Television/film casting is like that. Being from Los Angeles I had dabbled in "extra" work a bit (still have my expired SAG card! :) Casting agents always need certain looks or skills, e.g. someone tall with red hair that can horseback ride, or has a running car older than 1970. Stuff like that goes out in casting calls, and the best they can do is ask people to work their social network in the traditional way, i.e. family or friends they might know etc. Come to think of it Hollywood in general is pretty low tech...
From what I understand, even unknown actors have agents to find them parts in commercial or as extras etc. so I'm not convinced only irreplaceable people need agents. I agreed that it is less convenient for the hiring manager because they are dealing with someone who is skilled at negotiation but they would be forced put up with it because the demand for skilled developers is so high.
i'm not sure where you are getting your information from, but in the real film & TV industry here in Los Angeles/Hollywood, this is simply not true.
actors do NOT get paid for doing auditions or casting calls. in some extreme circumstances -- let's say when a large amount of travel time is required to get to the audition -- some form of compensation might be able to be negotiated, but this is very, very, very rare.
source for my information: i co-ran a production company here in Hollywood CA from 2005-2011.
But you were probably not hiring for roles were being attractive, friendly, used to being in front of a camera and (possibly) extroverted were important, right?
I think it's because more than anywhere else showbiz is about connections. And an agent is your API to "connections".
I generally do share the same skepticism. Does it really have to work that way? Can't just have a talent database where you can query for certain characteristics and within seconds see profiles with photos and videos of example work?
I imagine a lot of agents are retained for, "I'm a nobody who has done 2 Colgate commercials. Go campaign for me among your connections and get me to the next rung of the ladder." I appreciate that we are talking writers, not actors. But the same concepts apply.
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I'm not sure that's a valid comparison tbh. I assume it'd be rather hard to do Hollywood acting remotely, but remote (even other-country) engineering teams are fairly common.
Broadly I agree / hope so too, but I don't find hollywood to be a convincing example at all.
In Atlanta you can walk on to any major picture if you look up the extra casting company. I worked on 6 projects last year and that was just part time and for some extra cash.
Pay is shit but it’s intense and exciting work, especially if there’s stunts or world class principal actors in the scene(s). That said, sometimes you show up and it’s grueling. Rolling the dice is just part of the background actor experience and a handful do get extremely lucky.
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This isn't exactly true. Virtually every actor and actress has an agent as it scales better than negotiating every gig independently. The big difference I see is that the gigs are mostly very short and numerous. Very few are more than a few
days work.
It's the acting talent that costs, if you already know how to do the producing, writing, directing, editing, photography, and music. You could get free talent. People are glad to have something to show they've done something for someone else when they go out on casting calls and seek agents. But if they're not getting money, you better be prepared to at least feed them.
Actors don't have to go door to door knocking at film studios' doors asking for a job. They pay an agency, get a call once in a while to star in some crappy movie, or, if they're lucky, a blockbuster. In exchange, the agency gets 20% of their million dollar salary and a place in the credits.
I don't get why freelance software engineering can't be the same. I would pay a recruiter handsomely to do that exact service. I mean, we're not actors, but this is a rich sector, there's a ton of demand, it's a worldwide market, so where the heck are they?
I want to act^H^H^Hwrite code for a living, not getting real good at job hunting.
Thanks, that's helpful. I did consider that the grips et al don't have agents, but the few actors I know in LA -- modestly successful people you would probably not have heard of -- all have agents.
My understanding is that the agent makes 10% of everything you get, because most agent contracts are exclusive. Agent puts me on Dune 2, agent gets 10% of my pay; I get on Dune 3 because they loved me so much in Dune 2, agent still gets 10% because our contract says she does, unless I fire her in time, which carries reputational risk.
I wonder, do people have agents on soap operas, which are probably the closest analogy to corporate software, i.e. projects that go on potentially forever and have some people spending their entire careers working on them?
(I had a neighbor who was a soap producer, but not in the US, so not a good source of info for this.)
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