Mother Agencies
The job of the “mother agent” (who might be a man or a corporation, and might be called a “Personal Manager”) is to prepare you for the market and introduce you to people who can get you work. A good Mother Agent will know how to evaluate your look against the types used in modeling and advise you on changes you need to make. He will have a stable of
photographers who can shoot in the style you need and a printer who can make composite cards for you. It is common for mother agencies to have relationships with agencies in larger markets, either in the US or overseas. They act as filters for these larger markets, finding, preparing and sending models that they believe are suitable for those markets.
The positives
A good mother agency can save you from paying for bad pictures and the trouble of going to agencies in a bigger city if
you are not suitable; can prepare an effective composite and portfolio and give you experience to help you be successful in the larger market; can open doors for you when you arrive, so you are not just one more pretty face at an open call, and can arrange for support when you arrive at another city. Through all of this they offer experienced advice to help you deal with the problems you face. In addition, many of them can get you local work until you are ready to go on to the larger market.
The negatives
A mother agency gets a cut (typically 5% to 10%) of your earnings from the larger agencies. In times gone by it used to be
that the mother agency commission didn’t come out of your pay, but from the booking agency commission. Now mother agencies often take their cut from the model (or from both the model and the booking agency). So why pay that money? It’s a lot cheaper to get some pictures done, send them to agencies or go to open calls on your own.
Should you have a Mother Agency?
Here’s when it makes sense, and when it doesn’t: If you are in a moderate sized market city, working with a booking agency there can also get you prepared for «the big city». If you are living in an area with a good local mother agency that you can see routinely, who can take the months to develop you for a major market, and who can open doors for you, it makes sense. They are your safety net at home for when the big, bad booking agency in the big, bad city doesn’t seem to be doing what you need, or you don’t understand what is happening. Your mother agent knows you, knows the culture you came from, and can help you and your family understand what is happening. When it doesn’t seem to make sense is when you are already living in the major market city or when the «mother agent» is far from you. In the first case, you can go to the open calls on your own, seek advice from the agencies you see, and use it to find photographers or other services you need. You don’t need a mother agency; you just need to know where the booking agencies are and how to approach them. In the second case, if you are hundreds or thousands of miles from the «mother agent» they can’t do much more than you can do for yourself. Unless you are willing to move to where they are all they can do is give you generalized advice and «development». A mother agency must have a long term relationship with the model, and know the model and her family very well — or there is little use in having one. There is an exception: where the model and the «mother agency» are both in remote areas but the mother agent has good contacts, such as overseas, where the model might want to work.
In this case the mother agent can help with understanding the demands of working in a different culture, and can smooth the legal and cultural difficulties. There is an alternative to the advice role of a mother agency. Books on modeling have long been available, but they were incomplete resources at best that didn’t always answer a model’s questions. In the last few years the appearance of Internet forums devoted to mainstream modeling has greatly improved things. Now models can find a wealth of knowledge that used to be known only to the few, and can ask questions about the industry from models, parents, makeup artists and agents who are actually in the business, all for free or nearly so. Users of the best of those
forums should not find that a mother agency is necessary. All of the above discussion has assumed we were talking about real, good mother agencies. Certainly there are many of them, but there are a lot more that are scams or simply useless.
The worst of them also find other ways to make money at your expense: setting up photo shoots with “their photographers”,
putting you in models apartments at inflated prices and fees for various services. It can be difficult to tell the bad from the good, since many good agencies do similar-appearing things. But a little common sense goes a long way. Ask yourself some questions:
1. Does the mother agency really have an opportunity to work with me for a long time and really get to know me and my
problems?
2. Does the mother agent have years of work in the industry in a major market? In this time of ready access to information it’s smart to ask, «Why do I need to pay for this?» when so much information and so many support services are available free to models.
Managers
The term “manager” can mean many things. At the beginning of a model’s career “managers” are the same thing as
“mother agents”. As the career develops a manager may have very different roles: managers may handle the business affairs of a model, including collecting his fees, managing his investments, advising him on the course of his career, and developing the model in different aspects of modeling and performing, recommending and scheduling classes, getting pictures done, and dealing with the press. Sometimes “manager” and “publicist” become close to the same thing. For the most part managers do not book work for models – that’s done by agencies. Agencies tend to think of managers as nuisances or necessary evils; models may feel they need the manager to protect them from the Big Bad Agency. The relationships can be cooperative or quite confrontational. To an agent, that manager is best which is heard from least. Some agencies refuse to deal with models who have intrusive managers. If you feel the need for a manager, bear in mind that it could affect getting and keeping an agency. Managers normally take a percentage of the earnings of the model (10-15% is common) on top of whatever the agency commission on fees is.
Agencies
“Agency” vs. “Model Management Company”
Throughout these pages we use the term “agent” in the common sense meaning. In New York City (and some other places) many “agencies” really are not agencies at all – they are “model management companies.” In fact, none of the famous
“model agencies” in New York are really agencies; there may not be any real model agencies in New York City (although there are many “talent agencies” which deal with actors and other performers, and some model management companies with “talent agency” divisions.) There is a difference in what agencies and model management companies do, and in the way they are treated by law and by union contracts. Talent agencies have a fairly simple job: to find work for their models. They may find it useful to invest some effort in advising models on what to put into their books and other things a model needs to know, but that is not their primary function. By law in New York, or if franchised by a performers union, they are limited to a 10% commission on their models work. Model management companies, by contrast, are responsible for managing all aspects of a model’s career, and to provide a much wider range of services. In New York they typically charge
a 20% commission from their models. In cities where model management companies act as booking agencies, it is not unusual for a model to have a “personal manager” who then deals with her “management companies” who act as both managers and booking agents. It’s enough to make the head hurt with all the overlapping functions.
In this book we will not be precise about the terminology unless we are specifically discussing the differences between true
agencies and booking management companies. In common language they are both “agencies” and we shall treat them that
way.
What Agencies Do For Models
Getting Work for Models
Agencies make their primary income from commissions on modeling work. If they fail at that they can’t pay the rent. They
advertise themselves and their models, make and maintain relationships with people who hire models, find job opportunities, match models to the opportunities and send the models off to see people who have modeling jobs. Then the model wins the job or doesn’t.
Advice
An agency will advise a model on the work he is suited for and how he can prepare for it. The agency will suggest haircuts
and coloring, styling, grooming when needed, and may suggest photographers, health spas, hair salons, print shops and other support companies as needed. A model ignores the advice of his agent at his peril.
Model Sharing
No model agency can satisfy every possible client request. The fertile minds at advertising agencies come up with far too
many unusual types for any model agency to have them all. So agencies have sharing agreements with other agencies. Acme Model Agency and Awning Supply Company may find that they don’t have enough Chinese basketball players on their roster, and call up Wong’s Model Agency and Noodle House (hey, the modeling business is tough — agencies may have to do something else on the side to stay afloat) for the models they need. Which is why a model signed to Wong’s may get a call from her booker asking him to go to a go-see at the gym, but to sign in as an Acme model. In situations like that the agencies negotiate how they will split commissions, and the model should get exactly the same net pay as if Wong’s had gotten the original casting call. Sometimes those shared jobs can be from an agency in a distant city. It’s not unusual for a New York agency to supply models to a small-city agency to meet a difficult request.
Logistic Support
Some agencies go far beyond providing advice and job leads. They may provide housing in “model’s apartments,” advance money to the model for airfare, pictures and portfolios or visa applications for foreign models. They may store a model’s
portfolios at the agency office and courier (or FEDEX) them to clients. They may also give a model his net pay (less advanced
expenses) immediately after a job is completed, instead of waiting for the client to pay them. Any of these services might come at a price; fashion agencies typically mark up the cost of each of these and charge the model for them. At some agencies the model’s apartments are a significant source of revenue. Many people are under the misimpression that agencies always do these kinds of things for their models. In fact, they are relatively rare. An agency which has a non-exclusive relationship with its models may do none of them. An agency with exclusive contracts is more likely to provide some or all of those services, but still may not, or may do it very selectively. Models should not assume any of this kind of support will be made available to them. If you need it, ask about it and don’t be surprised if the answer is no.
Financial Services
Agencies will also provide a range of financial support services: invoicing clients for work done, following up to assure
payment, and even bringing a lawsuit if necessary to force a client to pay. They will also provide you with end-of-year tax forms like 1099s to show how much money you made through them.
Training for Models
Although many of the “craft of modeling” skills are acquired through experience on the job and in tests, sometimes a model
does need training in a specific skill. Agencies may produce training aids, have in-house seminars or put models in touch with private tutors for things like runway and photographic modeling. Such training usually is at modest or no cost to the model. Fashion agencies may also send models abroad to places like Milan and Paris for experience and to build their portfolios. The major European modeling markets have many more fashion magazines than does America, and it’s often possible to jump start a career by spending a few months in Europe.
What Agencies Do for Clients
The simplest version is: they get models to them. It sounds simple and helpful, but not extraordinary. Clients should be able
to do it for themselves, if they wished. Yes they can, but . . . .
True stories:
Job One
A major national news magazine calls an agency on Tuesday afternoon. They want a model for their cover, but she had to
actually be the kind of person they to write their cover story about. It wasn’t the kind of model data the agency keeps, so they ended up calling 75 models to find out who qualified, and then had extensive conversations with each of the four candidates who got through the first screening. The client needed comp cards in her office Tuesday evening, and she got them by special courier. Later the agency found two models who hadn’t made the cut in time for the courier run, and the client looked at them on the agency Internet site, but it was harder for them to be considered. She needed paper to take to the production meeting Wednesday morning. Final selection was done right from the comp cards, based on those pictures and the conversations the client had with the agency. Thursday morning two of agency’s models went in for a paid shoot. The following Monday one of them was on the cover of the magazine at a news-stand near you.
It’s customary for agencies to charge clients a 20% service charge for models. When it’s not explicitly stated at the beginning of a casting conversation, the agency will confirm it with the client, just to avoid surprises.
That happened in this case, and the agency got a nice response: «I’m happy to pay that fee; it saved me making all those
phone calls. I like being able to pick up the phone and make one call and get what I need instead of having to find it myself.»
More than that, there were three qualified backup models who were available for the shoot if something happened to their
first choices. They were ready to get to the shoot in very short order if necessary, and the client knew it. It’s part of what the
20% fee is all about. The agency made nearly 200 phone calls for that one job. They got paid a «premium price» for that service,
and everyone involved was happy about it.
Please note the timeline in the story above — it’s pretty common in the commercial print business. Clients don’t have time
to wait for hours or days for someone to return an email. They want an answer NOW for a shoot in a day or two.
Sophisticated clients understand that they are buying more than «a model» from an agency. They are buying service,
guarantees, backup models and assistance in making the shoot come together. That’s what they pay for, and it’s what they expect to get.
Job 2
The agency had a website that showed their models to prospective clients. Between half and a third of their business
came from the site, either because a client found it on his own and chose models he wanted to hire, or because the agency referred a client to the site as a step in picking models. In that way it almost sounds like an “Internet Agency”, but it’s not.
An international airline with its ad agency in Los Angeles wanted to do a photo shoot at JFK airport in New York. They
didn’t want to fly in models from Los Angeles. They wanted good, professional models at the shoot. New York models. So they
researched New York agency Websites, decided on one, and through email indicated an interest in several of the agency’s
people. The agency called the people they were interested in, determined their availability on the proposed shoot dates, and
after the client had settled on the four models they wanted to hire, handled the logistic and administrative details with the models. Part of the conversation with the client was through email (which is better for passing on lists of data) and part through telephone calls (which is more immediate and better for negotiations). In no case did the client contact the models directly; that’s the agency’s job. They tell the agency what they want, and the agents do whatever work it takes to make sure it happens.
Getting a shoot permit for JFK isn’t easy in these days of Homeland Security alerts, and the shoot time was tightly constrained. One of the things the agency did was make sure that there were backup models of similar type available on call in case there were any last-minute glitches (which tend to happen in New York). An alternate model could have made it to the shoot within
half an hour if need be. In addition, the model agency was able to provide a good, print-qualified makeup artist for the shoot.
The shoot went overtime. Rather than have the models try to negotiate a rate for the extra time, a model called the agency,
which called the home office of the ad agency, and the issue was worked out. That saved any problems and possible disruption,
bad feelings or delay on the set if the models had tried to handle it themselves.
If the agency had said «Please look over our site and contact any of our models, and we won’t charge the 20%» they would
have never gotten that job. Clients are less interested in saving money than in reliably, easily getting what they need. Clients
want the agency to do the preliminary work so the client can concentrate on what they need to be doing.
Even at the rates models get paid their fee is a very small part of the cost of an advertising campaign. Production costs are much higher, and the cost of media placement (TV time and magazine pages) usually dwarfs any money that is paid to models. That’s not to say that budgets are insensitive to price, but clients are much more interested in speed, convenience and reliability than in saving a percentage of the model’s fee. That’s why model agencies are still in business, despite all the model resources on the Internet. There is a different class of client, of course, who is very concerned about the cost of models, and who is willing to do the work of finding his own, and also willing to take the risk of no responses, no shows and no-ability-models. There are lots of those clients, and they don’t use the agency system all that much. They use friends, employees, or models they find on the Internet.
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