But I'm Not a Lawyer, I'm an Agent
This is pretty dense with industry-specific terms, but I think I figured it out.<p>&quot;Packaging&quot; is a talent agency bundling up different creative roles (writer, producer, actor) for a project (film or tv show) and then pitching that group of people for that specific project to the studios. The agency takes a percentage of the _project_ revenues instead of a percentage of each individual _talents_ pay for the project.<p>This is apparently the standard way things work in Hollywood now and has some consequences:<p>1. It screws up the &quot;Agent&quot; part of the talent agency. They no longer directly represent an individual&#x27;s interest (like a Real Estate agent or a Lawyer) because they just want to get people into a &quot;package&quot;. This is the main problem described in the article, that there are some massive conflicts inherent to this process.<p>2. Packaging projects make agencies way more money than directly representing clients.<p>3. It reverts movie and tv making back to something like the studio days. Every actor isn&#x27;t really able to work with every director, in order to get something made they need to be &quot;packaged&quot; which means working with someone else from within the same agency.<p>4. It messes up people lower on the rung more than top tier folks because they&#x27;re less able to buck the system.