[victoro]

In my younger years I spent some time working in the film industry as a PA and reading everything I could to learn about the business side of things. Needless to say, after becoming a programmer, I have often asked myself the same question.

The main difference I can think of is that unlike films, which are discreet projects with hard beginning and end dates, software projects never really end. Maintenance can go on indefinitely and usually the most knowledgeable people to do that maintenance are the people that built the project in the first place. That makes some proportion of people likely to stay with a project for a longer time than it takes to just code up the requirements and generally makes turnover cycles less predictable than they are for people working on films. With less predictable turnover, agents (who generally make money at the time a transaction completes rather than continuously) would have less predictable income streams so they are less incentivized to do it. Also, even in movies, from what I saw, outside of top talent who command large contracts, all the other folks didn't seem to have agents. Thats probably because the transaction amounts for a given contract don't make sense for either party to participate. All the grips, electrical people, PAs, costuming, craft services etc workers were finding work just as a software contractor might -- through connections from friends, colleagues, and people they worked with on previous projects. Many are also part of unions for their respective part of the business so I would expect they get some assistance in finding projects from that as well (e.g. if there is a union production in town they are usually required to hire only people part of the various unions -- so if you're one of the only union members in a region you could get work that way).

I don't think agents are totally incompatible with the software industry, but I do think it would take a somewhat rare combination of highly paid project with a discreet, somewhat consistent term of employment (maybe coding up financial some kind of financial model or data pipeline for a hedge fund would fall under this?) to make it worthwhile for agents to specialize in.

[biztos]

Thanks, that's helpful. I did consider that the grips et al don't have agents, but the few actors I know in LA -- modestly successful people you would probably not have heard of -- all have agents.

My understanding is that the agent makes 10% of everything you get, because most agent contracts are exclusive. Agent puts me on Dune 2, agent gets 10% of my pay; I get on Dune 3 because they loved me so much in Dune 2, agent still gets 10% because our contract says she does, unless I fire her in time, which carries reputational risk.

I wonder, do people have agents on soap operas, which are probably the closest analogy to corporate software, i.e. projects that go on potentially forever and have some people spending their entire careers working on them?

(I had a neighbor who was a soap producer, but not in the US, so not a good source of info for this.)

[TigeriusKirk]

You'd still want an agent even on a soap opera job, just so you'd have someone to handle negotiations when it's time to re-up on the contract.

Hollywood agents are really more deal makers than job finders. You still do most of the work finding your next job, they do the work of negotiating the deal.

[victoro]

I like the soap opera analogy -- hadn't thought of that. But keep in mind that actors (and other folks that work in long-running shows) will still take other jobs as at the same time as their main gig -- e.g taking a part in a movie in between seasons. That sometimes happens with programming contractors as well, but from what I've seen its far more rare.

Ultimately I agree with the other responder that Hollywood agents are better thought of as deal makers/negotiators than job finders so maybe what limits it from showing up in the software contracting world (and other parts of the film world) is that contract terms are much more standardized so not as much time is needed for negotiation and thus the programmers can do it themselves.

[biztos]

> contract terms are much more standardized

Yeah but I wonder, how much of this is because we (as a group/subculture) are terrible at negotiating and don't have agents helping us with it?

I mean, I have to actually work with the people and do the job, so in addition to being bad at contract negotiation I'm also factoring in a bunch of stuff that's orthogonal to the paycheck. Whereas the agent is negotiating for a number, of which she gets 10%, and short of making enemies that's the only consideration.

[tomcam]

In the US actors in the soaps have agents to handle convention appearances, fan cruises, extracurricular gigs during hiatus, voiceover jobs, plays, etc.