Union-Tribune Article
Agent’s Talent is a Balancing Act
By James Steinberg
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 25, 1999

The jobs people do are as varied as the individuals who fill them. This is one of a series of occasional articles that looks at our region at work. To the trade, they’re the "talent." They are the voices you hear in radio commercials, or the faces in print advertisements and the models who appear in magazines. They’re also the actors you see on stage, screen and television. Their jobs are mostly one-shot deals, a half-day’s work, perhaps, at $150 an hour.
Talent and good looks advance a career only so far; to get work, they need an agent working for them. But, as talent agent Carol Shamon Freitas cautions clients, "We’re not an employment agency. We don’t get you work. We get you the auditions that get you work."

It’s a highly competitive business, where personal contact with the producers and advertisers who employ the talent is everything. Yet Shamon Freitas, mother of three, manages to fit her workday around her family. It helps that her Rancho Peñasquitos home is only a 10-minute drive from her Mira Mesa office. Her staff opens up before she arrives and stays after she leaves, and she checks the message machine regularly after hours.

"I try to have it so everyone knows where every job is at, so if someone has to pick up they’re not starting from ground zero."

"So much of what I do is this," Shamon Freitas says, tapping the phone on her desk. "There’s not a lot of schmoozing, like in L.A. For me, it’s the telephone."

It’s just after 10 a.m., and three calls are on hold: "Hi, Rob, it’s Carol, I’m calling to see if you’re going to use Chris on Thursday . . . . Do you know how long she’ll be working? . . . We have a lot of new people you haven’t seen . . . Do you have time to do a casting here? . . . OK, I’ll have Chris call you about wardrobe . . . ."

The agency gets lots of unsolicited submissions—there are stacks of photos, resumes attached—but only a few survive the cut.

"We have all the talent we need, but that doesn’t mean we stop looking for new talent . . . (especially) kids and models," Shamon Freitas says. "We don’t start with someone off the street who hasn’t acted."

The phone never stops ringing: What time can the talent be at a photo shoot the next day? Three clients have been hired for an industrial video, but the script has changed since they auditioned, there are new lines to learn by tomorrow, and is there any chance she can get them the revised scripts by tonight? A client is still owed overtime because a work voucher wasn’t in order. She makes notes of everything. Heads keep popping in: A local Indian casino needs talent for a TV commercial, and so does a major new hotel in Las Vegas. Three male models have just been placed in a national men’s magazine. The pile of notes grows.

Shamon Freitas sees four people this day. Two are actors who want the agency to represent them. Tajma Soleil is already a client, and Shamon Freitas wanted to touch base. Soleil reads from two of her own plays. Then they discuss local casting calls, talk about what’s available out of town—"Do you want to move up to L.A.?" Shamon Freitas asks. "Does anyone really want to live in L.A.?"—and if Soleil is interested in print work.

"I’m an actress and a singer," she insists.

"Any time we’re placing you and you’re past it and don’t want to do it, let us know," Shamon Freitas tells her.

Then it’s time for a late lunch. "We put a sign on the door and don’t answer the phone," Shamon Freitas says. "We talk about movies. It’s not all work talk."

Well, not exactly.

"My business is very important to me. It gives me a real sense of pride," Shamon Freitas says. "It’s part of my identity." She’s an early riser, and gets her children—Jocelyn, 11, Jake, 9, and 3-year-old Joshua—fed, clothed and off to school before she goes to the office. Husband Jim, a computer specialist, is usually home by 3:30 p.m. to handle the after-school chores, and she joins him soon afterward. It’s a schedule she sticks to, no matter what. "My real work is in the home," she says.

Shamon Freitas was born in Denver, graduated from the University of Northern Colorado and moved to San Diego with an eye on a teaching career. She did some substitute work, waited on tables and modeled bridal dresses. Her experience as a model convinced her that there was a better way to do things, and she went out on her own—advertising for clients in the classifieds, meeting them in restaurants and charging $10 for her advice. She launched her own agency 12 years ago, shortly after she got married, and the business has grown, along with her family. Business and family, she says, take up most of her day. "Usually, I fall asleep when the last kid is tucked in."

Early afternoon, and the calls keep coming: "Hi, Renee, how are you? . . . Is that for the voice-over? . . . Do you know when you want to do it, because he’s available now . . . I know he’s not booked tomorrow . . . I told him about the rate . . . If it’s going to be more than two lines, have Steve call me . . . ."

Her two older children check in by phone after school lets out. One’s going to a friend’s house, and she arranges to pick up the other after karate.

Enter a Mother and Daughter. Daughter wants to be a child model; Mother is very enthusiastic, and spreads Daughter’s photographs all over Shamon Freitas’ desk. The photos make Daughter appear much older than her 11 years.

"Well, you’re very photogenic," Shamon Freitas says. "I love your pictures . . . Stand up for me; let me see how tall you are . . . Have you had braces yet? Let me see your teeth . . . ."

To Mom: "Does she have an entertainment work permit? . . . There’s always a studio teacher present . . . She’ll have to keep her grades up . . ."
Daughter has a question: "Do kids pay taxes?"
Shamon Freitas smiles. "If you get paid . . . ."

It’s a welcome-to-life-kid kind of smile.

Copyright 1999 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.