Agents, Agents Everywhere ....

So last week was a busy one. I've been meeting with theatrical agents (and I'm referring here, you understand, to their vocational calling rather than their personas). Anyway it's a bit early to get side-tracked so... as you know I've been going on about various agents for a couple of months now it seems, so if, like me, you're losing track of all the agent talk and who represents me for what ... at the moment it looks like this:

UK Agent: BWH (Joe Hutton and Bill Petrie (or Bill & Ted if as far as mum and dad are concerned))
US Manager: Schachter Entertainment (Brantley Brown)
US Commercial Agent: Innovative Artists(Michele De La Riva)
US VoiceOver Agent: Innovative Artists  (Luanne Regis)
US Theatrical Agent: ............. [drumroll] .......... Domain Talent (Gabrielle Krengel)

And it's this gap that we were able to fill this week. After a constant barrage of emails from me, as well as new headshots, coupled with the end of pilot season mayhem, my manager set me up meetings with some 'boutique' (code for 'small') agencies for potential representation.

Now this may come as as a suprise to some but I would rather be an hour early for a meeting than a minute late. As such I spend a fair bit of time waiting for the appropriate moment before heading in to a meeting. Nobody however could have anticipated my turning up A WEEK early to my first agency appointment. Impressive, no!?? Only the head honcho, the guy who started the organisation! was in the office at the time and as luck would have it, we had a laugh about it, had a quite long chat anyway and he told me to come back again next week so I could meet with the rest of the team.

I've met with all the arranged agencies since, all with very different feels to them and it was pretty much the same set up each time and I was given the same ever-useful advice from my manager each time - be yourself only far more charming.

Anyway it was at this first meeting that the head agent said that he'd rung the casting director of my last audition (on my manager's suggestion) and that she raved about me. Which was news to me. I don't tend to hear my feedback so this was doubly nice to get. So I am doing it right!! Admittedly I was playing a well spoken MI6 agent - so not TOO far out of my remit but I'll take the praise none the less. Anyway all this goes to explain what I've been up to this week. Now all these informal chats went well, but I got the distinct feeling the same conversations would have gone down even better if my resumé had been more impressive.

Anyway I found myself today in the unlikely situation of being offered representation at three of the prospective agencies and after consulting with my manager and UK agent we unanimously settled on Domain Talent, who seem to have a great work ethic, stunning offices and agents I really got on with. This is great news and I'm ecstatic but I'm also under no illusions - you can't pay the rent with representation alone -if that were the case, I'd be driving my 67 Mustang by now - but hopefully it brings me lots of opportunities and the rest as they say is up to me.

Thanks for looking in guys.

p.s. If you missed my blog update yesterday about my new headshots be sure to check out the older posts in the right side-bar or just click here.

New Headshots

Having signed with a commercials agent recently I was encouraged to get some new headshots taken. Now if you're anything like as cynical me, alarm bells should be sounding around about this time. My current headshots were a little 'theatrical' apparently. I decided to do a bit of research and see what my contemporaries were sporting in the way of promotional shots to see if there was any credence to this view, or whether they were just looking to re-brand me (not as painful as it sounds). A month or two prior to my coming over to LA I'd had some headshots taken by an excellent photographer in conjunction with a shoot my girlfriend and I did for Cosmopolitan Magazine: and seeing as I was quite happy with these (my first techni-colour headshots (which is how they do them over here)) - I was reluctant to bite the bullet on some new ones.


I took a gander at the sort of looks everyone else had. Well, they all had more than one shot for starters and showed a variety of styles which I guess gives them scope for a wider variety of roles. Also, they seemed to be much less serious in expression than any of those I'd had taken, or seen among my industry friends in the UK, so it seems, to use the vernacular, "it's a totally different ball game out here." This was reinforced by my manager who told me to make sure that whatever looks I was hoping to achieve for my new commercial representation, I ought to get a few 'looks' in the leading man mould while I was at it.

I was given a long list of reputable photographers within the industry, so I set about critiquing all of their portfolios for something that I aspired to or appreciated stylistically: their use of lighting, their choice of backdrop, composition, whether they made a distinction between commercial shots and theatrical ones, and of course their price range. I saw a familiar face on one of their websites so asked my mate what he thought of the guy who'd taken his:

"Oh he's great. He'll make you look Like a 9! Not the 4 you are!!"

Praise indeed. I didn't actually go with this guy in the end. It's a very personal and subjective process and I wanted to make damn sure that I didn't saddle myself with anything I wasn't going to be happy with. In this way, Headshots are like a form of marriage: all too often people don't know what they're signing up for. And, to stretch the metaphore, it's really something you only wanna do once. Or at least with a few years gap inbetween.

Most photographers in L.A. set their prices based on the number of 'looks' (changes of clothes) you go for and give you a 10" x 8" for each one (charging for post-shoot re-touches on top). So it's an expensive business and everything can stack up. But, It's also a necessary tool - your first form of marketing in the brand that is 'you' - Yep! Before your demo reel and before your résumé, it's the first point of contact and the first hurdle. I know that I'm preaching like a "how to approach acting as a business" book but this much makes sense to me. So for whatever reasons (and the inherent narcissism that all actors profess to deny aside) you want them to be as good as they can be, so I deemed them worth paying a little more for.

I took a load of screen grabs of the sorts of shots I was hoping to recreate and ran them past my new agent to check we were all on the same page. I had nightmares of... (and these nightmares are figurative you understand - I sleep like a baby) so ...yeah, figurative nightmares about being really happy with the shots, telling the photographer so, and then having to backtrack when they were vetoed by the 'top brass.' Thankfully this wasn't to be.

I decided on Peter Konerko (who had great shots and a really smart website too which didn't hurt) and cannot recommend him highly enough to anyone considering a similar shoot. He took a great variety of shots; theatrical and commercial with backdrops that suited each different styling and, instead of constraining the shoot by charging per look, we discussed what we aimed to get out of it and worked until we'd got it. He even recreated exactly, the shot I was most hoping to get, and I'm pleased to say this is the one my manager has chosen to front my profile on all LA casting formats.

  

 

A Day at the Gun Range

Massively excited. We were off to the gun range. "LAX Gun Club" no less. Having looked into our options, we steered clear of Inglewood's range - twice the price with half the chance of survival - and settled for LA's top spot.

We rocked up at the same time as some kids with a 'Call Of Duty' bumper sticker on their car and Tshirts to match. Did they think this was some kind of computer game where no one can get hurt? I had visions of having to duck for cover and then lay down the law myself but for now at least, everything seemed fine.

At the counter was a vast array of guns... Just Vast. After some indecision, (I was initially tempted by the Colt and then the Smith & Wesson) I eventually settled for the one which seemed to fit my hand the best - a Beretta 9mm. But, before I could even lock and load the thing, I had to be vetted as responsible enough to wield a deadly weapon. I remembered from the only other experience I had of doing this, how strict they were in Vegas, and how you were barely given time to think, let alone load and fire! I braced for the onslaught.

"Name...

Address...
Do you promise promise promise you're mentally stable and won't go 'Columbine' on us?
Great. Lane five is free. What target d'you want?"

'The Barrel' & 'Left Eye Louis' last seen 1998.

'The Red Light Girls' & 'Bullseye' last seen 2001.

Holding my trusty Beretta instantly took me back to my days as a dirty cop working the beat. I cast my tired eyes over the potential 'targets,' saddened at how many of these no-good paper perps I'd put away in my time. Always the same old faces. Nothing changes in this town. Such a waste. And then I saw it. An infamous mugshot up on the wall. But it couldn't be!!!....

"The PaperMan" and I had history. He was wanted for a litany of two-dimensional crimes all over town. Always armed and incredibly dangerous. My orders were to "shoot on site" and I wasn't gonna take any chances (he had gotten away from me once in 2004 when a skirmish in Vegas went South. I wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.) I turned that sucker into a Swiss cheese. Or so I'd thought. But here he was! I guess nothing stays dead in this town. My slacks were dirty and I had three-day whiskey breath but looking at the hit-list on the wall, I had work to do... I tracked him to a smokey dive bar in China town. He wasn't talking so now I'd strung him up. He wasn't going anywhere. it was time to administer some rough justice and I was gonna enjoy this.

If you're on an Apple device click here for video.

And it's incredible - the rush of power, the triumph over your paper nemesis, the self-belief that you ARE John McClane. And suddenly, the absolute certainty that you can only afford one weapon is long forgotten. No self-respecting vigilante would confine himself to one firearm! The Matrix wasn't over-thrown with a single beretta. No sir. Anyway we must have made our way back to the front desk as I now found myself at the counter demanding:

"What's the biggest thing you've got?"

The owner gave us a wry smile and recommended the "DRAGUNOV 7.62" - a semi-automatic sniper rifle: Presumably derived from the Russian - Драгунова: "to blow the head clean off something." As I followed the man's gaze, the ceiling parted, bathing the instrument of death in a heavenly glow that drew me like a moth to a flame. Anyway I must have agreed to pay for it as it was now in the crook of my shoulder, aimed at my arch-nemesis (why won't he die!).

(The Remains of "The Paper Man")

The sheer power you wield at that moment is awesome, in the true sense. If the grim reaper were to cast away his scythe, we would surely meet our maker with the earth-cracking boom of a Dragunov, ringing in the place our ears used to be. The 'Call of Duty' boys heralded us as Gods among men, suddenly shamed by their own selections. And you can understand why - The recoil is staggering, the noise it kicks off is incredible - to the point where people were coming over from other lanes to see what it was we were firing - and the flash from the muzzle is enough to make a lesser man blink. The spent cartridges are ejected so quickly that the ricochet off the side wall caught me on the side of the head (you can see it in the video if you're looking) and hit me hard enough to leave a war wound. So I guess playing with guns CAN be dangerous!!

(War Wound - Lawsuit Pending)