oK, Im kidding.

I hate those 'model managers' or any other of those clowns.. but I just read on another forum a very very good post by a longtime working photographer about those parasites:

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There are major differences between the role of a manager and that of an agent. Agents are licensed by their state, have specific responsibilities, and their job is to find and negotiate work for their talent. Agents that represent actors need a SAG franchise license as well, while print agents do not. Managers are almost completely unregulated, but for example here in Calif, they do need a Talent Management license, but technically may not negotiate a contract on behalf of their client (the talent) unless they happen to also be attorney. Yes, that rule gets violated all the time, but that is the rule. I actually took a course a few years ago at UCLA on become a talent manager and decided against it for a variety of reasons.

Models don't need managers ever (unless they get to the level of Cindy Crawford) because everything they do can be negotiated by their agents and a manager is just another percentage to give up. At some point they might need a business manager, or if they start to expand their career beyond modeling, a real talent manager, but certainly not at the beginning stages of a career. A model who wants to know how to get started, or what jobs she should or shouldn't take, can talk to other models and photographers without adding the baggage of a manager.

What most people are describing when they think of a model manager for an online model or local model, is really a "screener" and/or "reference checker". It is quite understandable that such models would seek assistance in detemining whether someone is legit, or more importantly, safe, but that is quite a different job description from "manager". Real managers are supposed to guide a career and help promote the talent, without targeting a specific job - its a very subjective job description and hard to measure performance. It been my experience that almost all of the "model managers" I've met, haven't got a clue about how the real industry works, and their expectations and demands usually result in the model getting less work, not more.

That is why you'll probably find it difficult to find sample "manager" contracts. If you were to see a true management contract for actors, it would be a couple pages long and not have much bearing on the modeling industry at all.

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Here are extracts from one that is actually photographic model related:

Talent Management Contract [EXTRACTS]

Talent agrees to pay Management a non-refundable fee of $250 for startup costs of this contract to cover setup and administrative costs.

Clients: All clients are and remain the sole ownership of the Management. Once a Talent has worked a job through Management, Talent agrees that he or she will do no work for the client outside the realm of this contract for (3) three years with said client or representatives of said client.

Marketing Point: Talent agrees to turn over control of One Model Place portfolio to Management or to allow Management to create a talent portfolio on One Model Place to which Management has control over.

Term: This agreement shall take affect as of the first date set forth above, and remain in full force until mutually agreed upon, unless terminated as * provided in termination clause below.

Termination: This Agreement may be terminated by a paid offer to buy this Agreement from the Management with the consent of the Management in writing. If any concessions, residuals or fee arrangements are made prior to termination, Management shall continue to receive percentages. If any interest is generated through Management’s efforts that cause the Talent to receive funds, Management shall also receive the percentage agreed upon in this agreement or a prenegotiated
percentage thereafter.

Commissions: The Management shall be entitled to 20% (percent) commission for work and all residuals income on contracts or arrangements obtained through Talent and Management’s association and 10% (percent) commission on work found by talent on their own or through other resources such as talent agencies. This also includes designs and or creations for the term of any agreement in which the Managements and Talent’s efforts cause copyrighted material, shows, residuals, or any other form of income for the life of each agreement by or created by the Management or the Talent’s association and or associations referred or introduced to talent by Management or Management’s lead getting work.

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Lets analyse this a bit...

So the model gets to pay this "manager" $250 bucks as an up-front fee on DAY ONE! Then 20% of any work the manager gets them [IF they ever get them any work at all] BUT it doesn't matter one intsy teensy bit because the "manager" ALSO gets 10% of all other work no matter how it is obtained... and the selling point is that the manager gets to place and control a listing on OMP.

Even better, the contact has no temporal cut-off [fixed term] - it runs forever - unless terminated by a buy-out... and only terminates if the "manager" agrees to it.

Anyone even considering this would have to be nuts, desperate, or friggen stupid, [or all three,] to sign off on this agreement. Giving the "manager" $250 up front; and the 10% non-referral commission; positively insures that they don't have to, and maybe even won't ever, do a thing beyond collecting money from the talent.

I assure you this in not an out-and-out scam. It is actually a talent management contract that is connected to a "photographer" cum "model manager"

ROTFLMAO ! ! !  OMP on-line promotion indeed!

Studio36