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HIRING AN AGENT may have been the
natural move for Cyan. But one Cyan official recalls that it surprised Broderbund
Software, which was eager to sign Cyan to a Myst sequel.
“Broderbund was not very receptive to having an agent
involved,” recalls Chris Brandkamp, vice president of operations for Cyan. Indeed,
the last thing Broderbund would want is a game of hardball with a representative
accustomed to Hollywood’s multimillion-dollar advances and generous
profit-participation plans.
Broderbund denies that it reacted adversely to the arrangement,
adding that the agent, Harvey Harrison, “actually helped” the process.
But all sides admit that dealing with an agent in the
interactive-game business was a novel concept, and that negotiating a sequel to a
ground-breaking phenomenon like Myst forced industry executives to rethink traditional
compensation practices in the digital entertainment realm.
Negotiations proved sticky and lengthy — and nearly ground
to a halt before Rand Miller and his associate Chris Brandkamp came to the table
themselves to cut a final deal. The parties decline to reveal any of the terms of the
deals for either Myst or its hit sequel, “Riven.”
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This independent agent was "interactive" long before interactive was cool.
His biggest deal: brokering the sequel to "Myst."
 Click
here for profile. |
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How much money do the digital designers of animated characters like
Anastasia make? This attorney knows better than anyone.
Click here for profile. |
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Today, digital-entertainment companies still aren’t
exactly accustomed to dealing with agents. But many are running into the practice.
Agent representation “started to come in in a big way
several years ago, and now it’s pretty standard at top levels and often at lower
levels as well,” says Steve Hulett, business representative for the Motion Picture
Screen Cartoonists, Local 839, in Los Angeles. Animation, like many other parts of
filmmaking, has become increasingly computer-oriented, especially the visual-effects side
of the trade.
The corporate rush to so-called new-media — encompassing
everything from interactive games to digital film animation to Internet services —
began in earnest in the mid-1990s, about the same time “Myst” appeared.
That’s when the likes of Time Warner and Walt Disney began building big
interactive-game and Internet divisions. And once the major studios bought into it, the
influential agencies followed in lockstep.
The venerable William Morris Agency formed a new-media unit.
International Creative Management (ICM) devoted two account executives to the field
full-time. And Creative Artists Agency, super-agent Michael Ovitz’s old shop, teamed
with chip giant Intel Corp. to build a sophisticated multimedia lab inside its Beverly
Hills headquarters.
Suddenly, a new breed of agent had sprung up, one that
couldn’t simply collect a group of writers or actors and broker their talents to
traditional movie and TV studios. This new cadre was turning over a new set of stones
entirely, scouring computer shows and game communities, for instance, in search of the
interactive version of Steven Spielberg.
People like Lewis Henderson at William Morris and Stefanie
Henning at ICM found they had to create new models for Hollywood deals. Sometimes they
would convince traditional agency clients like actor Bruce Willis or brewer Anheuser-Busch
to branch into the interactive realm by endorsing a new game or backing an Internet
venture. Meanwhile, the agents heavily courted high-tech companies like Intel and Sun
Microsystems, promising to introduce them to the digital stars who could bring some
“buzz” to their products.
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Bored with representing sitcom writers, she began searching for “the
Steven Spielberg of the game industry.”
Click here for profile. |
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Convincing Bruce Willis to star in a video game really wasn't so hard,
says Henderson, who brokered the deal. Click here for profile. |
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Behind all their actions was a core belief that an entirely new
form of entertainment had emerged. “The post-linear generation has arrived,”
says Harrison, who works out of a small agency called Catalyst, “so the appetite for
interactive entertainment is here.”
After two or three frenzied years, however, that appetite had
waned — if not on the part of audiences, certainly on the part of major media
companies. Beginning in late 1996, the studios began to realize that the digital
entertainment revolution would need more than a couple years of nurturing to become a mass
medium on the order of television.
More immediately, the game industry simply buckled under the
weight of so many new titles. As retail shelves became overcrowded with Myst-wannabes,
studios found that it took more than just the licensing of hit-movie names to create
interactive hits. Beginning in 1996, layoffs at Time Warner, Disney, Viacom and elsewhere
certified that a shakeout was under way. Even film animation, which had enjoyed an
unprecedented run-up fueled by such products as the computer-animated hit feature
“Toy Story” and the effects-laden “Jurassic Park” movies, began to
lose favor late last year.
“The studios are basically all staffed up,” says Jon
Cantor, an attorney who specializes in representing film animators. “As a result, it
has become a studio market, vs. what used to be an animators market.” Several studios
have laid off animators, and a salary surge that reached 50 percent a year has abated.
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This agent and producer believes interactive entertainment will sink for a while
before it swims. Click here for profile |
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Suddenly, new media, an area recently viewed as red-hot, was
considered ice-cold. Major companies and artists no longer were so eager to branch into
the digital realm. Meanwhile, several new-media agents say their quests for credibility in
traditional Hollywood suffered.
Today, one new-media agent frets that many traditional agents
don’t even pay attention to the digital realm anymore: “Whenever I say the word
‘inter...,’ by the time I say ‘...active,’ I’ve lost them.”
The dip in the new-media road has required plenty of
adjustment. Montana Artists agent Carl Bressler, for instance, says digital deals now
comprise 15 percent to 20 percent of his workload, down from about 50 percent two years
ago.
Bressler and others have responded to the downturn by
diversifying. Bressler spends much of the balance of his time producing movies and
representing talent in traditional realms of entertainment.
At William Morris, the new-media group of agents is teamed with
the firm’s corporate group. That means Henderson often works with the likes of
Anheuser-Busch (which sponsored a TV show set at Busch Gardens) and Intel (which is
investing in a wide range of multimedia properties).
As the animation boom slackens, Cantor says agenting is
“nothing I rely upon to feed my family.” Instead, he concentrates on developing
his traditional business law practice.
Despite the harder times, few new-media agents have turned
their backs on the digital niche. “This is the future,” Henderson, the William
Morris agent, insists. “This is the future of how content will be distributed.”
Henderson and the others take solace in, among other things,
the sheer size of the interactive games industry now — an estimated $7 billion in the
United states, and growing quickly. And the Internet continues to generate excitement (a
new government report forecasts Internet commerce will account for $300 billion in sales
by 2002), if not yet many profits.
It is underlying facts like these that keep this first
generation of new-media agents in the digital fold.
The work brings them back too, of course. In fact,
Catalyst’s Harrison is back on the case for the Myst team. The agent is interested in
putting together a deal for a 30-minute TV special: “The Making of ‘Riven.’
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Should digital creators have professional
representation?
A digital pioneer's day in the sun
Taking the usual 10 percent isn't the way to cut a
new-media deal, says Carl Bressler of Montana Artists.