Comment by larrys

"But they said that the important thing wasn’t the money it was the exposure and potential for more work. After thinking about it long and hard I had to decline. "

Because the exposure was more important than the money. Would have of course been nice if they stated this upfront but they didn't. That's water under the dam at this point.

I have regularly done work for people at no charge.

This has not only led to a great amount of paid work but I've thrown around the names that I've done work for quite liberally and use it the same way the company that sold a treadmill to the White House used to scream in their ads "only one chosen to be used by the President in the White House!!" (when in fact it is a competitive bid almost certainly). So I use those names to book more work. I've even used the names with success when cold emailing here and there. Right on the subject line.

While it is not great that he was lied to, he did agree to put in the work with no guarantee of getting anything.

Consequently the way I look at it even if he feels he was screwed he should have sucked it up and let Spike use it, even for free, and then bragged and gotten out of that what he could until the cows came home.

Instead he reacted emotionally and ends up with nothing. Understanding of course that this is upsetting.

Separately, in looking at his site he does really nice work. So perhaps he shouldn't have done the work on spec in the first place but then again he did say that "the idea of working for you and having my design represent your film blinded me."

In other words if anyone of us had approached him to do work on spec he most likely would have declined very quickly or not treated the transaction the same way.