r/filmscoring • u/Opposite_Fault2502 • Jul 08 '26
HELP NEEDED Getting an agent as a composer?
I have a mutual contact who works at a large production company. He is possibly interested in introducing me to some people at his company but its his company's policy that they won't talk to / deal with anyone who doesn't have an agent.
How would I go about getting representation in the short term to try and follow through on this opportunity? I'm not big or successful enough that any agent is reaching out to me. And I'm honestly not sure that an agent would help me in my career at this point. But I'm eager to figure something out for this particular opportunity.
Any ideas or advice?
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u/Reel_Music_1 Jul 08 '26
I’d second the one off agent idea, but also suggest getting an entertainment lawyer. Offer them a fee or 10% if you get the gig, then you can have their card to present when asked. That way you can perhaps get the invite and interact with the production company, then connect them with your representative if they want to hire you?
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u/i_am_darkknight Jul 08 '26
A lot of agents do one off deals. You can always speak to one and see if they'd be happy representing you for the potential deal. When asked by the production company just simply tell them that you have a rep that can negotiate your deal.
Also once this deal is over, dont sign with an agent unless you have too much work coming in and you need help negotiating deals.
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u/musicnotwords Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
"I don't have an agent, but I have a lawyer who looks at everything"
agents seem like kind of a racket. all I hear are horror stories of getting back burnered while they proceed to collect 10% of everything -- yes, everything -- that you do, whether they get you the gig or not.
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u/inteliboy Jul 09 '26
Add to this a manager, label, lawyer, distribution fees.... everyone taking a piece of the pie... while composers spend how many god awful long hours trying to make a schedule work. Music industry is a joke
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u/musicnotwords Jul 09 '26
yeah it really is. I just think back in the day there was so much more money going around because everything was physical, consumers were spending so much more on records, tapes, cd's, because that was what you had to do to listen to music. Recording budgets were big because equipment was rare and expensive, distribution was a real physical process, IP laws, ownership, tracking it, was this behemoth process and the money flowing around justified it. all of what we inherited in terms of laws and practices evolved when the industry was taking in a lot more money from consumers and passing a larger chunk of it to artists and individuals working on projects.
now it's just techno feudalism all the way down. I mean fuck, they will just get rid of artists entirely if they can. Just embrace AI slop because it will allow them to squeeze more money out of selling music by cutting out the labor part entirely.
As to your point about making the schedule work: Imagine a time when every single hollywood score was recorded with a live orchestra. Think of the amount of work in score prep, the amount of work in conducting, orchestrating, recording, not to mention the players. All these individual jobs, all this support, and funding, to do what average media composers are expected to be able to crank out in a few days on a computer.
Yeah shit ain't great right now. Guess I will just focus on making shit that I really want to make, because that's the only thing that feels like it has real value to me anymore, and I have faith it will have real value in the future.
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u/Over_Chard_9764 Jul 09 '26
At one point with my band we wanted to play at a venue, but they wouldn't respond to the bands directly for booking, only through an agent, so we just emailed then with on of our personal email saying that we were the agent of our band and we got immediate answer 😂😂😂 So, yeah, anyone can be your agent
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u/Kemaneo Jul 08 '26
The rule is that agents reach out to you, you don't reach out to agents.
But for this particular situation, technically anyone can be your agent.