. Due to my last story, I have received a fair few emails asking me what I knew about the process... till now, I had no insights into it, so here goes...
It started off one fine day when I received a call from an ex-colleague of mine. You see, she is currently working for Cleo magazine and was rather stressed out. This was sometime in November. She wanted to know if I knew any "good looking, single (girlfriends are OK, wives are not), not gay (but bi is ok), above the age of 21 guys". She knows that I go to the gym fairly regularly, hence, she wanted to know if I could recruit some guys for her there (little did she know that the gym that I go to is known for its gay guys). She wanted some masculine looking ones (one of my major grips regarding the guys here is that a lot of them are SKINNY).
*DING* A little bell went off in my head... so this is how they recruit the guys??!! I had thought that they would make a public announcement, inviting the general public to participate in the contest. This, I thought would be the most fair way to go about it. But NOOOOOOOOOOOO.... apparantly, its who you know and being at the right place at the right time. I heard that a few of the Cleo staff members had sauntered to public places e.g. night clubs, malls and bars looking for potential candidates (great way to pick up guys btw
[Retraction: 4 March 2002: It appears that I was misinformed regarding the recruitment of guys for this competition. They do make a public announcement and one can go to the http://cleo.time.net.my website to nominate candidates. I have checked out the website and it is very good... you can even upload a picture of your candidate]). As the Cleo office is in Kuala Lumpur, the sampling of male participants chosen was limited to that area... hence, this award isn't a fair representation of the entire country.
So, I began my quest to help my friend out. I began calling up some guys that I knew who I thought had potential and I went around asking the guys in my gym. Much to my dismay (I wanted to charge an agent's commission fee if they won ), most of the guys that I made contact with had already been in the magazine / had turned the magazine down!! However, I did managed to recruit one guy and in my opinion, he is the best candidate to win (that, plus I have *ah-hem* connections within the magazine ).
So, the first step was to get my candidate to call the magazine. Once first contact between the two parties was established, an appointment was made for the candidate to go in for the initial photo shoot. This enabled the magazine to have a record for the final selection of guys. A few weeks after, the magazine's staff members made their decision and the contestants were narrowed down to a few more than 50 people. Once the contestants were selected, they were required to attend yet another photo shoot, this time, a more professional one, in a studio and not in the magazine's office. Being the mother hen that I am, I wanted to tag along with my guy to the photo shoot. He was the only one who had an entourage as the others came alone. But I am glad that I went... it gave me some insights into the process, plus I think I managed to calm my guy's nerves a bit.
Why were more than 50 selected when the contest is titled "50 Most Eligible Bachelors" you might ask? Well, some might not be able to turn up for the photo shoot, some might back out at the last minute, the photographer might have over exposed the film, the photo might mysteriously disappear... you get the picture. We are talking about contingency plans here. So, the 50+ finalists were contacted and invited to the studio. It was imperative to the magazine that all the photos of the contestants be taken within that 2 day timeframe... as they had a deadline.
The contestants were given a timeframe of 30 minutes to get their hair, makeup, wardrobe and photos done. It was like a production line of sorts. If one was late, the entire process was pushed back (we arrived approximatley 45 minutes late as we got lost *sigh*). However, thankfully, we were not the only ones who were late. I could have sworn that the map that was given to us was written upside down and it certainly didn't reflect the road changes that were currently happening!!
The contestants were asked to bring a two different sets of clothes for the photo shoot. Despite popular belief, the male gender does have a vain streak in them... sometimes, even more so than women! Great care by all the contestants was taken in this outfit selection. However, much to the dismay of the contestants that I witnessed, they weren't required to change into their selected outfits. The extra sets of clothing was for the "just in case" scenario... just in case the clothes they wore off the street wasn't appropriate for the shoot. My friend, who is alway impeccably dressed didn't have to change. However, he was a tad upset that he didn't get to wear his chosen outfit.
After the photos were done (one polaroid to measure the lighting) and a few ones for the magazine, the contestants were required to fill out this questionnaire. This questionnaire was a few pages long and asked those typical questions like what do you want in a girl, if you had super human powers for a day, what would you do, what is your favourite movie etc... Due to paper constraints, they didn't use the entire questionnaire in the magazine... only a few questions were selected. My guess is that the magazine staff went through all the replies and picked the questions that had the most substantial answers, but I could be wrong about this one.
I don't envy the Cleo staff members incharge of the competition. Whilst I was in the studio, I overheard one of them arguing with this guy who was in Penang and not in Kuala Lumpur. For those of you who don't know, Penang is a state, north of Kuala Lumpur, approximately 4 hours drive away. He was scheduled to participate in the photo shoot that day but was unable to do so as he was in another state. This almost made the staff member cry with anger as this particular contestant had confirmed his attendance a few days prior to the fateful day. He wanted the magazine to postpone his shoot and was disappointed that they couldn't do it... you see, they had rented the studio for that particular weekend as they had to make a decision by X day and they had a tight deadline. Also, studio rental does cost money. I don't know what happened to that particular finalist... however, I do hope that he didn't get into the magazine. Very irresponsible of him if I do say so myself.
So, this, in a rather long winded nutshell is what happens behind the scenes at the Cleo Bachelor of the Year Award. Oh, they also have a contest for the readers of the magazine. Four winners will get to fine dine with four chosen bachelors and I am proud to say that my guy is one of them (again, a good sign that he might win ). I do hope he wins as the total value of the prize is RM47,000... not cash mind you but in sponsored goods. I don't think that my guy will ever, in his life time need RM5,000 worth of Levi's goods... I could use a new pair of jeans .
