Talent on all Fours

When considering the various types of talent agencies the categories are almost endless.  Anyone that is involved with entertainment or sports in any way has an agent.  Animals are no different when it comes to needing representation for finding work or having someone manage their career.  This month has been spent learning about planning events for artists and finding ways to guide someone’s career in the right direction.  A recent news clip got me to thinking that there could be other ways for me to tap into the entertainment pool that doesn’t involve humans.

While getting ready in the morning this past week I overheard on a local news channel that Philadelphia’s 1^st Annual Barkapalooza was set to take place May 21, 2011 from noon to 5 pm at the Philadelphia Pet Hotel and Villas.  Like many other Americans I have a dog and thought Barkapalooza seemed like a great event for dogs and dog owners to enjoy one another’s company.  This event offers vendors, scavenger hunt, music, games, raffles and much more.  There is also a first place prize of a $500 gift certificate for the Stupid Dog Trick Contest.  The clip was nice but the most interesting part came towards the end of the 2-minute news clip when Pawsitively Famous Animal Actors owner Dawn Wolfe talked about her talent agency.  Yes folks an animal talent agency!

Dawn Wolfe has been running Pawsitively Famous Animal Actors for many years.  Her love for dogs started with the movie Benji.  Dawn was so smitten by Benji that she soon found herself putting on animal acts for the neighborhood.  Several years later Dawn found herself working for retired U.S. Army Major Fred Fink as an apprentice.  At the end of that year she earned her “Certified Dog Behaviorist and Master Trainer” certificate. 

After years of working for others Dawn was able to establish herself with her unique approach and techniques that include teaching dogs how to pose for the camera.  Dawn’s talent agency Pawsitively Famous Animal Actors offers dog training but her biggest claim to fame is her Animal Talent Management firm.  In the news clip Dawn spoke about her passion for animals and the enjoyment she gets from representing all kinds of unique animals from birds to dogs to cats to reptiles.  She is willing to manage any animal that has something unique about them to be used for film, commercials and print.  A number of her clients have been placed in movies like Motherhood and television shows like Dogs 101.

Though I don’t have the training or skills to manage animals on this scale I envy her ideas of incorporating something she was already doing, working with animals, into a national talent firm.  Besides the usual athletes, musicians or (human) actors there are many other avenues for managers to explore such as painters or even competitive eaters.  Anyone human or otherwise whom possesses a unique marketable talent needs a manager.  How a manager chooses to go about scouting and managing talent is solely left up to them?  This article has definitely tuned me into new ways of looking at talent.  We can all manage musicians or we can carve our own niche in the same way Dawn turned her passion for animals into a nationwide talent agency.

http://pawsitivelyfamousanimalactors.com/

http://www.phillypethotel.com/sites/default/files/Barkapalooza%20brouchure_0.pdf

http://www.prlog.org/11489686-barkapalooza-may-21-2011.html

Top 50 Music Blogs Review

I decided this week to review a website that lists the 50 top music blogs.  Blogs are a great way for people to discuss issues in a forum, voice their opinions, share photos, videos, art, etc.  Music is still one of the top industries throughout the world with endless amounts of blogs.  This site gives us a way to narrow down the search to the top blogs that discuss specific types of music people like.

Clickitticket.com, a paid site, runs Top 50 Music Blogs.  The fact that a paid site administers Top 50 Music Blogs means that it has more money to dedicate to maintaining the site better than someone that does this as a hobby.  There are also other advertisements on the site that allow us to click and search mostly ticket information for venues.  The McAfee secure link also lets the viewer know that the site is relatively free of viruses.  

The first thing I noticed when looking at this site is that it had a small summary of each blog.  This small summary can really come in handy when deciding if it’s the right blog to click on.  I do like that the very first paragraph explains how they rate the blogs on the website.  Many of the numbers generated to create the list are used to rank many other sites.  The fact that most of these blogs are relevant, up-to-date and informative is important to most viewers. 

The most important thing when looking at any site is that if they have a link to another site that it actually works.  When I clicked each link there was only one that said website was unavailable and the other never loaded.  Two out of 50 not working for me is not a bad ratio.  Hopefully when the administrators update the site again they can remove the dead links and put new blogs in their place.

I’m very interested in indie music so I decided to click on a few of the indie links, which is the very first category listed.  Obscure Music I subscribe to on my RSS feed and is a great site for viewing new artists as well as reviews for albums of established artists.  One that I had not seen before was Gorillavsbear, which turned out to be a very underground music scene type of blog.  The background picture on the site was very vintage also which gave it more of a down-home feel.  This site provided me with names of artists I had never heard of which is the main reason many indie music lovers will frequent a blog.  I would like to see a few more categories added to this blog like classical, dub/electronic and jazz but overall I would say that Top 50 Music Blogs is very well organized, informative and well ahead of its peers.

http://www.clickitticket.com/articles/topmusicblogs.htm