#antm5

Nik Pace

ANTM | Top 3 Photos | Cycle 5

Country Coulture photoshoot

Renaissance Painting photoshoot

06. Cassandra Whitehead

Cassandra is one of those rare ANTM girls to have a 100% incredible portfolio. And she’s even more special since her flawless portfolio is actually composed of 2 photos.

All of that leaves me with that big question : « Why Cassandra, WHY !? ». It’s insane that a girl so full of talent and potential, already knocking off the competition only 2 weeks after the start, went on to leave (or being disqualified ?) over hair issues. I’m not saying that it was petty from Cassandra to react the way that she did, I even kind of side with her as she got really screwed up by the makeovers. I perfectly got that it wasn’t Tyra’s original idea about what she wanted for her, but I don’t even think the Mia Farrow cut would have suited her. The look she had when she entered the competition was already a strong one, and she proved in the superhero photoshoot that with good styling she was able to overcome the beauty pageant cliché, so I don’t think an over the top edgy makeover would have been necessary for her. I’m tempted to say that it was a decision made for the sake of shock values and creating drama. So if Cassandra indeed chose to leave the competition on her own, I wouldn’t be surprise to learn that her reason for that was actually her realizing she was being manipulated and screwed up in order to increase the show’s rates. And it could explain as well why Tyra was so pissed off in the following judging panel.

However, I could understand Tyra being upset because of the huge ammount of wasted potential gone with Cassandra. Only two weeks in and she was already destroying the competition. The two photos she took both were excellent, with one reaching my top 10 list and the other being a serious contender. It’s funny to imagine that she could have been an ANTM contestant with 100% of her portfolio in my top 10 list. She ultimately equaled April with a call out order average of 2 from me, and becomes alongside her the girl with the highest average on this blog.

I think the biggest surprise about her photo abilities was the way she could adapt to various concept, rock any styling (another funny fact because the only photo she took with the atrocious makeover was a bang), and push the boundaries of the beauty pageant stigma while delivering fierce and editorial photographs. I can’t believe that she quit modelling because it didn’t match her interests, as she was a natural model in front of the camera. Even her appearance was strong ; for example, while she was one of the shortest girl, she never really looked the part during her time on the show. She had a correct walk, and I believe her beauty pageant experience would have helped her a lot in more commercial briefs.

02. Cassandra

02. Cassandra

General Thoughts

Averages

Top 10 Performances

Bottom 10 Performances

JJ Awards

Contestant Commentary

Call-out Orders:

Week 1: Superheroes

Week 2: Country Styles

Week 3: Fashion Witch Victims on a Treadmill

Week 4: Plastic Surgery

Week 5: Secret Deodorant Endorsement

Week 6: 1940s Vargas Pin-up for Ford & Black & White Beauty Shots

Week 7: Wild Boyz

Week 8: Paparazzi Phone Booth

Week 9: Modern Interpretations of Classic Art

Week 10: Bollywood

Week 11: Covergirl Ad

01. Bre Scullark

Finding a winner for cycle 5 was a particularly hard task, none of the girls from this season really rose above the competition. As I was rewatching the cycle, I finally settled on Bre and the more I think about this decision, the more I feel comfortable about it. I realized upon rewatching cycle 5 that I clearly let myself influence by all those editing tricks the first time arround. I use to view Bre as the obvious underdog, the weaker member of the top 3 who clearly overstayed her welcome, and probably the girl with the biggest attitude problem out of this cast, and even until my rewatch I clearly wasn’t expecting to give her such a high ranking. Well boy was I wrong. It even took me half of the cycle to realize that Bre was my winner. Let’s now introduce all the reason for this decision :

First of all, Bre’s portfolio was nothing less than spectacular. It seems odd to say that given the fact that she received a total of 5 bottom 2 appearance from the judges, ultimately equally the record Ann set up 2 cycles ago (and setting the way for Jade next cycle as the two of them had similar progressions). I would say that I agree with her last 3. She needed a wake up call for her attitude during the painting impersonations week, was outshone by Nicole and Nik in the Bollywood week but because of spectacular performances (while she still delivered), and finally Nicole just completely stole the show in the covergirl campaign, forcing Bre to land in the bottom 2 despite her solid performance in the commercial. Out of all these weeks, I would say that her covergirl photo was her only lackluster one. But other than that, notice how those bottom 2 appearances weren’t really due to bad performances. In my opinion, Bre was one of the more consistent girls – if not the most – of her cycle. While her low points weren’t that low, her peaks were very high. 2 pictures stood out in particular to me, and it was her country couture and plastic surgery shot. Both of these photo displayed differents aspects of Bre’s modelling, but in both of them she looked nothing less than superb (and managed to look really tall and elegant despite her being on the shorter side of the cast). Her cover girl, secret deodorant and black and white beauty shot were averages, not terrible, and the rest of her photos were really good. That leave us, as I said before, with a very strong portfolio from Bre.

When I think about Bre, there’s one specific moment that always comes to mind (not the granola gate, mind you) : it is her secret deodorant commercial. I bursted into laughter when she stated in the most direct and blunt way that she loved men’s underwear. It was totally unexpected, and probably was the moment when she became my winner. It’s a rare case when a girl’s personnality influence my ranking, but Bre’s character was so much enjoyable that I couldn’t ignore it. It was a trait of her that would greatly help her constantly delivering in the commercials and interview challenges, so this is why I chose to take it into consideration. Her commercial photoshoots were subpars, but her takes on the filmed commercial would always back it up as her natural charisma translated extremely well on camera. Even if she stumbled on the lines during the cover girl commercial, she still shone in the final product, so I guess she was able to pull it together and produce a very strong commercial. Not to mention that she was as well a stunning individual, which would draw the viewer to her even more. I’m glad that she used her forte properly post show as she has done a bit of commercial modelling. That girl was made to book those specific jobs.

In terms on runway, Bre was a force to reckon. She may had her over the top signature walk, but I thought it kind of works as she always pulled off confidence on the runway and made a strong impression to the clients (which is only confirmed by her challenge win in the second runway challenge). When she went to the go sees, she was asked to tone down her signature walk, and it remained really strong and solid, making her completely bookable for any types of runway. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Miss Jay stated that Bre was one of the best walkers this show ever had. So she definitely had everything going on for her as a model.

I’m going to take a quick moment to discuss about what I think was an injustice of editing made towards Bre. Because Cassandra wasn’t there to fill that role anymore, it seems like the editors tried to make Bre the bitch of her cycle during the latter portion of the cycle, with the notable granola gates incident. As I already said on this cycle, it probably was an attempt of the producer to deliberatly start drama as the cycle remained pretty dull up until that point. Bre indeed crossed the lines with her actions and was 100% in the wrong the whole time. How she turned against Kim at panel was especially disapointing from her. No matter whether or not she acted under the pressure, she shouldn’t have acted that way. What I liked about that incident is the way she apologized for her actions and acknowledged how in the wrong she was. She reconciled with Nicole right after the conflict reached its climax, which ultimately lowered my disapointment. And now that we’ve get the elephant out of the room, Bre actually was for the rest of the cycle the most likable contestant out of all the girls. I was especially impressed with the way she helped Lisa with her alcohol struggle, and the fact that she was the one to call Kim out on her constant backstabbing, ultimately puttin an end to the whole situation. So as much as editors tried to make her a bitch, I can’t help but finding Bre to be a deeply pleasant and enjoyable character.

02. Nicole Linkletter

Our actual cycle 5 winner. Nicole in my opinion deserves a lot of credit for her win as she was without a doubt one of the stronger models to come from her cycle.

As for her look, I wouldn’t say that Nicole was the more outstanding girl of that cast, but her doll like features and great height still made her a noticable contestant with an edge, which made her more than a typically pretty girl. In fact, the first time I saw her was on her covergirl photo, so before watching the cycle, I mainloy thought of her as standard commercial girl. When I watched the first episode, I was looking forwards to see more of the supposed winner of the season, but couldn’t find her anywhere. When they showed one of her confessionals interview with her name below her, I realized she looked much different in person than she did on her cover girl photo. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the cycle 5 winner had a little bit more exciting look than I thought. And she would showcase that look well in her portfolio after that point.

Speaking of her portfolio, it was a very solid one. Maybe not the strongest of her cycle, but still one of the best. She may had a weaker start than the other photo models of the cast, but she went on to make a huge ammount of progress continuously until the end. She ended up having the most first call out from me out of all the girls. In fact, she earnt 5 from me, but 1 of them was because all the girls did poorly in that week and she was the most passable. She still got some credit since the 4 other ones were well deserved. And all those photos put next to each other would reveal another great quality Nicole’s portfolio had : versatility. All of her 4 peaks through the competition showed different looks from her. She downplayed a mysterious confident yet relatable vibe for the secret deodorant ad campaign, nailed the wide eye innocent look perfectly suited for high fashion in her black and white beauty shot, pull out a fierce intensity for the bollywood shoot and was had a believable and warming smile for her cover girl campaign. So while her portfolio had major weak moments, it was a really exciting one, and showed a progression through the cycle as all of her strong pictures were taken during the second half of the cycle.

Nicole also excelled on the runway, she was a ferocious walker and completely outshone everyone else in the finale runway. Similar to Naima last cycle, it probably was my favourite moment of her out of all the cycle (even though she still doesn’t reach Naima’s awesomeness). And even during that particular challenge, she said in the confessional that she wanted to show off differents walk for each outfit she displayed, so versatility and variation are definitely a whole part of Nicole’s modelling, which I greatly appreciated. And she was quite competent in commercial, I found all of her performances to be satisfactory. As I said before, she may stumbled on her line during the final cover girl commercial, but in the final product she was in the spotlight with Bre, so I believe she had a natural friendly energy that could carry her through these challenges.

I would say that Nicole’s downfall was her appearance, not in terms of look, but in terms of the way she would carry herself in front of client. She had a tendency to serve attitude whenever she would receive a critique, which could be a major problem in the actual industry of modelling. It’s probably the reason why the judges put her in the bottom for her cover girl campaign, even though she had by far the best overall performance out of all the girl, sofor that I can see myself agreeing with it (though I’m not sure I would have awarded neither Bre nor Nik or first call out instead of her). Fortunately for her, it seems like she got that issue fixed, as she was the model to truly take off after her cycle. She had a great ammount of post show work, and plenty of her photos are absolutely gorgeous (I’m especially loving the shoot from which comes the photo right above this ranking).

I honestly could see why some people were frustrated with her win. To me, Nicole was one of those winner that were selected by the judges long before the finale, she just hapenned unlike other to actually be a deserving one (Hi Saleisha). What made me think of that in particular was the way Twiggy could see no wrong in her. She would always go on about how beautiful she was and ignore her flaws. And being a new judge on this cycle, I believe that her wishes were definitely taken into consideration. The funny thing is that aside of being a judge favourite, Nicole didn’t have that much of a winner edit. For example, the finale would let you think that Nik would be the one to take the crown as she seemed to be more featured than Nicole and had a more emotionnal interview with Tyra before the fashion show, which would be a great winner end of storyline. They may tried to blur out an otherwise too foreshadowing win from Nicole I guess.

03. Nik Pace

Having Nik 3rd in this ranking (and especially below Nicole) probably is the most unpopular opinion about cycle 5 I've had so far, because of all the love I’ve seen for this contestant out there. But as I said in Lisa’s ranking, any girl out of the top 4 deserved to win their cycle, so it just came down to little details and preferences.

Nik stood out amongst the other girl because of her unique exotic kind of beauty. Needless to say, she was one of the most stunning woman from her cycle. Funnily enough, when she appeared in the bottom 2 alongside Coryn for the secret deodorant commercial, I could not help but think about how astonishingly beautiful that duo was. But little did we know that this beauty would more than translate on film. In fact I wonder if that’s down to Nik being an awesome model, or just the fact that she could not photograph wrong because of how stunning she was, though as evident by her placing, I still think that she was an amazing model in either case.

She proved herself to be a competitor to watch after raising the bar pretty high with her superhero shot. She made a great use of her body and her face was nothing less than stunning. Even if I believe she was outshone by many other contestants in the following weeks, she still delivered solid performances in the photoshoots and challenge. She peaked again (despite not being my first call out) in the plastic surgery photoshoot. And then there was the secret deodorant commercial. Her picture wasn’t as bad as the judges made it out to be, but they raised a point when they questionned Nik’s versatility. They would later fault her reccurent use of profile in her photos, but I don’t think it was the main problem as she worked face on in the superhero and bollywood photoshoots. I think the real issue was about Nik working different kind of concept and expressions. She faltered in a more commercial brief, not delivering the same level of intensity we were use to see from her, and I believe that it was the real problem about her portfolio at that point, not a matter of angles.

Well, this theory remained plausible until the very next week. She absolutely nailed the pin up shot which had a more girly and sexy vibe than her previous success, it was one of my favourite shot from this cycle. So my doubts about Nik’s versatility immediatly faded away. The second half of her portfolio was a little less exciting ; aside from her bollywood photo which was her highest point during the competition, her photos would be rather average and uninspiring to me. But overall, Nik remained one the best photo models of her cycle, if not the best, as many of her pictures were gorgeous and amongst the best photo of her cycle, and none of them were truly awful (well, aside from her Wild Boyz shot, but we all know why we’re going to forgive her for that performance). And she had at least one successful variation to her signature look, which earned her some bonus point (even if only working one signature look isn’t necessarily a bad things, as long as you rock this look, like Jeana from cycle 24 for example).

However I believe that Nik did falter in other area of modelling. She had a good walk but couldn’t equal those of Nicole, Bre and Lisa. And I wasn’t convinced with neither of her commercials. Her nerves got the best of her during the secret deodorant performance, and I actually think she was the weakest girl for the cover girl commercial. She may have had the better delivery of the lines in first place, but when her take was reunited with Nicole and Bre’s most successful takes in the actual final product, she completely faded away next to her competitors. So while delivering the lines is a feat, it remains useless if you don’t have enough presence to sell them. Another unpopular opinion I have is that Nik lost points with me with her overall attitude on the show. I remember taking a dislike on her during my first watch of cycle 5, so I didn’t understand why when I discovered the lovely lady that she was at the beginning of that season. But I eventually recalled the reasons behinf that during the second half of the cycle. I found Nik’s reactions towards various issues to border on snobbish and selfish. Whenever some drama was going on, Nik was always avoiding conflicts like she was above it all. I didn’t like how she just sat in a corner talking into Jayla’s back during the Secret deodorant commercial incident, instead of confronting her in order to fix the situation, and I can understand Jayla being upset because of that. I also disliked the way she acted like she couldn’t bother about Kim’s attempts to improve her behavior while she was the one to complain about it. That kind of events led me to think that she tended to be a bit self centered and wouldn’t ever be willing to fix issues because of not wanting to risk her place in the competition. That can be understanble of course, but I prefered for example attitudes like Kim’s when she tried to pacify a situation she wasn’t involved in during granola gate.