“The vast majority of talent today do not need management.”
That was the verdict this afternoon of Jordan Schwarzenberger, who runs a company that has a single client, The Sidemen.
Speaking on a Deadline-moderated panel at SXSW London with a trio of top UK agents, Schwarzenberger made the case for why most young digital talent can go it alone.
“I think this is a trap of some of the more traditional management companies historically, where you sign people up en masse when they just don’t need it,” he explained. “If you don’t have creative ideas and you’re not able to stand the test of time then you’re not going to be able to win today. And management cannot do that. I think management actually is the icing on the cake but the cake has to be the talent and their own ability.”
Arcade Media co-founder Schwarzenberger twice made his point around a majority of talent not requiring management as he chatted with Curtis Brown unscripted and entertainment boss Martha Atack, InterTalent MD Alex Segal and MonRae Management founder Elspeth Rae.
Segal, whose shop reps the likes of Joan Collins, Amber Gill and Ross Kemp, said up-and-coming digital talent are “smarter than ever.”
“When you meet young people now who are making huge successes of themselves and they know the industry like they do and are running at 100 miles an hour then you’ve got to be running faster,” he added. “They’ve hired you to give strategic advice and create opportunities. I think the truth is that if you have a client who wants to do something and you can’t deliver that service, they’re going to go and find someone that can.”
Schwarzenberger said when you do land on that special talent, such as KSI and The Sidemen, who were behind recent Netflix series Inside, you have to “build for the long term.” “When the Sidemen first came in they’d had lots of agents around them, but they had no management, even though the agents were acting as management,” he added. “So they didn’t have anybody asking what their team looked like, how to scale businesses, how to own IP and how to create brands of their own.”
In this way, he said agents nowadays can “essentially become [a client’s] C-suite.”
Atack, who has led UTA-owned Curtis Brown’s Unscripted and Entertainment department since last year, said she is “in awe of” this notion. She compared it in the case of 126-year-old Curtis Brown to adapting a book for the screen and an agent landing an EP role on the project, which she said happens “on a cherry-pick basis” at present.
Atack said she would love to “apply this new model to traditional talent” such as Gladiators host Bradley Walsh, one of Curtis Brown’s highest-earning, most successful clients.
“Jordan [Schwarzenberger] and I probably have shared frustrations in the past of pitching an amazing IP project to a client but if the person at the center of that project isn’t driving it, you can say bye,” she added.
While the new breed of agents are keen to encourage clients to launch JVs with them, Rae had a word of warning from her time working for Endemol Shine Group. “I’ve learned this the hard way but you have to have a very good lawyer,” she said. “When you and your talent own stakes together, make sure from the very beginning that it is extremely clear who owns what and, if anyone left [the JV], what would happen. Things in the past have been burned.”
Ultimately, Atack stressed that the new generation of digital talent still need to have the traditional skills that catapult people to stardom, as she flagged top examples like Amelia Dimoldenberg and Munya Chawawa.
“If we really look at the ones that cut through, whether it’s digital or traditional, they are talented, and they actually come with a very traditional skillset,” she added. “They write, they know how to do stand up, they can act. And it’s quite exposing two or three years down the line when they’re not talented. Because when America comes and asks them to host on the Oscars carpet or step into a role on SNL, they can’t do it, and it kind of ends there.”
Being “one step removed” from the talent
During a wide-ranging panel discussion, the quartet also talked about differences with their U.S. counterparts – “a lot of my American colleagues can’t understand why I’m running around town after a client,” said Atack – talent relationships and how to stay grounded.
Rae highlighted the sometimes tricky path agents have to navigate when it comes to client relations.
“I’m across financial investments for some of my clients and where they should be putting their own personal money and that’s a really bizarre role, actually a really important one, a really special one, but it’s painful sometimes when they then do something that hurts you personally,” she explained. “You do have to put up this barrier. The relationship is so interesting because you’re everything to that person but also one step removed.”
Atack, meanwhile, had a final word of warning for any would-be agents.
“I think if you want to be the talent as an agent, you’re in serious trouble,” she said.
The agents were speaking at SXSW London on the same day as Banijay boss Marco Bassetti.
