In any other city, maybe I'd feel less anxiety when it comes to...
...the kindness of others. Here...it seems I may've been conditioned to feel things have conditions. I honestly have no idea how I was trained to feel this way.
I think because this town does have a sense of desperation to it. No one can do favors for too long. I do this too, but a guy recently contacted me from New Mexico about a project he wanted to do. After a few minutes of talking, I sensed something odd. He was fishing to see if I'd work on his movie...for free.
The honest part of me wanted to blast him about how much my time and effort costs. It's a massive effort to manually created cuts points for film scans. It's a pain in the ass. But I would do it for a friend. This is a stranger. He's been in the industry for decades and as amassed credits, but also a union camera card. So...why's he hitting me up for free things? I have no idea. Other than...I do that shit too. If it's coming out of your own pocket, you do try your damndest to keep those costs down. It's scummy, now that I think about it. I hate being scummy. I tend to apologize profusely. Sicken that I would beg. This goes on and on. If you've no ambition in this town, all of this falls on deaf ears. Some people have no shame. My friend that just made a short considers the people who did her a favor as...her perception people did it for their own generosity. I'd like to meet those people. The simple fact is, no one does anything in the movie business without an agenda, how ever small. Actors will be in your movie because they believe in the story, or how your vision comes across. They better have confidence in what you do. To me, making people think they should be grateful to help you is sickening. Though I'd never convince her otherwise. Less she bitched to me about a project she got boned on, in terms of getting paid. That's hypocrisy. You should be grateful to be on other projects. Of course, the spin on that is, her project merited more free help than this action one we were both on. Uh-huh.
I'm borrowing a friend's car now. A loaner from a decent guy. I think. I shouldn't be suspicious, but fuck...this town makes me question every good deed. My own hypocrisy is...I love to do favor for friends...if I could. But I don't know what the world "out there" expects. I would love to do this fella who came with his personal project a freebie. But I'm too broke now and the effort would take too much of time I need to find ways to generate more dough. Incidentally, a piece of advice I've learned over a decade of working in movies. A simple favor in our mind snowballs into other things. They are never happy. We use to joke at work...the ones that paid the least complained the loudest. I do not blame them, I learned from them. Ungrateful people with tunnel vision about their own projects wears on you.
I love people try their hardest to do things. Anything. As I've said in the past. I understand the circumstances. And...a while back I recall a guy screaming bloody murder at me over attempting to haggle with a location. I think he got one too many similar calls attempting the same...maybe. I don't want to get to that point. I never count money until it's in the bank. Seriously folks, the promise of things is based on...excitement without planning, empty promises that are never fulfilled. The new generation, I'm not even sure about. I've been told a few times they want to be in something I'm making, only to disappear into the abyss, never to be heard from again. Go ahead and try and figure that one out. Time, energy, effort is worth something. It's a balance.
So the people out there that seem to have advice about this...the boneheads who say things like "move on to the next project" or "forget and move on." If you truly cared about what you did, banging your head constantly on empty effort will eat you from the inside out. My friend who believes people will continue to do her favors needs only a few more projects to prove this point. But, of course, this only happens to a disagreeable shitbag like me? Tell that to Preston Sturges, who actually had a studio behind him.
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