The Producer's Business Handbook, 4th Edition

Chapter 10Talent Agents & Managers

Introduction

This chapter reviews the delicate business aspects associated with producers’ vital relationships with talent and their representatives. Two effective metaphors for this relationship are the relationships between a general contractor of a construction project and the craftspeople, and that between a symphony’s conductor and the orchestra’s performers.

Like a general contractor, the best producers are familiar with, and consequently respectful of, the many talents necessary to create their projects. As a group, the talent the producer attaches will make many more creative contributions to each project than does the producer. Writers, directors, actors, cinematographers, composers, set designers, ...