Once at the studio we were given our own dressing rooms in the ‘artists’ section of the studios.  For some reason I noticed the names “Millsy and Angela” on my door.  I knew it wasn’t me as none of the other contestants had a name on their door and when my make up was being done I noticed one colour kit was labelled “The Mint.”  Apparently the last episode of The Mint was shot on the weekend – which I mentioned to R as he loves that show.  I have to say it has amused me a lot when I get home late after a big night out.  I just don’t get a broner from Millsy.

Once we’d arrived we got shuffled into the  “Image” Department.  In front of a room of mirrors with lights all around them, I had the dark circles under my eyes and the blotches on my cheeks covered up, my make up applied flawlessly and my hair styled by a woman who did hair styling for Neighbours longer than most stars were on the show.

Whilst waiting for a friend to be made up, one of the girls started reading the trivia questions from a paper.  “How many horsemen of the apocalypse were there?”  “Four!” I blurted out, forgetting that I shouldn’t seem too smart or self-assured in front of the other contestants.  But I still managed to get her other trivia questions correct.  They were heaps easier than the Qantas Magazine (which is some of the hardest Trivia I’ve seen to date).

Whilst in there a petite blonde woman rugged up in a jumper and scarf came in and talked very familiarly with all the hair and make up girls.  She was later joined by a tall brunette woman and a guy who was cute in a little school boy sort of way.  They guy kept looking at me, which made me worry that there was something going wrong with the make up or that he was freaked out at a larger sized person in a workplace which seemed to boast a lower than average BMI (but not an unhealthy one by any standard).  Although in retrospect I was probably spending a bit of time looking at the blonde woman wondering who she was.  I realised later that she was Livinia Nixon, the show’s hostess and the other two were the models from the show!  My bad – they just seemed quite unassuming and fairly ordinary rather than like well heeled celebrities.

After being done up I headed back into my dressing room to chat to R and sign a contract which didn’t really have any surprises (except that I wouldn’t divulge the outcome of the show) and read through the rules.  I also found out that the other woman from Qld, who I was sharing a dressing room with had previously been on a reality show (and won a substantial sum of money).  Other contestants were in and out of each other’s rooms chatting and enjoying themselves.  R kept commenting on how we were all extroverts and must be on a high – I thought I kept that part of me pretty much in check rather than letting it get too out of hand!

Once we were all finally scrubbed and made up (the guys included), we headed into a small room to be debriefed by the outgoing contestant co-ordinator Jess, who was helping to hand over to the incoming co-ordinator Fiona.  We were told that we had been selected as contestants who stood out in the auditions as people that viewers might relate to.  We were supposed to enjoy the experience, take the cash if we were the leading point scorer and were offered the vault and not to bad the prizes as we were on commercial television and they were our sponsors (who obviously made it possible for us to be on telly).  The contestant co-ordinators were introduced as being there to help and advocate for us.  And that as we’d passed the quiz to get on the show, we should have no trouble answering 90% of the questions asked of us as they were a bit more simple to account for the fact that we would be under just a little bit of pressure.  We would also have a bit of ambient noise to deal with from the audience, crew etc and we would have to listen carefully to Ed Phillips as he would only be speaking at normal volume from across the room.  We were also instructed to be present and alert for the whole so and not to look down at the card in front of us with the names of the celebrities on the famous faces screen if we correctly answered the “Who am I?” question.  Nifty idea as I had always wondered how the contestants remembered the names of the people on the board, as I didn’t know who half of them usually were.

And on that note, we headed in to the studio where the set and audience awaited us.

Some one in the audience asked the MC where Livinia got her dresses and if contestants had to wear their own clothes.  Last year, after noticing some contestants looked fantastic and some contestants got their clothes from the sales rack at Rockmans (what can I say, I often remember garments), I figured that contestants were responsible for dressing themselves rather than having the services of an image department.