Has it already been five years since 8days.sg did a shoot with Star Search finalists?

The world has changed a lot since 2019, but since Donald Trump is president again, maybe not that much.

Now we have 12 new curious contenders hoping to not only follow the path of previous winners, such as Zoe Tay, Chew Chor Meng, Ivy Lee and Felicia Chin, but also take home one of three BYD cars coming this Sunday (Nov 24 ) at the grand finale.

In the days leading up to the 8days.sg shoot, we asked them to come in an outfit that they would wear to impress a director at a casting session.

The result? Matching shades of black, grey, denim and brown.

Pure luck or coordinated effort? The finalists assured us there was no discussion with each other beforehand so maybe they spend too much time together that even their styles have synced?

Interestingly, they said they didn’t know there was going to be a photo shoot. Gasp!

But hey, showbiz is full of surprises so better get used to it now.

Of course, a shoot with so many people is never without drama.

Singapore polytechnic student Tan Zisheng had rushed over from his internship and appeared in the much-mocked “SG uniform” of Singaporean men – an oversized Uniqlo AIRism sweater.

It turned out that the poor boy, who looked as blue as his t-shirt, was the only one who didn’t get the memo that everyone had to dress to impress.

In comes competitive break dancer Marcus Sim to save the day. The floppy-haired dude was seen diving into his bag and whipping out a striped top to lend to Zisheng, saving the latter from a possible fashion failure.

Marcus’ wife, multimedia host Gladys Bay, also offered former SGAG content strategist Amy Ang her combat boots after the latter complained that her sneakers didn’t actually match her modern cheongsam.

So why was Amy wearing sneakers in the first place? “My boots are ruined,” we heard her say.

See, you can find real friends in showbiz, even if you’re in the middle of the competition.

Well, until it was time for the group shot.

We saw swimming coach Jona Chung and Amy make a beeline for the coveted center spots while the rest postponed where they would place. Where’s your killer instinct, guys?

Then there were those who knew exactly which angle of their face the camera preferred and quickly chopped (reserved) a place on the page. We’re looking at you NTU students Jadon Lim and Clement Ng.

We kid you not when we observed some fallen faces a few minutes later as we moved some of them around while trying to get the perfect shot.

It might have been just us, but we swear a couple of the usually jovial ones (we’ll leave you to guess who) started to shrink into the background when our photo was removed.

Thankfully (or not?) someone broke the ice

“I’m dying!” Jadon lamented, raising his eyebrows and letting out a couple of nervous laughs, after what felt like the millionth shot of the day.

It turned out that he was tired, hungry and, as the group’s caretaker whispered to our editor, he did not like to smile in pictures.

Hey, nobody said being a star was easy, right? – BRYAN WONG