Standing on Principle

Standing on principle is an interesting thing.  Sometimes, we see such an act and label it brave.  Other times we think, “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”  I recently had (am still in the midst of, actually) a very interesting experience of this that I’d like to share.  

I recently reached out to a former talent agent of mine to see about working with them again after returning to the midwest from Los Angeles.  They were very willing to work with me again and gave me a copy of their contract for me to review and get back to them the next week.  Part of the contract was a nominal upfront fee to get headshots put on their website.  I was very excited to see what might come from getting back in the industry in my hometown, but this fee didn’t sit quite right with me.  It wasn’t the amount of fee, but the principle of it.  Agents get paid only when their actors get paid.  So, I had a choice.  Pay the fee and move forward, or not.  My internal dialogue went something like this...

“It's a minimal fee, and if you book one job, you’ll make way more than that back.  Besides, this isn’t L.A.  Different market, different rules?”

“Yeah, but it's been drilled into me for nearly 20 years - you never pay any upfront fees.  No professional actor in L.A. would pay a fee.  No agency would survive in L.A. if they charged a fee!”

In the end, I couldn’t talk myself into it and sent an email saying that if they would waive the fee, I’d be happy to work with them.  Did I cut off my nose to spite my face?  What do you think?

The story continues.  They replied to my email and offered to cut the fee in half.  How about now?  Pay the fee?  Say no?  I worked very hard to join SAG/AFTRA, the professional acting union.  So I went to their website.  It is very clear.  Franchised agencies are to charge no upfront fees of any kind as a condition of their franchise agreement.  This agency is a franchised agent.  

I decided to copy and paste from SAG’s website the requirement of not charging upfront fees and inform the agency that I would not be paying any upfront fees.  So the question comes back.  Did I cut off my nose to spite my face?  One regional, union commercial would get me probably in the order of $2500.  The half price fee was $50.  So what do you think?

Here is the point to all this.  We look at the choice of another to stand on principle and label it brave or foolish.  But it doesn’t matter what we think because we aren’t the one with the principle being challenged!  Absent of my internal experience, it would be so easy to say “$50 for the possibility to make $2500 or more off one job? How stupid to not do it!”  However, I would gladly miss out on $2500 to not feel conflicted inside.  A different person may not care at all.  In fact, all the current clients of this agency didn’t care.  But their not caring doesn’t make my caring wrong.  And my caring doesn’t make their not caring wrong.  

In the past, I know I have looked at an individual standing on a principle that I thought was foolish and thinking, “what an idiot!”  No more.  I get it.  I can’t know what is going on inside of another.  I can’t know their motivations or intentions, so how can I say if they are being brave or cutting off their nose to spite their face?  Who am I to judge?

I said earlier that I was still in the midst of this “standing in principle” experience.  My next decision is whether or not to file a report with the union.  What do you think?  How would you judge me if I did?  How would you judge me if I didn’t?

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