Talent agent  

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A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers, broadcast journalists, and other people in various entertainment and broadcast businesses. An agent also defends, supports and promotes the interest of his/her clients. A talent agent must be familiar with their clients. An agent has to know what kind of work the client can and cannot do in order to match them with various jobs. Talent agencies specialize, either with departments within the agency or entire agencies that primarily or wholly represent one specialty. For example, there are modeling agencies, commercial talent agencies, literary agencies, voice-over agencies, broadcast journalist agencies, sports or music agencies and more.

Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs. In many cases casting directors, or other businesses, go to talent agencies to find artists they are looking for. The agent is paid a percentage of the star's earnings (typically 10%). Agents sometimes will be referred to as "10 percenters." There are different regulations that govern different types of agents that are established by artist's unions and the legal jurisdiction in which the agent operates. There are also professional organizations that license talent agencies.

Since the decline in viewership in theaters, from the 1950s to 1960s, a monumental shift occurred in how studios produced films and reduced the cost of exclusive and expensive actors. After the shift, actors and actresses were working for the studios but were not owned by one major studio entity, and so were able to work on within their time and with other studios. Because of this, agents were now seen as a necessity instead of an option. Agents became third parties who negotiated between studios and clients, making the need for the agents' services an imperative for each party.

In California, because talent agencies are working with lucrative contracts, the agencies must be licensed under special sections of the California Labor Code, which defines an agent as a "person or corporation who engages in the occupation of procuring, offering, promising, or attempting to procure employment for artist or artists."

See also

Entertainment unions




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Talent agent" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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