Actor Growth

Interesting experience I had today. Not too long ago I attended that workshop where the casting director mentioned how they could care less which agent you are with. While that may be true from their end in calling you in, as I discovered from an actor’s point of view that sure is not the case.

Basically, having an agent who is knowledgeable about the industry can be crucial as they can provide you with advice and direction on what you need to do to make things happen for your career. Example, they can tell you who to train with, where you should advertise yourself and give you input about your portfolio.

Essentially, you want someone that will guide and help push your career as oppose to just submitting you for roles. I remember with my first agent all he did really was act as the middle person and a result I was basically on my own for the most part.

The agent and actor relationship shouldn’t be like that I’d say as it should be more like a partnership. So no, from an actor’s point of view just signing up with any agent isn’t going to be the same in terms of helping your career.

One discussion that was brought up during the workshop was the question on whether or not joining a larger agency gives an actor an advantage over joining an agency that has a very small roster. Usually from an actor’s point of the thought is that the large agencies get most of the attention from casting directors and hence people who are represented by them get more opportunities.

Therefore, the assumption as well is if the agency that you joined has a very small roster, or often referred to as boutique agencies, then most likely you are being overlooked for a lot of potential roles as the agent doesn’t have as much power/influence.

For the most part, what was told to us is that generally speaking many casting directors could care less who your agent is as they mainly care about the talent. The message was that casting directors would be doing themselves a huge disservice if they only limited themselves to auditioning actors from specific agencies only.

In fact, one thing that was mentioned is that casting directors sometimes like to find new and promising talent as that way they can have bragging rights that they discovered them first in a way. Was useful information I thought as this is definitely a question that crossed my mind.

I talked to the person today and apparently a big reason why he wanted to contact me again about my situation regarding principal representation is that it is suppose to get very busy over the next few weeks here in Vancouver and now is the time for agents to have their talent ready.

Therefore, he wanted to clarify if I was still interested in the agency as if I am this is the time to get everything settled down to prepare for potential work. I do have that casting director workshop to go to still on the weekend, so this month is already becoming very active for me.

This should be good news for everyone though as I’m sure it can only benefit everyone if everything starts to pick up.

I was reading some news lately about some local agencies here who have recently merged together and as a result everyone on the roster has been asked if they want to continue with the agent who is now under a different company name.

This is always an interesting scenario and sometimes actors get dropped as due to a merge the agency is going in a different direction and therefore they don’t feel that they have room for them anymore. Almost like getting downsized at a regular job.

In some ways it can be good too as with a merge that can usually mean a fresh start.

I was reading recently that there are some agencies that are conducting an open casting where anyone and everyone can just walk in if they are looking for an opportunity to be represented for film and television work. The thing is too some of them are semi reputable firms I suppose.

You are always told too to be weary of agencies that just sign up anyone as in many cases you are just one of hundreds of people on their roster. As a result, you probably won’t get pushed much when it comes to landing audition roles. Some people even say that reputable agencies will never post an ad to try and recruit talent.

I am almost thinking of going to one just to see what it is like when it comes to a principal agency conducting open auditions. I can see for things like background work it is usually entirely based on the look, but for acting I would think you would want to make sure that the person is professional. There is supposed to be one in the next few days, so maybe I’ll try it out.

So I met with the agency today and overall it seemed alright. They seemed to have a solid business in general. The one thing that I noticed is that it seems like they definitely focus more on background work rather than principal work based on my visit. I say this too because I was told if I join them I can be represented for background work only but not just for principal work only.

I talked to both agents though and they took the time to answer all of my questions to satisfaction. With that in mind, obviously If I was to go with them at this point that would mean I would have all of my representation under the same roof. This can be good or bad.

The good thing is that by having the same company represent you for both it will be a lot easier to handle any scheduling conflicts. Example, it could be that I was booked for a background role but then all of a sudden there is this awesome audition for a lead role. Therefore, it would be easier to organize a way to get me out of the background work to go to the audition instead since I am more focused on the acting side.

The bad thing is that usually agencies that do both background and principal work usually don’t focus too much on getting people to audition for principal roles. Like with this agency, I actually have no doubt that I would be doing background work a whole lot more, though how much they would help to get me seen for principal work is another question. Many background agencies are usually upfront with this fact too. Though for this one they seemed pretty confident for both.

Some tricky choices I must say. I think what I am going to do is send a package to one or two dedicated principal agencies and see if I get a response first of all and make my decision from there.