America’s Next Top Model 10, Episode 11: Star Quality

We start out this week with my girl Whitney in confessional and voiceovers. She is stunned that she was allowed to remain as Katarzyna was sent home. She realizes that she has to relax and not be to posey. She has to bring it on to make it to the final two. The entire scene is about Whitney which makes me think one of two things. She may actually win this thing or that she will go home tonight. I really hope it’s the former, rather than the latter.

The girls get back to the apartment and it’s completely adorned in giant photos of Salisha, last cycle’s winner. Dominique tells us that when she first saw Salisha, she knew she was going to win. Dom says that she is just going to win this competition, just like Salisha! Yikes!

As Dominique heads back to the bedroom, the remaining three girls decide to have a snipe session surrounding Dom and her habits. She eats too much. She shouldn’t be this far in the competition. They don’t understand why she’s still in. She’s annoying. To back that up, we see snippets of Dominique looking for candy and talking about how she’s improving from week to week.

There are two more small bits with Fatima and Anya both talking about how much they want to win it all. The producers are just trying to show us that any of the girls could stay or go, I suppose.

The morning brings us beautiful shots of Rome and awful shots of the girls getting primped for the day. The girls are off to their challenge for the day in a large park. Paulina and the photographer are going to teach them the art of composition and lighting. This time, the girls will be the ones taking the photographs using the other girls as their models.

For the challenge, the girls will get five minutes to work with Paulina as their model, working with her as if she were their own model. They have to work with the model, not against her. The winner gets an extra 50 frames in the next shoot. I suspect Paulina won’t make it easy on them and will role play the difficult model stereotype.

Whitney has one last sound bite where she tells us that she wants to be sure that the judges know she’s serious about the competition and that she won’t go down without a fight. Sigh, I think this is the end of my girl this week, based on editing.

Fatima gets to shoot Paulina first. She seems to do an adequate job of directing Paulina through shots that she thinks will do well. She remains calm and is quietly directive in her requests. After five minutes, Paulina complements Fatima (through the camera) on her work.

The music changes to a subtle bumbling tone and Dominique is up next. She doesn’t do nearly as well as she doesn’t really tell Paulina what she should be doing. She was tentative and didn’t know what it was that she wanted to do.

Whitney gets it. She realizes that Paulina is not only a model, but the judge of this particular challenge. She guides her through concepts and communicates well. She even complements Paulina on how she’s doing. Even Dominique says that Whitney did a good job. Paulina says that she was fun to shoot with as a photographer.

Then there’s Anya. Anya is considerably slower about the poses and is all over the place with her direction. She has good energy, Paulina says, but she needs to focus better.

In judging, Paulina and the editor from Seventeen go through the film. They compliment Whitney right off the bat for not only her direction, but her composition and lighting. Anya’s photos were all over the place. Fatima’s photos gave the editor a lot to work with in terms of backgrounds and scale. She also was complimented on her direction. Dominique wasn’t quite there and many of her photos made Paulina look like she was wearing a cactus hat.

So the winner of this competition based on the judges’ input is Fatima. She’s thrilled that she finally won a challenge, breaking Anya’s long streak.

Back at the house that night, we see Fatima working her runway walks. Dominique tells us that Fatima brings “it” but she doesn’t know how to hold it. In Katarzyna’s RealityNewsOnline interview, she even said that Fatima would constantly be in motion in shoots and not hold still for the photographers.

Dominque tells us more about herself. I tune out, but once again, it’s in the third person and she thinks she’s going to win. Even sweet Anya says that Dominique drains her energy.

I think this may be the most competitive final four in a long time. They all give strong confessionals and voiceovers about how much they want to win this and how they have no room for error. This may truly be the tightest group in a long time.

Their photo shoot for this week will be taken at night and the girls will be dressed up as ‘50s movie stars being swarmed by the paparazzo. This week’s photographer is, of course, Nigel Barker, so the girls should have good shots this week.

Fatima tells us that she has a boyfriend, so she can’t be sexy and hanging on her escort as if she likes him. Oh girl, that’s a dumb move!

Anya is up first, looking like a bombshell. They’ve dressed her in a tiny gold dress and darkened her normally blonde eyebrows a dark brown. She does look like a movie star. She tells us that she’s comfortable around Nigel, as she did the nude shoot with him early in the cycle. This time, he tells her to have lots of energy, as if the paparazzi are chasing her. She gets very posey until Jay distracts her by talking to her while Nigel continues to shoot. Jay tells us that she looks the part of a model, but she still has her training wheels on. What will she do when she has to do a real shoot?

Next is Fatima and I just cross my fingers that the wheels fall off for her as she drives me nuts. She has the extra 50 frames available to her for winning the challenge, so surely she’ll manage to pull out a good shoot somehow. Nigel wants her to have action, but be sultry.