Eyes On Talent Agent for Crew and More Matt Birch

Everyone knows what an actor’s agent does. But who represents the cinematographer, the production designer, and the producer, the production service companies, the people who physically make the movie? Talent agent Matt Birch has spent 25 years on every side of that question.

The hosts met Matt as a coordinator on Vanilla Sky. He went on to supervise production on Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, Elizabethtown, and Constantine before founding Mockingbird Media, a talent agency for producers, production designers, cinematographers, costume designers, second unit directors, studio and network executives, vfx producers and companies, production service companies and sound stages internationally. He breaks down what a crew agent really does: tracking jobs before they are announced, getting a client in the room, and why he wants to retire the phrase “below the line.”

The human side, he says, is the real job: being the shoulder to cry on, delivering bad news when all you can say is “we’re going in another direction,” and his father’s advice about cutting a “cancer” from a team. Plus the origin story that has to be heard: a 21-year-old PA, a ten-ton truck he had no business driving, and the boss reaction that saved his career.