I have kind of a strange situation in regards to trying to find the right agent to represent me. Earlier this year I attempted to find a principal agent and sent out my package to agencies I was interested in. I did get responses from some and during this time an agent also scouted me on the casting workbook, an industry standard tool used for breakdowns and submissions, as I was an unrepresented talent and he asked me to meet him.
I did look at the talent agency license list before meeting him and so it seemed perfectly legit. I ended up meeting him and he told me how he was impressed by my training and all that stuff and that he needed a talent with my look and age range. He was saying the right things that sounded good to me basically.
He presented me with a contract that same day and wished to sign me and also told me that I could think about it. I ended up saying that I would take it home with me and think about. A few weeks later this agent in particular sends me a follow up e-mail expressing again that he really wanted to represent me while getting me ready for potential upcoming work/auditions such as preparing my casting workbook resume details. So after thinking about it, I told him that I would be willing to give his agency a try.
Now we were supposed to meet up to sign the contract and discuss about anything I had concerns about. Since he was fairly adamant of getting me ready though, he asked me to list myself as being represented by him on the casting workbook ahead of time and sure enough I phoned in and got that adjusted. He told me that he would take care of the rest and set a date to meet to sign the agreement.
Weeks passed and I haven’t heard anything from him. I even talked to him on the phone asking if a date was being arranged to discuss and sign the contract and he mentioned it was indeed and that he was just tied up. I figured he was just busy and so afterwards I just decided to let him do his thing while for myself I went to audition and act in non paying independent films to get more experience while meeting new people.
Literally over 3 months had past and we still had not signed anything. I also wasn’t getting any audition calls or updates from him and so I figured maybe this was a dud and while continuing to do independent films I started to casually research about agencies again.
A little over a month ago, I then got a phone call from him and he seemed disoriented. He mentioned that a casting director wanted to see me for a commercial apparently and he realized that we didn’t have a signed contract. He told me not to worry about it and that he will arrange a time to fix it later and gave me the audition information. It’s almost as if he wasn’t the one that submitted me for it.
I was excited as this was technically my first professional commercial audition I guess you can say. I believe I did pretty well as while I kind of screwed up on my slate, since I was so used to slating full name and contact details in independent films, the casting director said specifically “Wow, you really redeemed yourself after that slate”. So, I was happy.
The agent then phones me with excitement to tell me that I have been asked for a callback and that shortly after he will phone me again about some other projects he had in mind for me too. Again, it all sounded good. I did go to the callback and ultimately they went with someone else for the role.
Wouldn’t you know it, I haven’t heard from the agent since and again we don’t have anything signed. I then started to submit myself to for various roles and sure enough I got responses for auditions which made me believe that the agent isn’t really doing anything for me. This is such a weird situation I thought.
As a result, I am currently still trying to find the right agency to represent me here in Vancouver. Very interesting experience though.
