If you want to take your acting career to the next level, you may wonder what acting agencies in San Diego can do for you. If you’ve never had representation before, you may be questioning whether working with an acting agency can actually give your career a boost.
In this article, InnoVision Talent Agency will break it all down for you and show you exactly how an acting agency can jumpstart your career.
1. Materials
An acting agency will provide you with guidance on your submission materials. For instance, a headshot is the calling card for most actors. It’s what gets you in the casting room door. You need a strong headshot that conveys your look, age range, and acting type.
For instance, are you a femme fatale type? The girl next door? An action hero? Or a mafia guy? Most people will have a certain type of character they’re especially skilled at portraying, and you want your headshot to convey that persona so you’ll get called in for those types of roles. If you’ve acted before, you may also want to have a reel that showcases some of your best work.
An acting agency can provide guidance on whether your materials adequately convey your essence and the type of roles you’re looking to book. An agent may also suggest a photographer for you to use if you need to update your materials.
Having the right headshot or comp card is essential so you’ll be called in to audition for the roles that interest you. From there, you’ll be able to show the casting directors what you’re able to do, but it all starts with having the right materials to get your foot in the door.
2. Casting Calls
The main thing acting agencies will do for you is send you out on auditions, also known as casting calls. Acting agencies in San Diego and across the country typically have established relationships with casting directors. These are the people who decide which actors will portray the roles for film, TV, and commercial projects. Your agent will know what roles the casting directors they work with are trying to fill and will submit you if they feel you’re a good fit.
Acting agencies are often in the know. They are familiar with who is casting for what project and whether any of their clients are right for it. It’s much easier to land an audition through an acting agency than attempting to submit for it yourself because of the strong rapport acting agencies and casting directors often have. Your agent will do the hard work of getting you in front of the casting director so you can focus your energy on nailing the audition and booking the job.
3. Exposure
When you decide to sign with InnoVision Talent Agency, the work often comes to you. We’ll add you to our talent roster so that when someone is looking to cast a project, they’ll come across your profile and online materials.
This means you won’t be sent out on a cattle call with hundreds of people vying for the same role. When someone reaches out to you for a project, it’s because they’re already interested in what you have to offer. All you need to do is impress them with your audition so you can land the job.
Whether you’re looking for modeling, acting, or voiceover work, we make joining our online talent database simple and easy. Once you’ve joined our roster, you’ll benefit from increased exposure and having casting directors reach out to you for projects rather than the other way around.
4. Compensation
When it comes to compensation, we work a little differently than many other acting agencies in San Diego. For instance, most agents charge a fee for representation. This fee can vary from agent to agent, but typically you can expect to pay about 10 percent of any money you make toward your agent’s fee.
InnoVision Talent Agency believes you should keep your hard-earned money. So instead of charging you, we’ll bill the production company directly for our services. That means 100 percent of the rate we negotiate on your behalf is yours to keep. We’ll always work to secure a competitive and fair fee based on market rates and the production’s size and budget, and it’s all yours to take home. After all, you’ve earned it by booking the role.
One thing to note — a reputable acting agency should never charge you any up-front fees. While they may charge a percentage based on the amount you earn from the work that you book, an acting agency should never charge you simply for representation. If a talent agency tries to get you to pay them, it’s likely a scam.
5. Feedback
One of the best ways to consistently book work is to listen to and address any feedback you receive.
When actors go on an audition, however, they seldom get feedback of any kind. Instead, they may receive a mere thank you and be sent on their way. This makes it difficult to know why you didn’t book the role. Perhaps there was someone who was simply a better fit, or perhaps it was something you said or did that you could adjust going forward. But how do you know?
When you work with an acting agency, your agent may receive feedback directly from casting directors about how your audition went and their overall impression of you. An agent can then pass that information along to you—information you likely wouldn’t receive on your own. That feedback can be helpful in knowing what you need to work on going forward and could make all the difference when it comes to booking your next role.
Believe you have what it takes to be a successful actor? We believe we can help you get to the next level. Fill out InnoVision’s talent application so you can be added to our roster and learn about opportunities in the San Diego area.