Ok. To start I am not a rep, nor a video commissioner, but it is what I aspire to be (2 years of experience so far). I work for a well known rep here in LA over a year now and have seen many main assistants come and go. They usually only last a few months. Months ago, the main assistant quit. He was a MV director and was only doing the job to find out how to get work. I was surprised he was not signed for his reel had star power from a hit song that got radio play, and I saw his video on MTV a few years back. The problem was it was old star power, from a one hit wonder faded star, and what you need is todays buzz. Most assistants quit because they eventually realize that "To be a MV director, you must direct music videos" and that hits, awards or bands with buzz get you signed. This assistant was already thinking of quitting. He wanted to get himself work using the rep's databases, collected info and contacts, but felt it was taboo to ask for permission. He feared the rep that he was assisting would not see him as a director but only as an assistant (pigeon hole), but after he was honest about how he felt, the rep told him it was OK to use the rep's systems to hustle himself work so long as it wasn't on the companies time. Even so, he soon quit and pursued directing. He is doing fairly well right now, as an independent director. With music video budgets for even "big" bands going viral (getting really low budgets), commissioners seem to mind less and less that a director is unsigned just so long as they can deal with not getting checks till the last minute and do business as usual like an established company would. The biggest setback is new directors not knowing how business is done or etiquette, but more on that in a future blog. Three months later the assistant that replaced him also quit to become a director. -Nick Kane, (aspiring Rep/Commissioner)