It's Been Slow...
We all made it through COVID, then came a slow period in early 2023 that we were a bit perplexed about. We we're told that it was highly likely that strikes would occur later that year, so things we're being greenlit for fear of not being able to complete productions before the first of the strikes. Then the strikes hit.
After those were over, we were all expecting Hollywood to be overwhelmed with work. Crickets. Well, not totally - there were the steady stream of commercial castings, but those were as usual not that many.
Agency Troubles
During all of this, we saw one agency we once worked with, the storied A3, go out of business. Another that we didn't work directly with, but had plenty of communication with, KMR, falling far behind in client payments, leave the ATA, and are no longer SAG franchised. Time will tell if they survive. KMR was known as the first agency to rep voice actors. They also were the first major agency that had a Performers With Disabilities division after buying Gail Williamson's agency that specialized in PWD representation some years ago - Gail was a good friend and supporter of our company, and she retired before all this came about.
Many smaller agencies have gone out of business, or are operating on a skeleton crew. Of those we have worked directly with, one dropped all of our shared clients. Another isn't having much success getting bookings for any of their clients in any of their divisions. A third seems to be holding on ok.
News Sources
As always, we keep up on the daily news, reading the headlines for appropriate articles to read about the business side of Hollywood. We watch the Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Variety, and The Industry (a new one). One thing we've found is that there's many reasons for the downturn in work. Part of it is the high cost of producing in the Los Angeles area, as well as the US in general. So, plenty are shooting outside LA or even outside the US to cut costs.
A case in point is the newly announced TV series NCIS: Tony and Ziva. It's being shot in Europe, mostly in Bucharest. That's the same place they shot Black Widow. If you look at the cast, it's all folks that have steady work histories, and of course at least somewhat of a fan base.
Almost No Work for New Actors
Well, that's a huge challenge for "beginning actors" who do not have the steady list of credits. With the downturn, even the long time, established actors are having trouble paying their bills, so they're snapping up the roles just to pay rent, like all of us. That leaves little or nothing for the rest of the folks. Then, shooting outside of Southern California means the day player roles are being filled locally, wherever that might be.
We've also gone through a really long time of heavy spending by many companies to make content for streaming. It was a massive guess as to whether they'd recoup their investment, and it's simply not panned out for any of them. At least not enough to make the return on investment attractive. So Hollywood built this massive production machine over the recent years, and now can't afford to make use of it. So layoffs and company closures of businesses connected to Hollywood have been the norm for a while now.
The cash flow problem has even begun to hit the live performances, with big sales being run on tickets to events on Live Nation. Ok, there's a few exceptions (like Taylor Swift's tour), but many are having trouble filling seats recently. So the tightening of the consumer's budgets is hitting both recorded and live shows.
Another reason all this seems to be happening is the elevated interest rate set by the Fed. Yes, that seems to be a huge part of the problem. Even major studios aren't awash in cash, and must borrow from a bank to cover all the stages of production - they don't get paid by advertisers until whatever their contract is regarding advertisement payments. So, with high interest rates, Hollywood is being hammered.
Key Indicator
So in the long run, your first clue to watch for as a performer is the interest rates - once that starts dropping, you're likely to see more investment in entertainment.
Moving To LA?
For those just starting out, we'd recommend that you make sure you train or have experience in another field not related to entertainment, that you can use to pay your bills until this turns around. If you're outside LA and wanting to move here, we'd suggest waiting until you see rental prices decrease, which you can track on line. (In most of the US, we're in a housing bubble with prices too high. Check the ratio of median income to average rent for an area to see if it's too high. The last time the ratio got this bad was in 2008, which was then followed by a housing 'bubble burst' and recession.)
With so many out of work, it's hard to find work as well, so come to town with at least 6 months of costs covered in savings - the more the better.
Transgender Talent
We're trying our best to get projects done and greenlit, so we can provide some work for our clients. Hopefully later this year, or early next year, things will have turned around and we'll all be doing better.
Our focus as a company is to get transgender and nonbinary performers work. That's why we are a humanitarian organization, as getting people work is a universal need.