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Posted by: Roger (66.108.246.108) on November 01, 2002 at 08:02:48
Location: NYC
In Reply to: a mistaken opinion of me...continuing posted by Layla on November 01, 2002 at 02:26:48:
: I would really love to hear from talent working or not and agents, managers as well
Layla, I own a model and talent management company in New York City: the brick-and-mortar kind that makes its money solely by getting work for models and, increasingly, actors. We also have a website that some of our clients use to hire models from, and I have a lot of experience with clients' reactions to that kind of process.
Although I don't agree with all the reasons given by others in this thread, I concur that what you are proposing is not a good idea.
1. Clients, casting directors and photographers on a timeline for a commercial shoot don't go cruising anybody's website looking for talent. There are rare exceptions to that, always low-paying jobs and usually on a leisurely schedule that is not typical of the industry. In the production schedule usually hiring models or talent is one of the last things done. They don't have time to screw around with it, they need to do it efficiently, quickly and reliably. Let me give you an example: a major high tech company called us yesterday to set up a go-see for talent today, will choose the models today and will shoot them tomorrow. That's a little faster than normal, but not all that much.
2. Reliability is a key. Getting listed on a website is easy - so easy that anyone can do it on a whim. Anyone who has used OMP or any of the other sites knows that the probability of finding a model on it, getting them to a casting the next day, and having them show up for a shoot is not all that great. In the commercial modeling business it has to be assured. That's one of the primary purposes of an agency: to provide guarantees to clients that the model will do what they say, when they say. Can you do that? We have to.
3. Making it easy is a key. With one phone call a client can make 30 people show up for a casting the next day. All of them will be reasonably close to what he is looking for; all of them will be professionals who know what is expected of them; all of them have the backing of an agency who will fix problems when they arise. Can you do that?
4. Dealing with special needs is a problem. Earlier this week I had a casting for Chinese men in their 50s or 60s who were smokers. Will you know if your actors are smokers? Or if they play golf, are willing to undergo acupuncture, or have a passport? Are they available the date of the casting, and of the shoot? All of those have come up recently. You have to know those things, and a lot more, because the client will make decisions based on them.
Even if you can get mainstream CDs or clients to use your site, if they find that they have to do the job of an agent (all the sorting through availability, skills, communications problems) they will rapidly lose interest and call someone who will do it for them. You can't do it for them at the prices you intend to charge. It's very common for a client to make one phone call to us that ties up two members of my staff for a full day, finding people qualified to do his job. He isn't going to do that, and at "$20s" neither are you.
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