Digital artists seek agents in Hollywood

You know you're somebody in Hollywood when someone wants to represent you. This is true both collectively and individually; the first step for a writer or composer is not to find work but to find an agent.

And now it is the turn of digital artists - the people who create the special effects and animation in commercials and feature films - to be somebody.

According to Bob Coleman, digital artists and effects specialists are "the fastest-growing employment area in Hollywood since the advent of sound in movies".

Mr Coleman needs that to be true, since his company, Digital Artists Agency, is the first to set up specifically to represent these particular talents.

His logic is multi-pronged: apart from being a fast-growing population, digital artists "have no formal organisation representing their interests; the business model has changed from staff-based to freelance-based; and we thought we might be able to help people who didn't plan to be chained to a workstation forever" to move up into directing and producing roles.

Digital Artists Agency is structured like any other talent agency - they look at who you are and what you've done, and decide to represent you. Or not.

"We don't take anyone on lightly. We only take them if we can help them and if they can help us."

Also like an agent, Digital Artists Agency takes 10 per cent of the artists' fees. So can Mr Coleman get his artists more than a 10 per cent increase in their rates?

"The first thing I tell people when they join is: 'Raise your rates by 10 per cent, because I don't want that to be an issue. I don't want it to be a problem - did I find you the job, did you find the job?' - I want a partnership," he says.

Is this trip really necessary - are digital artists being exploited to the extent that they need someone to hold their hands?

Certainly, the world has changed a lot in the past 10 years. Back then, facilities hired smart, technical people and kept them on staff. The work they did - and the knowledge they had - was esoteric and valuable, and so they became well paid.

Five years ago, lots of senior effects programmers and animators (and senior means 30 years old) were earning six figures all over town, and some still are.

Not that they didn't earn it - the pace is extreme (most contracts stipulate 50-hour weeks as a minimum, and most people will work at least a few 100-hour weeks in a year, with no overtime) and the pressure is enormous (when the release of a $100 million (€110 million) movie is held up because your shot isn't finished, you know all about it).

In some ways, what happened next was inevitable. Hollywood, and production in general, is a feast or a famine business. Too much work is always followed by slack periods, and facilities lumbered with expensive talent, not to mention the costs of buying cutting-edge computer hardware and software (which was constantly becoming obsolete), found the only way they could keep going was to shift more and more costs out of the "overhead" column and into the "cost of sales" column.

That meant taking people on as freelancers when the work was there and getting rid of them when it wasn't.

This has created an army of well-paid, insecure individuals who move around from shop to shop, following the work - just like actors, directors and writers before them. And they probably do need help.

"We negotiate on their behalf," says Mr Coleman. "I believe as a rule we can negotiate better than the artist can."

Of course, there is more than one way to help these folks (estimated to number roughly 3,500 individuals worldwide, of whom 2,500 are in California). Another approach is the agent as career coach, something Mr Coleman mentions during a conversation.

Ms Pamela Thompson, who runs a company called Ideas to Go, actually bills herself as a career coach/recruiter. What does that mean?

"As a career coach I help clients clarify their goals and meet their objectives. Basically I help them with anything they need to further their career - whether it is helping to define career direction, revamping resumes, demo reels and portfolios, to writing cover letters and helping with resources. Basically, I'm a mentor for hire."

But Ms Thompson's model is a little different, because ultimately she is not paid by the artists she knows but by the companies she sends them to. In this way, she acts more like the traditional recruiter, especially since, unlike Digital Artists Agency, her relationships with the artists are on a non-exclusive basis.

So are these new agencies effective in getting their talent more work? Both advisers are refreshingly honest - probably a flaw in this town.

"We won't increase the quantity necessarily but we will definitely increase the quality of the work they are offered. They will get better opportunities than they would otherwise," says Mr Coleman.

Ms Thompson advises: "You should not rely on an agent or recruiter to find you work. You need to work hard at finding work yourself - since you are the person who is most interested in finding work for you, you will work the hardest at it."

Digital Artists Agency's next goal is to start "packaging" teams of people to work on films together, which is a logical extension.

In the 1990s, Creative Artists Agency did precisely this with actors and directors, and that packaging was a big reason why Creative Artists Agency and its chairman, Mr Michael Ovitz, became incredibly rich and powerful.

It seems unlikely that the same trick can be pulled with backroom talent but it will be interesting to watch them try.