Your job profile as an agent for actors will involve helping the actors in your client portfolio land good roles in films by providing them the best liaison service between various movie production studios and their professional expertise.
Here’s where to begin:
Step 1: Understand the job profile of an actor’s agent
In order to continuously source good roles for your acting clients, you need to understand the hard work involved in your job profile, which can also be fun and lucrative for you besides coming with other job perks.
Some of these include getting to view pre-releases of movies, opportunity to network with global media professionals, invites to media functions, dinners and promotion events where you can build your people skills and land more roles for your clients, based on your social etiquette and negotiation skills.
Step 2: Acquire basic college education, overview of filmmaking and PR skills
Apart from talent spotting and knowing a few studio heads, acquire a basic college education to help secure a day job that will support you while you build relations in the media world. Also take additional courses in PR, celebrity management, psychology etc. that will help you handle various aspects of your client’s acting career.
So, choose from a Liberal Arts degree to creative undergraduate course at an accredited film school where you can learn basics of movie making. You can also opt for a degree in communications that will help build on written and verbal integrated media skills.
Accountancy or Math courses also help talent agents to negotiate and manage the client’s acting income, additional publicity related endorsements that boost financial returns for a role besides basic psychology knowledge that helps the agent deal with their client’s emotions.
Step 3: Get some in house experience by Interning at a top film studio
Try to attend college or get an intern job with a leading film studio in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York. Here you can network, acquire basic experience during your summer job, complete your college degree with a valid internship record and possibly even bag a referral letter.
Working every summer during your 3 year degree course or even a few months at the end of the undergrad program, then getting the all-important reference letter from the studio head will help you build a strong resume and get a foot into an established talent agency’s door.
Step 4: Work as a Personal Assistant in an established talent agency to gain more experience
Work as a Personal Assistant to executives with a known talent agency to pick up additional skills for becoming an agent for actors. Here you will have access to the agency’s method of operating, handling of client contracts as well as professionals, besides learning the art of savvy negotiations to constantly bag new clients.
Step 5: Working independently for promoting new actors as a film agent
The job market is competitive for film agents so you may need to hold on to your talent agency job till the time you can launch out on your own.
Use your PA period at the agency for networking and interacting with the firm’s clients. Put in extra hours, bag that agent position in the agency and save enough money to invest in a basic office set up to work independently for promoting new actors or those you can wean away from the agency, once you have proven negotiation skills and strong movie industry connections.
