A friend of mine does quite a lot of modelling as a side hustle and she likes to keep it lowkey because of her other job, so it's basically custom videos. She also produces duo videos without appearing in them. She recently approached two models she hasn't worked with before. Both were keen but one insisted she will have to have her (male) partner with her as a chaperone (in an all female environment). He would be supervising the filming. Possibly understandable if there were going to be other men at the filming but there won't be.

The other model has taken exception to this and is not interested in the shoot if the other model's partner is going to be there.

My advice to my friend is to replace the model who is not prepared to film without her partner but perhaps I'm wrong?

Has anyone else encountered a situation like this and, if so, how did you deal with it?

As a further aside, it seems the partner has form for attending shoots without really being welcome and was getting involved in the messaging process between the model and my friend.

In my experience, admittedly limited compared to some of our producers here, if a model is causing an issue before a shoot is even happening, cut them loose. They'll just be a headache once you guys have the cameras running.
You can always replace a bad model, but it's hard as hell to find a good one.

My general rule for all shoots is "no boyfriends", period. Most of the time, the model is insecure and the boyfriend is controlling, so she will constantly break the 4th wall looking for his approval. I know multiple female producers who feel the same way. That's a big "hell no" for them too. Husbands are generally OK and normally the first thing they want to know is "where is the nearest sports bar". The model generally doesn't give a shit what he thinks after a few years of marriage so they stay on task. If the husband sticks around, he generally gets put to work making pies, mixing slime, or wrangling light stands.

This is mainly an issue with amateur and very new models. I've been shooting for over 20 years and have large back catalogs they can view so there are no surprises for them. Most veteran professional models I use have either worked with me previously or have worked on productions like mine long enough that they know how to handle themselves in a professional situation. Shoots are just another day at work for them and they may have more than one scheduled on the same day. Additional people are just extra baggage that the model has to manage.

Imagine if a woman showed up for her job at Starbucks or Amazon headquarters with her boyfriend in tow, insisting that he was going to supervise her work. They'd both be laughed out of the building. Modeling is work. It's a job. Everyone involved has to treat it like one.

So:
* If model A's partner attends, model B won't come.
* If model A's partner doesn't attend, model A won't come.

Either way, you'll only get one model. So, either pick your favourite or ditch model A.

You could also suggest a compromise, e.g. maybe model A could bring a female friend along as a chaperone?

The traditional advice to models has always been "always take a chaperone if shooting with an unknown photographer", but that was on the assumption that 99% of photographers, esp in the adult business, were male.

Insisting on bringing a guy to an all-female shoot sounds like completely missing the point, the idea of a chaperone is to protect the model from creepy guys-with-cameras, which is very, very unlikely to apply with an all-female shoot crew.

Possibly the producer could suggest the model brings a female friend as a chaperone, instead of the guy, if she's uncomfortable being on her own at the shoot?

I agree. And I can't help but gloat a bit. I am a female.

I only hired four models total, and two of them WERE going to bring the boyfriend as a chaperone, but when they found out that I was the only other human being that they would be seeing that day, suddenly they weren't very interested in having the guy along after all.

Not all guys are terrible. I've worked with some wonderful guys.

But in this particular case, seeing as this is an all-female shoot, I'd choose the model who doesn't need a guy.

Funny story: I had one model who did bring a boyfriend. He said he wanted to watch the shoot and I said that he could. So we all met at the mudpit...and the guy who got out of that car with my model was sporting brand-spanking-new blinding white shoes.

He missed the shoot entirely. He just stayed behind on the trail.

Nessie