Actor Growth

Happy Canada day all. Today I made a big change and have officially switched to a new agent to handle my principle representation. This took awhile and I thought a lot about it. I felt that this was a better choice for myself in order to progress better in the acting field.

People usually say that getting an agent is one of the hardest things to do as an actor. Just from this journey thus far I would say the main issue is finding one that you will click with. The funny thing is that I may have to redo my portfolio a bit such as getting some additional headshots as we both agreed that I needed one more type of look.

I was thinking of just going back to the same photographer that did mines originally as the quality was really good. However, I thought that changing it up a bit could be a good decision as every photographer has a different style. Time to research about that I guess.

All in all, this agent appears to have the same level of enthusiasm as I do to work together and so hopefully that will equal to a great future. Never a dull moment as everything changes so fast in this business.

What a cool surprise this was. While working on Human Target today I thought that one of the actors looked eerily familiar. Similarly, he saw me and was giving me that look as if we knew each other somehow. Funny enough, it was one of the acting coaches at the audition workshop that I take every week. lol.

I didn’t recognize him immediately at first as he wasn’t wearing his glasses and the makeup made him look lighter than normal. It was kind of cool as he was telling me how he got the part and all during the break which was interesting to learn. Specifically, in this case the person casting for the series seemed to have seen him before a long time ago and for whatever reason was not impressed.

That was awhile ago and of course he has worked on a lot of other film and TV roles since then. He then told me that his agent was pushing for him to get seen which ultimately resulted in him getting seen for an audition again for that casting director. As it turns out, he got a role out of it.

Guess that shows you how the important an agent can be and signing up with one that doesn’t just submit you for projects but rather goes the extra mile to really push you can make a huge difference. Another thing that was interesting was that he said one of the students in the class was actually auditioning for the same part as him too. That must feel really weird if I ever had to do that. Then again, none of the coaches are Asian so I doubt we would ever be auditioning for the same parts.

Alrighty, I got a question asking how I got an acting agent initially when I first started out and what worked and what didn’t. Just for the record, the agent factor seems to be one of the biggest hurdles for me thus far in my journey I believe. When I first attempted to get an agent I knew one of the biggest tool that I needed was of course the headshot. Not only is this the business card for you as the actor, but since first impressions matter so much it was important to me that I made sure I got a good headshot.

Afterwards, the first thing I did was sign up for a site called the Casting Workbook as from everything I learned in acting school you pretty much had to sign up for that site anyways since agents had to use it to submit you to projects. The thing is too, if you sign up for that site as an unrepresented artist agents can actually browse through your profile as a way for them to potentially discover new and unrepresented talent to sign. So, that’s what I did.

While signed up for that site, as well I manually tried to research about the various talent agencies here in Vancouver. Now the first rule that I was told is to make sure that the agency is licensed. So here in BC there is actually a site where you can find that located at http://www.labour.gov.bc.ca/esb/talent/list.htm

Now fortunately I was able to learn a bit about which agencies were the top ones from school and which ones were say boutique style agencies. After doing my research, I submitted to two of the bigger agencies in town through a traditional mail routine. Basically, the paper resume and headshot. As well, I attached a demo reel on a disc. However, I got no response at all. To me, I kind of expected that as those agencies were so big.

I then started to go to my other choices which were considered smaller agencies and the great thing was that they allowed electronic submissions. I submitted my headshot, resume and demo reel through e-mail. As well, in the e-mail I wrote down why I was specifically interested in seeking representation with that agency. Example, I personally fall in the younger look category and so I expressed clearly that based on my research I felt the agency could represent my category very well.

Sure enough, the two agencies that I submitted to were interested in seeing me. What ended up happening though was that I met with one agency and the other never got back to scheduling an actual meeting time. About the same time, having my profile on the site resulted in a different agency all together contacting and expressing interest in representing me. Sure enough, I met them.

Now what I learned from these meetings was that one of the key reasons they were interested in potentially representing me is because they saw my training and how in-depth it was. In a way, I guess that comes across as I am someone who is serious about the business. Because what I learned after is that one thing that an agent is afraid of is representing new talent only to see them give up so easily. It’s basically a waste of their time spending all that energy into promoting someone who is not serious.

Long story short, I signed up with the agency that gave me the best pitch. Example, saying how I was the only Chinese actor on their roster and that I would be the go to guy they would push. It was a pretty bad decision for me though as I stayed with them for about a year and nothing really transpired in terms of even getting auditions for film and tv roles. I was basically keeping myself busy with independent film work and it seemed like most of the calls I got were from commercial casting directors that requested for me from searching on the casting site. So, a change was needed.

I was going to do the submissions again but dreaded having to send paper resumes and all to so many agencies on top of the fact that I got no responses before through the paper method. I then read about this local business that had a business relationship with agents and that they could submit my portfolio to all of them digitally for a fee as well as taping a demo reel if I needed it. It was created by some known people in the industry, so I figured they would be steering me the right way.

After getting a consultation, the person mentioned that taping a demo with them would be good as they felt they could do something stronger than my current reel. So, I paid for the full package and taped some scenes with them to be used as a reel. Now my gut feeling was telling me this was not right as the scenes the person had me do were pretty stereotypical. Since I’m Asian, she said there were a lot of roles involving techies or gangsters and this way I can show the agents that I can be marketed this way to get the work that is out there.

Since this was online based, I got to semi see that my portfolio was being viewed through a counter. Result? At one point it said that it had been viewed like 15 times and yet no agent contacted me. While the normal reaction would be “Dang, I must not be good enough” it just didn’t make sense since before I got a pretty decent response.

So what I did was while this was running I sent my package by manually e-mailing my old material to two agencies. Result? I was contacted by one out of the two. That showed me that the demo reel had a huge effect. You see, my old demo reel was a bit more colorful and lively I thought. Example, it had dramatic work and comedy whereas the ones I taped with that company were so typical. Hence, it didn’t make me stand out.

Therefore, I dropped that service immediately. The bad thing is doing that service probably harmed me a lot too where all those agencies that never saw me before has just seen me for the first time with that dull representation of what I can do and what I am all about. And yes, it probably will affect me if I decide to submit to them in the future assuming they remember me.

Eventually, how I go my current agent was ironically through doing background work. Essentially, most people that do background do it very casually such as for headshots they just use a regular photo. For myself, I took it a bit more seriously and my headshot definitely made me standout since I was using the ones meant for professional acting work. As well, despite background work being considered as a bottom of the barrel type of work I still treated it like any other job. This resulted in me getting called for a lot of work where even my old background agent was saying that I was getting a lot of special requests.

That then resulted in me being referred on a certain production to see a particular agency that represented background and principal actors since I was looking for new principal representation. Because of this referral, the agency was keen in wanting to sign me up and sure enough I did. I was always told that you should stay away from agencies that represent both background and principal actors if you are more focused on acting, but that is a different topic.

So what did this teach me about getting an agent so far? It’s actually not that difficult. It’s finding the right one that you can work with the best that is the challenge. I know the eagerness that one must have in wanting to sign with any agency as a person starting out, but even from my experience it is better to really make sure that you are going with the right person. In a nutshell, for me finding an agent came down to these factors:

1) Good Headshot
2) Resume backed up with good training in the absence of professional film acting credit
3) Specifically addressing a particular agent on why you think you two would be an ideal fit together.
4) A demo reel that helps to show who you are and how you stand out.
5) Referral from an industry professional

What didn’t work for me:

1) Generic package submissions where the agency had no idea why I was seeking representation from them specifically.
2) Mass submission services.
3) A demo reel that revolved around catering to a stereotype and what you think people want to see as oppose to showing your talent and range.

Of course everyone probably has different experiences, but that’s how it has been for me thus far. I’m pretty sure the process is pretty similar in other parts of the world too except you will need to adapt it to where you live.

I must say, this is feeling really weird. After having to sign the acting contract myself, recently my agent contacted on whether or not I was available to do some background work on a show. This was, it was a text message. Okay, maybe I am just assuming too much, but I can’t help to think this was to semi avoid speaking to me on the phone as I never got a response before when it came to something serious about an acting gig.

I was also reading a message on a site today too that was kind of interesting as one person was complaining their agent was ignoring him/her whenever he/she requested to have a sit down to talk about career direction. Was kind of interesting as one guy’s advice was to pretty much just dump the agent that quick and find a new one.

So yeah, that incident didn’t exactly give me a boost of confidence or anything. Oh well, enough ranting about that though. Time to do something about it.

So today I was working on set and at the same time was hoping to hear back from my agent about the contract that I received yesterday. As it turns out, my agent never contacted me back again. Therefore, it looks like the course of action now is that I am going to make the decision solely on my own and unfortunately this incident is making me think of my current relationship with the agency.

I think I can say without a doubt that one of the most difficult tasks thus far in my acting journey is finding the right agent that is always responsive and motivated to answer questions with he/she being just as excited about me moving my career forward. So why is it that this seems so difficult to accomplish?

So my action plan now is that I am going to decide in signing on the contract alone and over the next week or so I will re-assess my representation situation.

Usually when you get an agent you are always wondering what kind of parts you are being submitted for. It’s a pretty standard practice to request a list of productions that your agent has submitted you for just to see if you are both on the same page in terms of getting you out there.

One common complaint that actors have is that their agent never submits them for lead roles in big productions. Someone told me an interesting perspective about this as many times when you audition for large roles it can be the first time that you have ever seen a particular casting director.

Therefore, this is one of those first impressions situation as if you mess up there you could possibly get overlooked for future roles. So in the agent’s eye it is better to hold off until they feel you are ready professionally to audition for larger roles.

Makes sense in many ways. It’s always good to see things from a different person’s perspective as many times impatience can make you do things that will end up working against you.