Portland is no LA (How Refreshing)

Since I started working, I’ve moved from one city to another nine times –– mostly from New York to LA or back again. This last move, to Portland, was the first time I didn’t pack up a truck to further my career.

Actually, I was afraid that it would be the opposite. I was convinced that my career would suffer, but I was willing to sacrifice the quality and scope of my work in order to raise my kids someplace where day care centers don’t have valet parking.

Then I directed my first job in Portland.

Okay, I’m not really surprised to find decent actors, producers, and crews in Portland. I’d shot in places as off-the-Hollywood-radar as Moncton, Tampa, and Detroit and the people I worked with in all those places were pretty good. But the ones in Portland? Wow.

So far I’ve shot three jobs here and every one of them has been an absolute pleasure. But it was the two jobs I did back-to-back a couple of months ago—one in New York and the other in LA –– that sealed the deal.

I asked the people at Portland’s @Large Films to produce the New York job. And yes, I was a little nervous. But they pulled it off spectacularly, coming in under budget while making me, the ad agency, and the client extremely happy. Just after that, I got a job in California which I asked an LA company I had once been affiliated with to produce.

It was a spectacular disaster.

What I realized is that sure, the very best people end up in New York and LA, but so do the very worst.

And when the really good people get fed up with the nastiness, a lot of them –– us, really –– decide to move to places like Portland. Places where you don’t have to pad your budget with cash to pay off the gardeners with leaf blowers who appear like wildflowers after a spring rain when a camera truck pulls up. Places where people don’t lean on their horns as they pass a shoot because they’re offended at having to slow down on the way to their own set.

But that’s only part of it. A small part. A lot of the people on my jobs here had never worked in New York or LA. So it’s not like I’ve stumbled into a merry little band of expats doing A-quality work in an otherwise B-level market. I think it comes down to culture.

For all the hype, LA isn’t as much of a film town. Oh sure, it’s the center of the universe for movie making, but per capita, there are more art house movie theaters and independent video stores in Portland. And what that tells me is that LA cares more about the business of film than the art of it.

As for New York, it’s the center of the universe for culture in this country, so you can’t argue that people there don’t care. The problem is that New York is so overwhelming that no matter how much you care, you have to deal with the reality of maneuvering in such a huge city. When I was in film school at NYU, I’d take my Bolex to a nearby park to shoot tests, but I’d rarely get my tripod open before some security guard would show up, demanding to see my film permit.

What Portland has is a community of people who care about the quality of their work without having to live in a city that squishes their soul out of them. That’s why good people move here. And probably why so many good people don’t feel the need to leave.

I’m thrilled to be in Portland, and I’m a little ashamed that I thought working here was going to be a step down. Sure, I’ll miss seeing 200 people when I put out a casting call for a one-legged dwarf who plays mariachi guitar. But that’s a small price to pay.

What a one-year-old taught me about direct response advertising.

My daughter just learned how to share. She’s one.

After a year of taking, it suddenly occurred to her that she can give. And she enjoys it.

Now in the middle of eating, she’ll hold out a Cheerio in her grubby, food-and-slobber encrusted fingers for me or the dogs.

My first reaction was not as honest as the dogs’. I pretended to take the food, chewing my ersatz morsel with melodramatic pleasure.

My daughter knew what I was doing. It wasn’t long before I noticed that she would offer to share with the dogs a little more often and with me a little less.

I know my daughter is an absolute genius, but I’m willing to concede that most kids do the same thing. Children pick up on stuff. They know when their parents are being insincere.

Which got me to thinking.

If we all had parents who pretended to take the mangled Cheerio, we all learned that our generosity was not truly appreciated. Would this explain why so many of us are so reluctant to give?

More relevant to our business, would this explain why consumers are often so suspicious of advertising?

Follow me on this.

I try to give. My generosity is not appreciated. I come to believe that generosity in general is not appreciated. So I learn that it’s not appropriate to appreciate generosity.

Years later, I’m watching TV and on comes a commercial message that contains a ‘special offer’.

“Hmm. How generous,” I think. “What am I to make of that?”

So now I’m at a crossroads. The next time my daughter offers me a Cheerio, do I react sincerely, showing her how much I appreciate her generosity and thereby setting her on the path toward a rewarding life full of love and happiness, moderated only a little by the occasional disappointment she’ll inevitably experience when the ‘special offer’ she falls for turns out not to be all that special?

Or do I pretend to take the Cheerio, breaking her little heart and setting her up to become a cynical consumer, unwilling to believe that the people putting out marketing communications could possibly be motivated by anything other than a desire to fool her into buying something she doesn’t need for more than she really ought to pay?

It’s an easy decision. That Cheerio is kind of nasty.