Formation Talent Agency's Rick Estimond and Lauren Williams Discuss People Store Rebrand and More

For more than 40 years, one of Atlanta’s leading boutique talent agencies was the People Store, which specialized in developing talent and had a rather large footprint in the Southeast US.

Less than a year ago, the company rebranded as Formation Talent Agency. With that rebrand came a new mission: a scaled-down operation intended to raise talent to the next level. With more agents and fewer clients, it was a plan right out of Jerry Maguire.

In the ensuing months, the new direction has spoken for itself, as the company has enjoyed new success as a major player in the new entertainment ecosystem. Formation President Rick Estimond and Senior Vice President Lauren Williams chatted with us about the company’s new direction, Estimond from the company’s Atlanta offices, and Williams from her home in Huntsville, Alabama.

Insights: Lessons from Rick Estimond and Lauren Williams

Seek agencies that prioritize personalized career management and have a selective roster.
Network with industry professionals in major markets like LA and NY, not just locally.
Embrace digital trends and content creation to stay competitive in the evolving industry.

Thinking about joining Casting Networks? Sign up for a free trial today!

Let’s start with you answering this for me: Why are we here?

Rick Estimond: (laughs) A lot has changed in the entertainment industry, and we’ve been trying to evolve with it. I took over as president of the agency in 2020 — a wonderful time to be in charge of a company, especially your first time doing it. The thing about that year was that, yes, it was extremely challenging, but there were lots of interesting opportunities that came as a result; which enabled us to start the process of restructuring our business.

Last year was a big step in that direction. Before we were volume-oriented and certainly did a great job of building the careers of developmental clients. Now, we’re establishing ourselves as an agency that can not only build the developmental actor but also service established actors at a very high level. That’s why I’m excited about Lauren being part of our team. She brings a wealth of experience working at that level, and bringing that background is tremendous for the direction that we’re going.

That seems like a good entrée to talk to you, Lauren. What brought you onto the team, and what’s your role?

Lauren Williams: I’m helping to guide our agents and expand their relationships, not only in the Southeast but to Los Angeles and New York.

I spent almost 20 years in Los Angeles in the entertainment business. I worked at ICM for about a decade as a talent agent, and then I went into management for about five years. I’m originally from Georgia, though my family has since moved to Huntsville, Alabama. When COVID started, I came to Alabama and worked remotely as a manager for two years. Then I bought a house, got married and I decided I wasn’t going back to Los Angeles. I left the business for two years and started an acting school here in Northern Alabama.

Rick heard about me from one of his agents, who had gone to Savannah College of Art and Design, where I was on the board of the film festival for a number of years. He called to see if he could bring me out of my retirement.

I was most intrigued about being a part of a company where the focus is larger than just being a Southeast agency. I was intrigued about how to use my resources and my network to expand what we’re doing in Atlanta. It’s been about 10 months now that I’ve been there, and I’m proud of what we’ve been doing. Since our announcement came out in January, we’ve had a very strong influx of calls from high-level managers and agents in LA and New York who want us to work with their clients and share business with us.

Lauren, what was it that drew you back?

LW: I was never out. I still had one foot in the LA world. All my friends are there, all my New York people, I kept in contact with all my manager and agent friends, and I followed Deadline …

RE: You kept your IMDB Pro account …

LW: I kept that, yeah. Clients were texting me, asking me to watch their self tapes. I formed strong bonds with my clients, so a lot of them, even though I was no longer their representation, they still leaned on me — especially during COVID — and then right into the writers and actors strikes. And Rick is very persuasive.

After a two-year hiatus, I missed working with actors. I love actors. I love the art of being an agent and negotiation, and I love the casting process. I just felt it was a real opportunity for me to share my skillset and my relationships. To be able to come back in the community of representation while also having a leadership position was exciting for me.

I would bet the two years off recharged your batteries, too.

LW: For sure. I felt very lucky that I took two years off when it was a crappy time in the business. I missed all the bad stuff. (Laughs)

Rick, what was it that facilitated this redirection?

RE: I started in the agency as an intern 16 years ago. I’ve had every job imaginable in the agency and have learned a lot.

Certainly, when you are stepping into a leadership position, I had a lot of thoughts and ideas about how to not only preserve the legacy of [company founder] Rebecca Shrager and this incredible thing that she built but also to expand on it and add to it and build it. None of it to me was visionary. It was just, these are the things that I think make sense to do. We’ve had a lot of success building careers and working with so many actors. To me, the logical next step was to take things to a higher level to respond to the changes in the industry.

What are the nuts and bolts of this switch?

RE: Before, we had a larger roster, but what we’re doing now is a lot more thoughtful. We have more agents than we’ve ever had, but we also have far fewer clients. Before, the game plan was to book as many people on as many jobs as possible. Then when you had certain people break through, we had partnerships outside of this market: lots of great alliances with bigger agencies in LA and New York. Once an actor got to a certain level, we would coordinate with one of these partners to help facilitate further growth in their career, and that worked for us well. That was one of the key features that differentiated us from some of the other boutique agencies based here in the Southeast.

Now, we want to have that same capability as those agencies in LA. Where we’re not just able to help an actor start their career and grow to a certain level, but then, once they’re at that level, we’re also capable of managing their career at this level.

We’ve refined the way that we approach things, and it looks exactly the way that an established agency in LA does it. We have point agents responsible for certain clients. We have agents covering certain projects and a lot of coordination in the sharing of information that happens in weekly grid meetings. We’re more detailed and focused in a way we weren’t before. We already see the benefit and impact this is making for our clients.

LW: To add to that, we have a focus. We have two other agents who come from New York agencies. I’ve been pushing to expand our reach so it’s not just about Atlanta casting and shows shooting in the Southeast, but to LA and New York casting; and we have expanded our reach to the network and studio executive level. That’s how you get certain jobs that maybe weren’t accessible before.

We’re seeing these relationships pay off. This industry is constantly expanding and contracting, and there have been a lot of agents who have gone on to become managers; which for us as agents is great because we now can share business with them and have them be partners.

What’s the big picture? Is there an end goal? What does the future look like?

RE: What’s interesting is to be able to say that business is growing for us at a time when everybody’s saying the industry is shrinking. I expect that there will be more consolidation, and we still don’t see people at the theaters the way we used to before the pandemic. The strategy with the streamers is to just pump out content, capture as many subscribers as possible and grow from there. That worked for Netflix but isn’t working for everybody else. Then you have AI, which was part of the reason why the strikes went so long. We’re still in the middle of it, wondering where the industry is going now.

To answer your question, the long-term vision is to continue that growth. There are some talented people we’re working with who have the capability of being the next big stars. Also, one of the things that we want to try to innovate in is digital. The influencer game is growing, and I think that Atlanta in particular has produced a lot of incredible influencers and content creators. That’s definitely something that we’re leaning into. We want to be a leader in this particular space. We’ve also had an eye on growing in the literary space, representing writers, directors and filmmakers; all above-the-line talent.

LW: We’re also very fortunate that there’s so much production in the Southeast. I can’t tell you how many colleagues I have in LA and New York who say, “Gosh, you’re so lucky that you’re in the South. Nothing’s happening in LA, nothing’s happening in New York.”

We have a great tax incentive for production to come to the state of Georgia, and more states in the Southeast are looking at developing that model. We have a wonderful emerging department where we’re finding clients under 18. Formation has been good at developing young people and getting them to that next level, and we now have an agent and an assistant who are solely dedicated to that mission of emerging talent. We also have a robust commercial department and have already had a lot of success there. When we meet new potential clients, we can say that we are a full-service agency, and that’s exciting for us.