My filmmaking career is heavily indebted to the deposits I have made into the favor bank and the interest those favors have accrued. It’s a pretty easy concept, you do something to help someone and they will help you in return. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but sometime, somehow. If they don’t return the favor, shame on them. It is sort of like karma and the mafia rolled into one.
The favor bank was a lesson I learned in college and I try to teach it to my students beginning day one. When I was a junior in college I was loaned Chicago Studio City (now Oprah’s Harpo Studios) for a weekend to shoot a music video. I had three stages (one of which held The Wild Kingdom set- I never saw Marlon Perkins or Jim Fowler) and all the toys that went along with those stages for the price of me stripping and waxing the Studio City lounge floor.
I have written here before about my work with Denny Dent. Denny worked for me for essentially a ride to the airport and copies of the finished work. He knew how the favor bank worked and was willing to spend an afternoon painting Mick Jagger for me on the hopes that it would turn out well and he could use it to further his career. It did- for both of us.
I am always amazed when students don’t buy into this concept. Recently I hooked up a former student of mine on a three day documentary shoot. There was no pay, but he would have his travel and meals comped, and more importantly, be able to take a camera credit on a feature length documentary. He was shooting concert footage of rockabilly legend Sleepy LaBeef jamming with Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen and that’s not a bad thing to have on your reel at age 25. If I had the time I probably could have found someone to pay ME for the opportunity to shoot this.
In any event when he returned from the the trip he called to complain, explaining he felt he deserved at least something for the effort, plus (and I think this is what really got him upset) he had to be a boom operator for part of the trip and he didn’t feel comfortable doing that. I told him I was sorry and to look at all the positives from the experience. I reminded him that he now had a deposit in his favor bank and at some point he can call it in.
I think he would have preferred a deposit into his regular bank, but for his sake I hope he learned a lesson about the ways of the business world.
PeterH
