Playing the Percentages: An Inside Look at Agents by Michael Ruscio Growing up in a house full of actors, I often heard show business jokes. One that stayed with me goes like this: An actor and an agent fall out of a 12-story window. Who lands first? Answer: Who cares? I've often wondered if this sentiment traveled to editors, so I met with six fellow guild members - Neil Mandelberg, A.C.E., Ed Rothkowitz, A.C.E., Rick Shaine, A.C.E., Lisa Bromwell, Maysie Hoy, A.C.E., and Jay Cassidy - to share thoughts about agent representation. Here's an edited version of the discussion that ensued: Neil Mandelberg: I hired the first agent to introduce me to people I didn't know. For me the conversation was, "Look, I've been very fortunate, and in the world of television I keep working. I'll keep the income coming, you expand my horizons." Ed Rothkowitz: I've never had an agent, and every time I consider getting one I feel three plateaus lower than the agent. I'm looking at it like, wow, I must have something that they want. How did you get your agent? Rick Shaine: I had something that they wanted. I had cut 'Crossing Delancey', which was top of the Variety list for a week or two in the doldrums of August, and a friend of mine said, "Hey, you should strike while the iron is hot." Lisa Bromwell: When I first moved here [from New York], I didn't know anybody. My only credits were second editor on a couple of big movies. I talked to one agent who looked at my resumé and said, "You know, your credits don't mean shit. You'll probably never get a job." If you want to be depressed, start looking for a new agent. Maysie Hoy Maysie Hoy: I'd finished a high-profile movie as second editor. Different agencies would get interested when they heard the [name of the] show, but then when I said I was the second editor they immediately turned off. When an agent finally started representing me, I was with him for about four years. Lisa: My first agent had a lot of Oscar-winning editors. He told me, "I believe in you and I'll do what I can." I wasn't in Local 776 then because I was 771 and needed the hours before I could join [Local 776], and he was honest enough to say, "You're with the wrong person. I don't have connections in the non-union world for you." Jay Cassidy: My experience was entirely different. The agent came to me and I said, "No, no, no." I'd had a lawyer dealing with that sort of thing. Then I got another job, and she came back six months later and asked again, and I said, "Oh, well, OK." Michael: That seems like a dream situation. Did your career change very much after signing with them? Jay: It continued in the direction it was going, but I'm certainly glad she was there. That shibboleth that they will either get you the work or they won't I don't think is part of the equation. The work you're doing will get you the next thing, and the people that you know and have impressed in your career become the references. I think "agent" is the proper word. It's not salesman, in a sense. Maysie: The jobs that I know I'm gonna get are not cold interviews. But if someone sees my work and says, "Oh, we want to see her because we love her work," then I know that I've got a 50-50 chance. Michael: Has your agency negotiated better financial deals for you? Jay: Yeah. I'd probably be a bad negotiator. I'm so glad to be working in this business, don't tell the nasty secret that I'd do it for nothing it's so much fun. But there's an element where studios have set certain precedents, like putting the editor in the billing block on the DVD and cassette [something the agent would generally handle], and that's good for the editing profession as a whole. Michael: If you had an inside track on a project, when would you get your agent involved? Rick Shaine Rick: Not until the director told me specifically that he wanted me to do the job. At that point, hopefully they'd be very helpful in negotiating a good deal and setting up the parameters of the job. I think you have to feel that agents will open things up. Maysie: The second time I was looking for an agent, I sent out resumés to five agencies and got one response. I asked them, "When you get a job, do you send [all of your editors] out? If that's the case, I don't want to be with you." I didn't want to be with a big agency, because they have their star editors who always get the call. At this smaller agency, they told me, "It's like putting people together." Ed: Once you've been in television for a while, you find you have your own network. Michael: Do television editors need agents? Lisa: I think television editors probably don't. I've done features and some television. The only reason I got the television job was because I knew the executive producer, and from that job I still get a lot of calls that don't go through my agent. Now I'm really trying to build a feature career. What's most important to me from my agent is that they continue to keep my name alive in the feature world, because everybody just looks at the last job you did. Neil: And the way they pay editors in television has declined over the last couple of years. I think most of us are probably still fighting for the same money we made x number of years ago. And if an agent cannot negotiate your rate plus theirs and they're not introducing you to people, then where is the benefit? Ed: The only time I consider an agent now is when I'm working. When you're off, people don't want to talk to you. Lisa: If you sit back and think that your agent's going to get you the next job, well, they're not. I call my agent, if not every day then every other day, to talk about what she's got on her breakdowns, what we think we can go for. When you're trying to build a career, anybody who knows even just two more people, that's two more people that I have a possibility of getting in the door with. Rick: One of the things I've found is that you have to be very careful if you don't want to get typecast. For instance, I did the first 'Nightmare on Elm Street' and then all I got offered were horror movies. After I did another film, they would say, "Well, you can only do romantic comedy." Maysie: After 'The Joy Luck Club', my agent tried to get me black comedy and action-adventure, and producers would say, "Well, she only cuts minority women's films." I go, "Gee, there are a lot of those. I oughta leave the country." What I learned from that was to make choices that have shown versatility. Michael Ruscio Jay: The marketplace is fairly small at any given time, so if you want to work, you look at what's there. I'll read certain scripts and know that I've got nothing to contribute, so I tell the agent, "Don't even bother," because I think one has to recognize what one's good at. You're hired because of your taste. When you're working with a director whose taste is simpatico, you find that director may want you for another thing or will say to another director, "I like this person's taste." It may be heresy to say this, but I just don't believe [one editor] can do everything. If you don't recognize that, there's a little bit of self delusion and wondering, "How come I didn't get that job." And maybe you shouldn't have gotten that job because in your heart you didn't like it, but you said you did just for the work. Neil: It is never just the agent's responsibility. We are very much involved in our own careers. If a relationship with an agent is not working, it's two-sided. It's just like being wed to somebody. Michael: When you find that your relationship is faltering, is it worth going into counseling, or is it better just to leave? Neil: It's always worth trying to better the situation. You don't walk away without trying to see if you can correct the miscommunication, but I think the strength is being willing and able to say it's time to move on. Lisa: Another way of seeing if an agent is good is to ask a producer who will honestly tell you, because they deal with all of these agents. Maysie: When I was looking I called up different heads of studios and asked, "Who do you like dealing with?" Jay: An editor getting hired on a theatrical film has to be approved by a studio executive. Sometimes they want you on the creative level but they're having trouble on the internal resell. An agent is often very helpful in differentiating between what's going on with a particular person at the studio who may or may not like or approve you. Michael: When you had a lawyer, how was that different? Jay: It's totally mechanical. Just for negotiation of the employment contract. Neil: Was it a one-time fee? Jay: Yeah. Rick: I had a lawyer in the very beginning. He represented a lot of New York "A" list editors. I hadn't worked for a while and finally landed a job. When I turned it over to this guy, he wanted to start my negotiation way higher than I thought it should be. So it was a little bit of a problem that the lawyer didn't quite know as much as an agent, in terms of the lay of the land. But he would push for certain things. For instance, he got me a point participation on the film, something I never got through an agent. But this lawyer had learned that he could do that with his clients. Michael: Do you know which other editors are with your agency? Maysie: I wanted to know. My agency has less than 10 editors but many production designers and DPs. Once those people get hired, there's a ripple effect that reaches down to editors. Neil: When I met with my last agency, I asked that question and they gave me a list of every editor they represented and said, "Feel free to call and have conversations with them because that's part of how we sell ourselves." Rick: Which brings up another interesting question. A friend of mine who is on the same level as I am was unhappy with his agent and said to me, "You seem pretty happy now. Would you recommend I talk to your agency?" Then you have a possible conflict of friendship and professional interest. Michael: In the end it's all about relationships, be it friend, agent, producer or director. Maysie: Yes, once again it's communication. You have to say, "Here's where I want to be in five years, here are the kind of movies I want to do. Can you help me with these goals?" If they can't, then you've got to go and find somebody else that will. More On This Subject: EditorsNet Article: Agents in Today's Editing Job Market' Guild Members Only Section: List of Agencies for Editors   Michael Ruscio is an editor. He also teaches courses on editing at the American Film Institute, and can be reached via email   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 20, No. 2 - March/April 1999   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700