Ask the pornographer

Great Debates
21

Ahunter3:

Well, I shoulda been clearer (I think - not really sure what you mean).

We currently utilise a premise for most girl-girl encounters, not a plot. Models start clothed, and end up naked in both situations, but there’s a big difference between premise and plot . A premise might be:

or

[not actual quotes, sorry]

A plot, of course, is very different. It has tension and conflict, characters need to be established and usually change somehow, and the conflict needs to resolved at the end. Drama.
abby

22

Hi SuzCQ (cute nick!)

I am not sure what you mean by physically compatible, to be honest. You mean, the same height? Or that a penis is not too large for a given vagina? or that skin colours complement each other?

Well, I don’t shoot hetro sex, so some of that’s not an issue for me (we are planning on starting soon, and we plan to shoot people who are partnered in real life). People manage to have sex in real life with little regard for physical compatibility, and while we’re not making a documentary, the material we shoot is closer to reality than most of the slick porn out there. I cannot speak for other producers, tho.

We always use the super closeup shots of the same people who are in the long shots, and why anyone would do it is only to save money, tho really it’d not save much at all (and result in a crap product, and be a little mislaeading, see below). It’s much more convenient to shoot extreme closups (ECU’s) at the end of a shoot, in the “pickups” stage, for many reasons:
[ul][li]lighting is the same as for wide shots[/li][li]it will be on the same tape for editing convenience[/li][li]the pose will match the long shot (this takes a while, and is hard enough posing models for closeups when they were in that position 20 minutes ago - much harder to pose two models who have never done that pose together before, on a different day)[/li][li]the furniture, props, set dressings, clothes will match[/li][li]just plain convenience[/li][li]models will match[/ul] [/li]The last point seems kinda obvious, but in reality a gi-gi (sorry, our slang) has just as many features as someone’s face, and anyway, someone’s face is usually in on a closeup (especially in girl-girl material).

I know that some dodgy porn producers will shoot a softcore GG scene, and then edit in some more explicit stuff, but for the reasons cited above, it always looks crap, and never makes sense (why is the 18" pink dildo only used in extreme closeups, and never in long shots?). They greatly underrate the intelligence of their viewers. Unfortunately for me, they still make money, tho. :))
We shoot on MiniDV not 8mm, FYI, but the cameras are a similar size anyway. The lenses we use can focus from around 8cms (um, 3.1 inches), though we rarely put the camera that close. They would indeed ruin the mood however, so we usually only utilise ECU’s in the “pickups” (discussed in more detail earlier on this thread). We try to use the zoom function on the camera as little as possible, as it affects perspective weirdly. When we do use it, we stay away from the in and out extremes.

Closeups in video are over-rated IMO, and we are using less and less of them lately. A film is about the people’s interaction, and an ECU of one percent of the big picture rarely communicates that at any level (tho they are useful in small doses).

Occasionally, re-lighting for ECU pickup shouts is required, so the camera does not cast a shadow over the action. Hard to do well, to match the shadows to the big picture. Cinematographers and gaffers spend years perfecting it, and we’re no where near close.
Music, huh? Jezze, that’s a tough one. We commissioned a musician for music recently, and while he’s giving us what we asked for, it’s not even close to want we want, unfortunately (bah! Typical artist! ;)). This is REALLY HARD. Of course, we want to get clear of the typical sax and wah-wah pedal, but…

We had a vision for contemporary drums n bass… but it’s not working out how we hoped. I rilly like your idea of rain or wave sounds, tho. Thanks.

We go to a helluva lot of trouble to record live sound (customers demand it), and we tend to do a lot better than most people, and it’s hard knowing when to fade the music up, or when to not have it at all. It’s a fine art, I tells ya.

Abby

23

Do you have an affiliate program for your site? How are you promoting your site?

24

Hi abby, I actually have several questions for you since it’s not often I get to ask a real, live pornographer questions. :slight_smile:

  1. I was wondering about the selection process that the models go through. You mentioned earlier that you pretty much shoot the models who come to you, but I was wondering whether there is a certain “look” or “type” (or even personality trait) that you either actively search out or try to avoid. If so, why?

  2. What percentage of the girls do you typically turn away?

  3. How are models referred to you?

Ta muchly!

25

abby:

The sex wouldn’t have to be ancillary to that. In fact, sex itself is a lot like that!

Why? Is one of them using this as an opportunity to seduce the other? Has she tried it before unsuccessfully? How did the would-be seduction-victim react? Feel about it? Can we maybe roll back to last week when she tried it for the first time, unsuccessfully, show that part? After she gets over the startlement and shock, does the other gal find herself kind of wondering? Did she accept an invite to come over today with an internal resolution not to let such possibilities become actualities? When we see their respective facial expressions when the first gal first starts doing things with her toe other than letting them get painted, do we see daring and mischief on the face of the instigator? Ambivalence and uncertainty on the face of the other, perhaps a struggle to find the best way to extract herself from the situation, followed by an erotic flush and a losing track of passing time as the toe keeps rubbing?

[/quote]

Eventually, yeah. Interrupted by conversation. Maybe conversation results in girl #2 questioning the motives of girl #1 who doesn’t seem to get it that she isn’t like that, and this appears to break the mood, only to have something distract her, and when her attention swings back, girl #1 gives her another kiss, and some time between the 3rd and 4th kiss girl #2 leans against girl #1? Then after awhile

See, you’ve got a plot, you just need to fill it out more! Who strips what off whom? Attitudes, reactions, facial expressions, speed, mood?

yep, lots of etc going on there :wink:

26

How do you manage this? Or, how do the models manage this?

It has been my observation that in still shots of women orally copulating men, the woman often (usually?) manages to gaze directly into the camera, while the man does not. This gives the impression that the man is really involved in the moment, while the woman is simply doing a job, no pun intended. For all I know, this might well be the case and not simply an impression.

27

Why do you keep misspelling “whymyn”?

::d & r::

28

I had a similar question to Hodge’s. How come you’re spelling “women” as “wimmin?” Is this a business standard? Australian standard?

Now for the other question. Which filmmakers (International, Hollywood, Erotic) do you consider to be your influences?

29

My hand is up. Are you still taking questions?

30

Hey Abby,
Thanks for these great answers! In responding to my question about physical compatability, you asked what I meant…and I could’ve been clearer;-( Will attempt here:
What I’ve often observed in girl-on-guy action is that in as much as penetration is shown, erection–if not open ejaculation–is usually a standard part of the scene. It seems that if a male cast member is really not into his female counterpart…well…that he can’t get into her would seem the end of it. If the turned-off cast member is female, it’s physically possible to fake it, I suppose, but quite possibly more trouble than its worth for her, other cast and the directors.
So I was wondering whether prospective cast members all know and like each other beforehand, or if they don’t, if they can “vet” one another ahead of time and what such a process would be.

31

I am a consumer of porn, and I believe society’s double standard – shun it in public, then hypocritically enjoy it in private – is pretty disgusting. However, I don’t deny it exists, and hence my question: What do you tell non-industry people you do for a living? Your family, friends, casual acquaintances, people you meet at parties, etc.? And if you’re up-front about it, how do people generally respond?

32

“Wimmin” or “wymyn” is how certain feminist positions like “woman” or “women” spelt. The reason being is that it removes the “man” and “men” from the description of people of that gender. This has a lot to do with philosophers like Lacan and his theories of language. Well that’s what my politics teacher always tells me…

33

Hi PaulYeah

Affilliate programs are a waste of time and effort, best as I can tell. They are a crazy way to run your web porn business (or any business, IMO), do not encourage customer loyalty, and are not content based.

My theory is, create good content, treat people well, and they will hang around. We have no ads on our site at all, no popups, consoles, blind links, etc, which are part and parcel with affiliate programs. And they make sites look AWFUL, and make it hard to get around. Why would anyone pay for that?

We may not be making as much money or be as diverse as people who create a dozen sites with stock images, and affiliate them all with each other, and “portal” sites, but I firmly believe that in the long run, we’ll do better by doing it “right” - behaving in a way that customers appreciate.

Now, all that being said, I have some very good friends in the biz who do what I do, and we all have pages of links, where we send each other customers. Kinda like, “if you like my site, you might also like these sites”. But there’s no money changing hands, no tit for tat. The customers decide.

abby

34

Hiya, Kayeby!

We advertise for models in several ways. Primary contact is by telephone, where we cull out people who are not suitable due to basic requirements by us: age, weight; and basic requirements by them (ie, they don’t want to do nude work, they are male). That culls out about 60 out of 100 of phone calls.

We ask the resulting people to come in for an interview. About 30 will show up (many after a lot of follow up calls). The other 30 gave the wrong contact number, even though they set up an appointment (grr), and never show (ie, never intended to show, but did not want to say ont he phone - a pet hate of ours).

We accept around 15 of the 30 people who show up (ie, 50% of show-ups are rejects). The most common reason for us not shooting a model who shows up to an interview is that she is just not… well, pretty enough. Other reasons include, model not having suitable ID, model is travelling, and we don’t have time to shoot her before she moves on, we may be inundated with models, and not have time to shoot them all, she might change her mind about it.

Our standards are very much lower than other people who shoot - we’re going for a “normal” look, not a “classically beautiful” look, so we are able to shoot more people. This works in our favour, obviously.

There are looks we’re definitely after, but we don’t go out of our way to find them - we just count ourselves lucky when they show up. As I mentioned above, the “nice girl” look generally sells better - no tan, no piercings, no tatts, not-shaved-bare, etc.

We ask every person we shoot to think about any friends they might have who’d be interested in doing this kind of work. If we shoot them, the referring model gets a cash “referral fee”, which is around a third of the average modelling fee (ie, quite a lot).

We don’t work with agencies, cos they never have the kind of people we are after, and even if they did, they rarely act int he interest of the model. We go to a grass roots level, asking people directly on the street (etc), posters in strategic places, and newspaper advertisements.

aby

35

So, who in their right mind invests their entire life savings into a porn site? :wink:

36

A really horney dreamer. :smiley:

37

AHunter3, you got some good ideas there, and some of it we are already doing. We’re not doing more of it mainly cos the models cannot behave that way convincingly in front of a camera (ie, act).

The second we turn the camera off, of course, they do exactly the kinda stuff we want - mostly, chatting and giggling and larking about like gals do together.

What you describe is naturalistic behaviour, and is very much what we want to capture on film.

It’s very frustrating, cos we have a very clear idea of what we want (gals interacting naturally), and they do it all the time, so it should be dead easy to shoot… but they have been conditioned to be very self concious in front of a camera. We deal with amateur models, not pros, so it’s par for the course.

abby

38

Louis B

Some models are better at not acknowledging the camera than others. Those that are better at it are usually better at other things as well (gennerally all round more intersting models), and we tend to ask them to do girl-girl shoots.

The odd glance we can edit out (tho it does affect the flow). Frequent glances really adversely affect the film.

I agree that it toally affects the style of the shoot: are the models capering for the camera, or really into eachother? They cannot convincingly be both, IMO (tho by editing out the camera acknowledgements, we try to pass them off as being into eachother).

There’s a lot to be said for looking at the camera, however. There’s a real market for “hey mum, look at what i can do” <action> “see?”, but it’s a definite style, and tends only to work for shorter peices, not as well for feature length.

abby

39

It’s part joke, part slang. As someone else suggested, feminists use it, cos they reckon a word that describes them that has “men” is it is evil or something. I certainly d not sunscribe to that theory, tho. I just reckon it’s fun. Like “prolly” = probably, ya know?

Oh, and CnoteChris, sure, go right ahead!

abby

40

Hi SuzCQ

Oh, I getcha. As I said, we don’t shoot hetro material (yet), but we have had that happen in a girl-girl shoot (Susie and Melissa, to make storytelling easier). Both models knew each other, and had done a softcore shoot eight months before. It went well, so we asked them to come back recently to do a more involved scene. We had since done a very good GG scene with Susie and one of her old friends, who was not available for more work, so we got Melissa back instead, thinking that as they knew eachother, it’d be better.

Turned out when they got back together that Melissa was now very bi, and very much into the work at hand, bust Susie was more straight than ever, and did not like Mel so much at all - nor how much Mel was getting INTO it all. The result was uninspiring and very expensive.

Both models were good on their own, and with other people, but not with each other. And to add insult to injury, they both lived in very distant cites to where we were producing, so it cost a lot to fly them in, put them up in a hotel, and so on.

There’s no way to know the result when you put two people together for something as personal as sex, so it’s a risk we take. We have been pretty lucky, really, that was the only shoot I’d class as a failure.

As I said elsewhere in this thread, before we pair models up, we show them pics of each other, and let them meet in a non-threatening environment first. In the case of Susie and Mel, we sent them out for a night on the town with some other people. Shame it did not make a diff.

a