The following re-post is from THIS AGENT'S VIEW by Coby B. located at: http://www.thisagentsview.com
Checks go to your agent
In case you didn't know, when you are filling paperwork out on the set (and at auditions), you are supposed to put your agent's address. Payment goes to ANDY ACTOR, @ your agency's address (not your personal address). If you do this wrong, it can cause you lots of problems. If you cash the check and then pay your agent it is too late to fix mistakes that might have been made. What if the amount was wrong, you have taken your agents power away and they won't be able to help you as well. Trust me, your agent won't really want to help you either. Don't make your agent chase the commission you owe on any job. You will lose your agent and create a horrible reputation for yourself in this town. Don't book a job through your manager and feel this means you don't owe your agent their commission. This mistake will also most likely cause you to lose your agent. I have and will drop a client for this practice. Be honest with the money. Any relationship will disintegrate when there are money problems and dishonesty. This is a business, never forget it. I know that for actors it is also about much more, but money is what makes the whole thing keep going. Basically this blog is asking you not to be a d**che and PAY YOUR COMMISSIONS! Your reps don't get paid until you work, so all the work that agents and managers do until that time in uncompensated. Please don't make the mistake of thinking you don't owe the commission. There is no way to justify it. I hear "I booked it myself" and other variations on this from actors who justify not paying commissions. Problem is, when you were shooting it, you were then unavailable to your agency or manager for other gigs. Time is money. I don't care who booked it. Your agent and managers get paid. They both get paid. Plain and simple.
The above paragraph is from THIS AGENT'S VIEW by Coby B. located at: http://www.thisagentsview.com
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I re-posted the above for a few reasons. ONE, every actor needs to know this information; TWO, one time an actor signed in with their manager's info instead of ours at an audition we got for them and it all turned into a major headache for us; and THREE, we had a situation where a client told the CD that they had no agent at an audition (which we got for them) so we were not notified about further goings-on including callbacks, avails and an eventual booking (i.e., "I booked it myself!"). WTF?
LIST YOUR AGENT'S INFO DOWN AT AUDITIONS. The actor who listed their manager's info at an episodic audition (that we had gotten for them) got a callback. So of course, the CD contacted the manager and gave them the info. The manager then left a message on the actor's voicemail saying that they had a callback at 10 am. The actor didn't get the message right away and when they did, they couldn't figure out which day the callback was supposed to be -- if it was tomorrow, a Saturday or the the following Monday. The actor doubted that it was on Saturday and they couldn't get a hold of their manager because the manager had not-so-conveniently left for vacation. So then the actor contacted me later that evening to try to get the info -- the info (including a direct contact number) that I never received because THEY DIDN'T LIST THE AGENCY INFO DOWN AT THE AUDITION. And, this was after hours (for the casting office, obviously not us) and no one was answering the office phones. So needless to say, we had our work cut out for us if the actor was going to make the callback -- which, after a bit of running around going through different channels searching for private cell numbers and email addresses (I don't think the CD's were too happy about being contacted after-hours either!) -- we found out it was in fact on Saturday. (Another tip: never assume an audition can't be on a weekend!).
Save your agents a lot of time, energy and grief and list us down as the contact at auditions. Thanks!
LIST YOUR AGENT AT AUDITION SIGN-IN AND WRITE DOWN THE AGENCY ADDRESS ON PAPERWORK ON SET. A client had left the agency on good terms and we just happened to get a call for a fabulous audition for this actor the day after. So I contacted them and asked if they wanted to be sent on a last audition under L&L Talent. We thought they were perfect for the role and had a great chance of booking it, so we did it as a goodwill gesture and technically, they still had about a month left on their contract with us, so paperwork wouldn't be a problem. We really liked this person and thought this would be a great opportunity for them. (Note: We didn't have to send them on the audition and as a matter of fact most agents would have replaced them with someone else from the agency.) They said YES they wanted to go so I sent them the info and the sides in good faith and they went to the audition.
We didn't receive a callback for them so we of course thought that was the end of that. We aren't one of "those agents" who pester CD's (who have a million better things to do than tell us, "NO, this person did not get a callback.") after each and every audition. WE have other things to do as well.
Fast forward about a month and a half and I just happen to see this person on an episodic by accident. Good for them! BUT WAIT -- those lines are really familiar -- OH, I REMEMBER NOW! Turns out this person had booked the job that we sent them on! My first thought was "WOOHOO -- GREAT JOB!!!" And then my next thought was? OH, SNAP! REALLY? WHY WEREN'T WE NOTIFIED? We had found out about this completely by accident!
So this person claimed that they had honestly thought for some reason that the very day after leaving the agency they got this audition on their own and that we did not send them on it. Meaning that they didn't remember that we had been submitting them on projects for an entire year before -- up to and including the evening they left the agency. And they didn't remember that we gave them the audition info, sides, etc. (i.e., "sent them on the audition"). They had gotten auditions in the past, but just never booked anything until now. As a matter of fact, the last few submissions made for this person on the final day were to the very casting director who called them in. Coincidence? I think not.
Did they not realize that the casting director called us, their AGENT, and not THEM directly for the audition to give us the time, location, sides code and other details? That WE had to confirm the audition for them? Why? Because we were the ones who submitted them. Their excuse was that we hadn't contacted them about the callback and they hadn't heard back from us after giving them the audition info so they thought all ties had been severed and they had no obligation to the agency whatsoever. WELL, the reason we were not contacted by the casting directors after the initial audition was because this person informed the casting directors that they no longer had an agent when they signed in at the audition so we were removed from the actor's contact information. (We know for a fact that this person had a history of not listing us down as their agency from a previous audition when we talked to the casting director about someone else who had gotten a callback and were able to inquire about this person's audition as well. We were told that they didn't list any agent down at sign-in. We thought we had made it clear to everyone to list us down at auditions after that incident.) Hmmmm.
And the sad part was that listing L&L as their agent would not have been, as the saying goes, "any skin off of their back". First of all, we would have negotiated for more than what the actor was offered and secondly, we would have negotiated for "plus 10". Meaning that the agency's 10% commission would not have come out of their earnings. It would have been completely separate.
This situation was really ugly and disappointing. Yes, it happens a lot, but it should never happen. Take pride in your profession. Have some dignity. And don't go thinking we were just upset about the commission that is rightfully ours, because we weren't. It's the principle. This person books the biggest credit on their resume to date and they didn't even tell us about it or acknowledge or at least THANK us for all the work we had done for an entire year without any compensation whatsoever to get it for them. This was hurtful, dishonest and just uncool.
So...
THE GOLDEN RULE: List your AGENCY's contact information and address at sign-in for auditions and on the paperwork on set -- never disclose YOUR personal info at auditions and CHECKS ALWAYS GO TO YOUR AGENT. As posted before, listing your agency information is the best and quickest way to get the correct and proper information (e.g. callbacks, avails, bookings) and also protects you from incorrect payments, solicitations and STALKERS!
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Being an agent is a tough and sometimes thankless job, as are most jobs in this industry. Almost as tough and thankless as being an actor.
So we want to take another opportunity right now to say THANK YOU to our actors.
THANK YOU ACTORS, FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK, PERSISTENCE, PATIENCE AND DEDICATION!!! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!
Xoxo
Mahalo.
I Love this! So much great info. It is so important to have an honest realationship with your agent, you need to work together and trust each other.
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