortable shooting action, the final film effect. Photo / People of the Day
Maybe I was too stiff, Tingting went straight to help me pose. She grabbed my arm with one hand and pulled me outward, and with the other hand held my waist and pushed in, and suddenly, with a "click", my joints let out a protest, and the movement was finally qualified.
There are many more movements that make the body protest. The most common movement is to sit on the ground and stretch your legs, and shoot from above to show the length of your legs, but the difficulty here is to keep your upper body upright while extending your legs. It's much easier to make facial movements, smile with your eyes closed, smile with your mouth covered, or smile with your head tilted – in short, don't look at the camera, "otherwise it would be too contrived." When I finally stood up after filming the floor action, I felt my crotch cramp.
These actions seem to frame the celebrity style into a set template, but no one asks who defined and designed such a template. It's not an easy task to get stuck in such a template, so for most ordinary people who come to take pictures with curiosity, this is just a way to experience a high-end lifestyle for a limited time, and the cost performance is not low.
In hotel appointments, the most common scene is a birthday. On the day I went to shoot, Tingting's last group of guests were two birthday girls, and after taking pictures with fake cakes, they went to the restaurant to eat real cakes, "a sense of ritual".
Miki also counted that the most people came to take pictures of birthdays. What impressed him the most was a pair of "celebrity mothers and daughters" who came to take pictures, the baby was still in the stroller, and the birthday was celebrated on the same day, "It was a different experience".
On social media, many people chanted "it smells so good" and counted the bargains. Take birthday photos as an example, if you go to the studio to shoot, count the makeup at least one or two thousand a day, and you may be tricked to spend more money to retouch the picture, but the hotel makes an appointment, and you can get more than 300 negatives at a price of six or seven hundred, and exquisite sets, and the pictures are "how you want to fix them".
Some people will be hooked on this way of taking pictures after an appointment, continue to place orders, and in reality, they will also start to get closer to themselves in the photos - more in terms of unexpected appearance and gestures.
However, for most people, experiencing celebrity style photography is like a disenchantment. On social platforms, posts about luxury cars just turned eighteen, traveling in the mountains and rivers every day, and entering and exiting high-end hotels can be seen everywhere, and other people's glamorous lives seem to be separated from their own reality by 108,000 miles, and that kind of life is always covered with a veil. When you really pierce this veil, you find that it is not difficult to package it as the envy of others. Even if you are wearing an ill-fitting skirt in reality, holding an imitation bag, and the gift box around you is empty, you can become a celebrity for an hour when printed in a photo.
Tingting passed me all the photos she had taken, and this was the last link, and I looked at the time, and it was exactly an hour - the pumpkin carriage had arrived. As I got off the elevator and walked out of the hotel, I could vaguely feel that my back was straight — a steady, stretched body language, but my cramped crotch was still aching during the shooting.
▲ After completing the shooting, the hip bone is still aching. Photo / People of the Day
(The names of the narrators in the article have been changed)
Resources:
1. "799's One-Day Celebrity Experience Card, Young People Rush to Experience" Vista Hydrogen Business
The article is the original work of Daily People, and infringement must be investigated