Non-US citizens cannot work in the US without authorization, even for minimal amounts. Payment-in-kind is also compensation, so the employer cannot get around immigration laws by paying someone in clothing or airplane tickets or 12 packs of Bud.

There are certainly a lot of employers that do not follow the rules, thus the existence of 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US. Many of those are working and getting paid under the table or working under forged documents and forged Social Security numbers.

If a studio hired a non-US person for a video, I do not know if there would be any defense to the immigration law violation.