Talent Agency Looks to Line Up Below-Line Jobs

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Talent agency APA of Beverly Hills has quickly built a new business this year – representing below-the-line TV and film workers. The agency has recently branched out from representing performers such as comedians and now has an extensive client list of cinematographers, editors, costume designers and other production workers.

The new direction started earlier this year, when the agency hired agents Jay Gilbert and Gil Harari away from rival Paradigm to launch a physical production division. APA built the division out this month with the addition of six agents and executives who were all hired away from Montana Artists Agency of Beverly Hills.

By adding the Montana agents, APA Chief Executive Jim Gosnell said he’s bolstering his roster of below-the-line TV clients to complement the list of more film-oriented clients that came to APA by way of the former Paradigm agents.

“The vision behind this was that if there is a TV show or a film, we’re going to have an APA client in it,” he said “It’s a 360 degree approach.”

The new additions from Montana are Matt Birch and Ralph Berge, who will be co-heads of the physical production division alongside Gilbert and Harari. The others are Brady Torgeson, Julian Savodivker, Amanda Pecora-Sutphen and Larry Sheffield.

Website Deadline Hollywood said the move leaves Montana, which specializes in representing physical production workers, with just two agents. The agency has been in turmoil after its former owner, Jon Furie, took his life in 2009. A message left for Montana was not returned.

As is common practice in the industry, the agency will take a commission of

about 10 percent on contracts for below-the-line workers.

Gosnell said APA is also expanding another line of business: its production services division, which can, for example, aid producers in setting up shoots in territories that give tax credits to movie and TV productions. The fee structure for those services hasn’t been fully determined.

“The feature film business is changing,” he said. “We obviously want to be in all aspects.”

Pure Volume

Music licensing startup SourceAudio of Culver City has made a move into the radio business.

The company this month announced a deal with Premier Networks, the Sherman Oaks division of Clear Channel Communications that syndicates radio content including “The Rush Limbaugh Show” and a variety of other audio clips to radio stations around the country.

In the deal, Source opens its searchable digital music library with about 5 million tracks to Premier, which will handle sales to stations. The tracks could be used in on-air promos, morning shows and advertisements, for example.

Andrew Harding, a co-founder of SourceAudio, said the deal represents a major breakthrough for the company because it opens up thousands of radio stations as potential customers. Until now, SourceAudio has worked with clients including Hollywood trailer houses and production companies.

“Radio, in terms of pure volume, is a much larger opportunity,” Harding said.

Source has a digital platform that hosts music from publishers and labels. Those rights holders pay a monthly fee for SourceAudio to feature their tunes in the company’s library. Prices vary from $29 on the low end to $599 for a company that wants to make available a library of 100,000 tracks.

Rights holders and licensees negotiations are handled between those two parties and SourceAudio does not take a cut.

The radio arrangement is different. Stations will pay a yearly fee based on the size of their audience for access to the Source music library. SourceAudio and Premier will split the fee. SourceAudio, in turn, will pay the owners of the music depending on how much radio airplay a particular tune gets.

Premier was working with SourceAudio for about two years before the deal, but only using it as a hosting platform.

The recent deal came about after SourceAudio executives began talking with Kraig Kitchen, a former president of Premier, who saw an opportunity to sell to radio stations. Kitchen is now a consultant for SourceAudio.

Comings and Goings

Santa Monica visual effects and postproduction studio ArsenalFX has hired David Carlson as senior CG generalist, Casey Conroy as visual effects director and promoted Cortney Haile to head of operations. … Internet publisher Evolve Media of Culver City has hired Mitch Rotter as senior vice president of marketing.

Staff reporter Jonathan Polakoff can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 226.

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