Actor to actress, before filming six scene:
“One of two things is about to happen. For either, I apologize.”
If you ignore the erotic nature of what is on screen, quite often you can tell that, despite all the thrusting, etc., the body positions are just not right. Girl on top, she’s usually humping the guy’s navel. Guy on top, he’s usually humping her upper thigh (unless he’s hung like a mule).
Pssst! See post #4.
I heard someone once (Howard Stern maybe? Can’t remember.) rail against how actors talk about really GETTING INTO a role and BECOMING the person and the set and crew all go away and you BECOME the character.
Until they talk about sex scenes, then they all say it’s awkward and weird.
Suuuuuuuuure it is. grin
That would have been a very definite violation of SAG rules, and of the contract with these actors. It could have gotten the director & production company some serious fines, if nothing else.
In reality, what probably happened was that the director decided the scene would work better with actual nudity, and then ‘persuaded’ the actors to accept this. (Given that they were extras, the persuasion may not have been too hard – the director could easily fire them and replace them with others if they didn’t agree. He might have to pay them, but that’s all.)
Has anybody seen the movie Shortbus by John Cameron Mitchell (of Hedwig & the Angry Inch fame)? In that relatively mainstream movie, most if not all of the sex scenes are real (fellatio, masturbation, possibly penetration [can’t remember]).
I’ve wondered if the actors used Viagra or something like it for any anxiety they may have had.
Thanks, I couldn’t remember the spelling.
Pssst! See post #2.
If yu haven’t watched the special features on the DVD, I highly recommend them.
Do SAG rules even cover non-speaking extras?
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei really go at it in Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. I don’t see what difference a lack of penetration would make when Hoffman is pounding away at Tomei’s backside for a good 30 seconds.
Terrible head, too. I almost felt sorry for the guy, which is tough considering he’s good at everything and he gets paid to make movies about how great he is.
Except that, assuming the movie was shot in California, she was either committing a criminal act or very close to it, on film for eternal posterity. I would be nervous about that, to say the least.
Er, except that “underage nudity on film” is the very definition of child pornography. AIUI, there are exceptions for artistic works meeting various subjective criteria, but would you really want to risk it for a blockbuster film?
Possibly penetration? Ha! Could the sky possibly be blue on a clear day? Could water possibly have a little hydrogen in it? Could a camera possibly shoot a movie? Also, you glossed over the self-fellatio, skipped the gigantic orgy and forgot all about the all-male threesome. (It turned me on, and I’m not even gay!) Very, very hot movie, and yes, it’s all real. I read a few interviews with the director when it came out. (Heh. Came out)
I’m glad you said that. I’ve been debating with myself over whether to renew my unlimited monthly membership at the video store; this thread had me leaning towards “yes” and this post just about sealed it.
Sorry, I’d rather avoid anything that limits my anonimity on the board, since I’m in the credits.
Yup. It’s not that the actors are SAG, it is that the production is SAG. There are SAG rules about how much an extra has to do to become a principal. The director in one commercial shoot I was at was having a hard time because the parents of some of the extra kids were trying to get their kids to push forward to become principals.
[off topic]Actually, some of the extras in SAG productions (exempting low-budget and student films) must be members of SAG and enjoy certain protections and privileges. On some sets, non-union extras are treated about as well as SAG members (although they make about half as much money), but on others there’s a quite obvious caste system.
The “pushing forward” business would only work in commercials, where recognizable = principal. In films and TV, you can actually be featured quite prominently on screen but if you don’t actually say something, it can be tough to get that bump. Notice how many sitcom waitresses take their customers orders and bring them their food without saying a word.
Hostile Dialect, oral sex was decriminalized in California in 1975.[/off topic]
Carry on.
You don’t? Hey! Didn’t I go to the senior prom with you? 
Yeah, but I think sex with minors is still on the books somewhere.
You are, of course, welcome to revel in your anonymity in any way you like, but how in the holy hell would anyone have known you were in the credits? “On set” could mean any number of things and presumably there’s more than one person in the credits.
The Big Guy knows how to get his freak on. Of course, it’s Marisa Tomei; she could probably raise the dead.
No, it’s not. Period. There is no question whatsoever that underage nudity in film is not child pornography.
And it has been seen in modern mainstream films. Thora Birch in American Beauty, for example.
It has nothing to do with exceptions for artistic works. Nudity, per se, is not actionable.
Please do not cite me some photo clerks turning in people. These cases are almost always dismissed, even when some ambitious prosecutor tries to bend the law to get into the media.
Let me say it again. Nudity is not pornography, even when it is of minors. That’s what the hysterical prudity forces want you to believe, but it remains untrue.
Were Brook Shields and the guy who played her brother , underage when this flick was shot? As I recall, there was plenty of nudity in it.