The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

A Talent Agent

So--you want to be an agent? That's not going to be easy--way more people want to do that than there are openings, so you'll probably have to take a shot at starting your own agency and getting lucky. It's maybe a little better odds than the lottery, but not much.

First of all, you'll need to find the ideal location. Big cities, like L.A. or New York, have an overabundance of agents, all struggling to find something for an overabundance of actors. Small cities are often too far away from where the work is happening. You need something in between--somewhere where the shooting locations and tax laws bring in movie business, but where you have an advantage of being able to find local talent quickly.

The big agencies in the big cities will provide all the main talent, of course, but you can help find the small roles--so you'll need a certain type of clientele. Quirky character actors--the ones who can be mumbling shopping cart street people, or concentration camp guards--anyone who's versatile and not too proud will work. You'll also need bimbos. Hollywood, whether at home or shooting away, knows the value of gratuitious nudity and knows that minor, background characters should be attractive--we're so conditioned to see beautiful people filling in the extra roles that anyone unappealing draws our eye and distracts us from the main characters and the plot lines.

Of course, you can't tell the ones you hire that they're destined to remain "filler" for the few projects that wander into town; instead, you'll feed their dreams like a pickup artist at last call. If you actually succeed in getting any work for anyone, this makes you "legitimate", and they'll be beating down your door to get you to look at them.

You'll find your line of sliminess--don't think you'll be able to keep your integrity without ever slipping--you're going to be the target of every 18 year old wannabe starlet in town, and you'd best be careful; when the movie cast and crew leaves town you're still there amid the shattered dreams and crumbling self-esteem. The truly desperate and rejected can be unpredictable...

You'll find your niche--staffing car shows and rich kid's birthday parties will keep a little money rolling in, and you'll figure out the whole "talent search" scam where you charge for your "expenses" in putting together portfolios for aspiring performers. You will work out side deals with small time recording studios to send your clients for demo cds, and a local beauty parlour will give you kickbacks for sending them your customers before you bring them in for their photo shoots.

That comfortable niche is why the end will suprise you. Some "arthouse" film will show up paying little but offering bigger roles than usual, and you'll find yourself in the awkward position of explaining to an ingenue that those risqué and demeaning things they want her to do are part of the "artistic integrity"of the movie--"Think of 'Brown Bunny'" you'll hear yourself say, and then hope you're never part of something like that again.

The predictable happens, and when the film debuts in the local theatre--it played in 30 theatres for an average of 5 days before going to video--her whole extended family dresses up and fills half the movie house. Before the show is over, there will be tears, a minor heart attack, and recriminations which eventually lead to the conclusion that you should be lynched.

You'll be warned by a friend and go to ground for a few weeks until things simmer down. That's why you won't be expecting the sniper shot through your kitchen window a few months later that leaves you hooked up to machines until your savings run out and your family decides to give you a dignified end by switching off the power.

With so many well motivated suspects, they'll never find your killer.

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