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As a warning, this thread is NWS!! Hello Fellow Goons, It has been a long time since I've done this. The more things change, the more things stay the same. I hit my 15 year mark in the industry this year and been some of my most successful years lately. It has been a strange journey that I still enjoy greatly. What exactly do I do? I am a producer/director, distributed by Evil Angel. I also perform on camera, though this year I've scaled that back. Last year I performed a great deal. Prior to becoming a producer at Evil Angel, I was a freelance camera operator/photographer for nearly every major company in the Adult Industry. What is your background? I am 40 years old and did not make the plunge full time into doing this until 2000. Prior to that I grew up in Western Massachusetts. I was a UNIX SysAdmin for the UMASS campus in Amherst, where I was very active in the 90's running a series of Quake Servers and Counter Strike Servers called Yoda's Barn. I am still an active gamer, though I don't have the time to play like I used to. Currently I've been playing TitanFall and the Diablo3 expansion. How exactly did you get into this? I can partially thank Mitt Romney. I used to work an adult shop when I was 18 and always had an interest in porn and sex. That began my first insight into the industry from a video stores perspective. I learned a little bit about the business, however it wasn't until the mid 90's that I began really pursing it. I was very lucky to be at a major college (UMASS) right when the Internet was really starting to blossom. I jumped head first into it and when a company called iBill began allowing third party processing for credit card payments, I tried to start an amateur adult site around my girlfriend at the time. I did this out of my dorm room. I eventually moved into a full time career at UMASS working as a junior SysAdmin, but on the side still ran my amateur sites. I also began attending CES and would slip away to the adult section and try to make inroads to people there from all the various companies that produce adult movies. I also began shooting female adult performers while they were on tour at strip clubs in the New England area. I would shoot photos of them at the club for various little magazines like Club or Xcitement or whomever would buy them. Mitt Romney became the Governor of Massachusetts and he gut funding to public education. Since UMASS was a state school, it had major budget cuts. In order to save people from layoffs, the union worked out a deal where employees could take a voluntary layoff. I knew that my life was at a crossroads. I could stay at Umass and weather the storm or I could take a huge risk and take the voluntary layoff. I chose the layoff and moved to LA to pursue working in the adult industry full time. My initial time in LA was at first very rough. Luckily I had made some good contacts by this point, but it is an expensive city to live in. I had gotten a gig at the trade publication for the adult industry (AVN) doing photos of events, tradeshows and performers on tour. I had a chance meeting with Joey Silvera, who is somewhat an icon in the industry. He was a long time performer in the 70's and 80's. He was now a producer/director at Evil Angel. Joey and I kind of hit it off. His assistant the time quit and he needed another assistant. He asked me if I wanted to do it and I started working for him. That really began the day to day shooting and working in the trenches. I learned so much from Joey and I spent many years working for him. From Joey I met John Leslie and Rocco Siffredi and John Stagliano and began working at times for all of them. Eventually, after many years of working under them, I began to branch out on my own. I started shooting stills and movies for a wide variety of companies and the rest they say is history. Eventually I was offered by John Stagliano the chance to direct at Evil Angel. What do you shoot with? For photos I used to be a Nikon guy, do or die. However, when I first saw the Canon MarkII I realized that this might change things. It was a small financial burden, but I dropped all my Nikon gear and glass and reinvested in all Canon gear. I was using the MarkII heavily, but now use two MarkIII's and recently picked up the 1DX. I shoot both stills and video with these cameras. I no longer use video cameras. Prior to shooting with the DSLR's, I was using a solid state Sony EX3 camera. It is still a great video camera, but the quality you can get out of the current DSLR's is amazing. I use a wide variety of after market products to make shooting easier with DSRL's and more similar to a video camera in terms of feel so that I can do run and gun shooting. I am considering moving to either a Red Scarlet or the Canon C300. What do you edit on? For nearly 10 years I've edited on Final Cut Pro on a MacPro. Early this year I left the Mac world behind and purchased a new editing rig that is Windows based and moved completely over to Premiere Pro. The reason being is that while I loved FCP7, I hated the new Final Cut X. Premiere Pro felt similar to FCP7 and offered even more robust features. This combined with its ability to make use of CUDA enabled video cards and also make use of all the RAM in your system, made me ditch the old FCP. I really love Premiere and especially the seamless integration with After Effects. Why do you do this? That is a complicated question and if I were to get insightful I am sure it has to do somewhat with my upbringing and also my outlook. I was raised in a very serious Irish catholic household. The problem was that for a long time I couldn't come to terms with the way I was raised versus how I felt. It caused me incredible internal conflict and as Alec Baldwin once put it, being irish catholic is guilt upon crushing guilt. What I know now, is that I feel very strongly that adults should be allowed to express themselves sexually with other consenting adults. Repression is a terrible thing. Porn to me is escapism entertainment. It is like people watching "professional" wrestling. Everyone knows its fake, yet people still love it Just like horror movies and other forms of entertainment allow people to escape the stress of their life and for 15 minutes live out some sexual fantasy they probably will never experience. Sex isn't always rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes we use it to explore our own turmoil and conflict. I fully understand that it is not for everyone and not everyone views it the same as I. What is different since your past threads? I feel that I hit a certain level professionally. I basically can almost do whatever productions I want within reason. It certainly doesn't feel like 15 years. While the business has shrunk, some how I've found continued success and expanded beyond what I ever expected. I don't really think about that until I do threads like this and spend some time thinking over the last year. What about X performer? I am often asked about specific performers. While I have shot most of them, the majority I don't know on a personal level unless I've shot them many times. There are some performers I've shot over and over. Others I've shot once. There are more female performers now than ever and because of that there are some I've never shot or simply haven't gotten around to shooting. I am also dating another performer in the industry. She has been in the industry for about 8 months now. Her stage name is August Ames. How personal relationships work tend to interest people and that might be a topic some want to ask about or discuss. Some photos (NWS!): August and I about to walk the Gauntlet at the AVN Awards in Jan http://i.imgur.com/xvcGwck.jpg Laughing at something Evan Stone is saying to me http://i.imgur.com/UZ9Y3vY.jpg Caught in mid stare http://i.imgur.com/d7jrsv7.jpg Luna and I at the Evil Angel booth at AEE in Jan http://i.imgur.com/B6VnPIX.jpg At the Awards. I have a 100 degree fever and left early. http://i.imgur.com/p0rHRql.jpg Caught in mid conversation with John Stagliano and Joey Silvera. http://i.imgur.com/Wfk03fY.jpg Rigged a car with multiple cameras with Gracie Glam and Teal Conrad http://i.imgur.com/5VPaWkM.jpg One of my photo setups with Holly Taylor http://i.imgur.com/3LRUCA8.jpg What my floors typically look like before a shoot http://i.imgur.com/FU7Bxzqh.jpg My cat photobombing Asa Akira http://i.imgur.com/B4pY1wxh.jpg Gia and Bonnie in their sugar skull makeup for me before a shoot: http://i.imgur.com/t84F31hh.jpg Some Trailers of mine: The Hooker Experience http://www.thehookerexperience.com/ Obedience School http://www.obedienceschoolxxx.com/ Inked Angels http://www.kevinmooreonline.com/IA/ Inked Angels 2 http://www.kevinmooreonline.com/IA2/ Brand New Girls http://www.kevinmooreonline.com/BNG/ Anal Corruption http://analcorruption.com/ More about me can be found on my social networking sites: My twitter: https://www.twitter.com/kevinm00re My facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevinmooreonline.com G+: https://plus.google.com/+KevinMooreXXX/ darkpriest fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Apr 24, 2014 |
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Apr 24, 2014 10:41
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Thanks for the thread! Your previous threads have been great. You say you feel confident tackling any shoot now. Is there a typical ceiling in the industry? Do you feel you've reached it? Just surviving in the shrunken market is success but is there room to innovate? I guess porn is porn and has been since dudes drew titties on a cave wall but would be interesting to get your views on the future of the industry, new technology, etc.
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Apr 24, 2014 14:06
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No sarcasm, people like you make America great. I don't have any specific questions, but I am looking forward to reading this thread! 
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Apr 24, 2014 14:14
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I joined SA because of your last thread in 2008ish (along with GWS). Glad to see you make another!
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Apr 24, 2014 14:59
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What's it like to pertform? Sexual fantasies aside, being pointed with cameras while trying to have stylized sex with a woman you don't know in a studio full of people would be the most uncomfortable/awkward/depressing thing I can imagine. Also, how did your parents react when you told them about your career?
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Apr 24, 2014 15:27
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Porn featuring transsexuals seem to be quite popular these days. You have previously talked about how the straight and gay porn production worlds are almost totally separate; does the same go for the transsexual stuff?
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Apr 24, 2014 15:30
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How many people are typically involved in a movie shoot? Have you ever visited non-porn sets? If you have, what was most different?
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Apr 24, 2014 16:25
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One thing I have always wondered is if birth control is a requirement for women performers. Is it something that is contractually obligated? What is the preferred method (pills, implants, etc.)? Has anyone ever gotten pregnant from shooting a scene?
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Apr 24, 2014 19:25
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adamarama posted:Thanks for the thread! Your previous threads have been great. The ceiling for me was creative control. In the past your a freelancer shooting what your told to shot. Evil Angel is not a production studio, they are only a distributor. You have to be chosen by the owner for them to distribute your work. At that point you can do whatever the heck you want. In that regard I've hit a certain level that I always desired. There's always room to grow. For me that would be on the technical side. I've done well with the DSLR, but now it is probably time to go beyond that. I shot some productions using the Magic Lantern hack for the MarkIII and shot a bunch of footage in RAW. The work flow is very cumbersome, but the final product looks incredible. I'd love to move into the RED arena with possibly a Scarlet and shoot everything in RAW. Everyone is pushing 4k. However to me 4k is silly. Without a display that can support a 4k image, the majority of people won't be able to see the difference. On top of that 4k can only be streamed or broadcast for adult and even broadcasting 4k isn't happening anytime soon. So while everyone is rushing off to get into 4k, to me it's dynamic range that is the most important next step. That is something the viewer may not understand, but will simply come across with better highlights and lowlights and a better range of light and color. I'd take a camera with amazing dynamic range over 4k anyday.
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Apr 24, 2014 19:30
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The Rat posted:No sarcasm, people like you make America great. I don't have any specific questions, but I am looking forward to reading this thread! Schiavona posted:I joined SA because of your last thread in 2008ish (along with GWS). Fantastic. Hopefully we can make this another interesting thread. It has been a couple years since I've done one.
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Apr 24, 2014 19:40
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Can you speak about the std testing? Do you know any performers that had to quit because of an std? What happened to that law requiring condoms? I haven't seen any new porn with condoms used.
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Apr 24, 2014 19:51
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ManOfTheYear posted:What's it like to pertform? Sexual fantasies aside, being pointed with cameras while trying to have stylized sex with a woman you don't know in a studio full of people would be the most uncomfortable/awkward/depressing thing I can imagine. Performing is hard to explain. It is sort of like LSD, it is amazing and terrifying all at the same time. A little back story on how it can to pass for me. I was working as an assistant for another producer at Evil Angel many years ago. He was a very prolific performer in the 70's and 80's and then moved into producing movies later in life. Taught me an enormous amount. He would also tell me two things. You will never be a good camera operator unless you edit and you will never be a good director unless you have performed. The idea behind both is that until you try editing your own camera work, you won't understand your mistakes or how to improve your camera work. As a director, you won't understand what goes on in the performers heads until you do it yourself. Once you have done it yourself, then you understand the struggles and can create a better environment for them. When you perform and apply that to your experience as a director, it isn't about when things are good, it is about when things go BAD. There is nothing more humbling than struggling with an erection in a commercial setting, where time is money. Everything is on you as a the male. The longer you take, the more people have to be on set. It is learning how to control your body and in turn when I'm now behind the camera and a guy is struggling, I have way more insight of what is going on in his head. One thing I've never had to perform in is with a large crew. Due to the fact I was a decent with a camera, my first experience many years back was shooting some POV filler content for a company. I was fairly competent and trained myself over time how to hold a camera and keep an erection. Not the easiest task when you consider camera weight and all the things you worry about while shooting. There are a couple people on set with me when I shot those and then I expanded that further and further, trying to make the POV genre more interesting. For the last couple years I've been shooting POV movies with a DSLR rig. It's not only heavy but I also have to manually focus the entire time. It is sort of like having a mental stick shift in my head. I focus my brain on the technical elements (focus, camera angle, lighting of subject) and then shift back into the sensation so I don't loose my edge. Then I shift that mental gear back into technical mode. I go back and forth between these two gears through a POV scene. Typically I have to take some form of break, just because physically my back or arm starts to hurt. I have done non POV scenes and sometimes I feel those are easier. Not having a 10 pound camera attached to you, makes so you can just focus on your scene partner and yourself. The larger issue is the physical act of performing with someone you don't know. I've always taken time before a scene to talk to the girl. What are things you hate and what are things you like. I don't try to invade their personal space before a scene. Then as we get closer to the actual act, you get a little closer physically. Honestly, you have to flirt a little. Make her feel comfortable. Break the ice and find things in common. It doesn't always work. You will not always have great chemistry with everyone you work with.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:01
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Per posted:Porn featuring transsexuals seem to be quite popular these days. You have previously talked about how the straight and gay porn production worlds are almost totally separate; does the same go for the transsexual stuff? Not as much. TS content is marketed to straight men. You have performers in the past who have done TS movies and also work with genetic women as well. This is controversial and the guys are often labeled "cross over" performers. There has been a real backlash against males that perform in TS scenes. In many ways the TS genre is its own little micro industry. There was a period where it had really expanded and everyone was shooting it. Then it shrunk and many companies backed off from it. In the last two years or so there has been a connection, whether real or made up, between the spread of HIV into the straight talent pool coming from the gay and TS talent pool. Due to that, there has been a backlash to the genre's intermixing.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:08
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doggiebiscuit posted:How many people are typically involved in a movie shoot? Depends on the size of the production. A feature could have 10 or 20 crew members and then 10 cast members. A non feature where your shooting just one scene, could have two crew members and two talent. I have worked on mainstream movies. The biggest difference is budget. I worked on a major Disney movie and the crew numbered in the 100s and the flow of food for cast and crew was non stop. Also the hours are a huge difference. Mainstream movies can be very early call times and very long days. My call times on that Disney movie were 4am in order to get specific lighting (sunrise) on certain days. After working on some mainstream productions I appreciated adult a great deal more.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:13
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Are there any directors/producers in the industry with insane visionary reputations? I've always wondered if somewhere there's a Jodorowsky-type person pitching the most extravagant and expensive porn ever conceived.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:15
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swickles posted:One thing I have always wondered is if birth control is a requirement for women performers. Is it something that is contractually obligated? What is the preferred method (pills, implants, etc.)? Has anyone ever gotten pregnant from shooting a scene? There is nothing required for a woman to take birth control. I don't know if requiring birth control via a contract would even be legal. In any case nearly all the performers I've ever known take birth control. It seems to be mixed between the pill or the shot. I've run across a few that have an IUD. I'm sure there has to be at least a few incidents of unplanned pregnancy from a scene with either a girl not on birth control or the birth control not being completely effective. I don't know of any. That isn't something most people would ever discuss. They would most likely keep it very private.
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Apr 24, 2014 21:20
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darkpriest posted:Depends on the size of the production. A feature could have 10 or 20 crew members and then 10 cast members. A non feature where your shooting just one scene, could have two crew members and two talent. Thanks for answering! I love your threads and have been reading them since I joined. I work in TV and feature production in NYC so I was curious about those things. A few more questions: Do you use your own lamps? How involved are your lighting setups? Do you have to do a lot of adjusting, or do you typically light for a whole scene and just go from there? When performing, do adult actors have marks they try to hit for certain actions or positions or are you pulling focus wherever they land?
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Apr 24, 2014 21:41
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Given your upbringing, do you (or did you) ever have any moral dilemmas? I understand all involved parties are consenting, and it could be viewed as any other entertainment business (I think professional wrestling was a great comparison), but I think a good many people see the porn industry as exploitative. I have two more questions; How are the 'big bosses'? Like the top 5% or whatever. It very well be I am stuck on the stereotypes of the past, but I've always assumed the porn business to be shady. How large is the wash-out rate of the non-performing employees in the industry? I imagine a lot of people thinking "hell yeah, this is going to be great" and then discovering it's not what they thought it would be. In addition to Q&A , do you have any cool stories you could share with us? Thanks!
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Apr 24, 2014 21:52
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Der Luftwaffle posted:Are there any directors/producers in the industry with insane visionary reputations? I've always wondered if somewhere there's a Jodorowsky-type person pitching the most extravagant and expensive porn ever conceived. I think there are several, but making something like that would require serious financial backing. That type of project would be very difficult to bring to light, because the production companies would be very worried about the financial risk. You would almost need someone to bring a project like that to fruition with funding from outside the industry. I've had lots of over the top crazy ideas with big sets and big ideas, but even though I'm my own boss and my own producer, I understand how difficult that would be to see a return on investment. The problem rests on the audience. Your core consumer isn't that interested. However if there is one thing I really want to do before I am completely done is make a large scale adult movie like that. I would like to see and produce darker themed productions that really deal with the themes of sex/lust/desire can destroy a person and also heal a person.
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Apr 24, 2014 22:20
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Have you read "Big Red Son," David Foster Wallace's essay on his attendance of the 1998 AVN awards? If so, I'm curious to see what you think about his portrayal of the industry at the time. He doesn't portray many performers very flatteringly (e.g., noting that none of the announcers at the awards could pronounce "Miscreants" but nobody mispronounced "Sodomania"), especially not Max Hardcore, whom he characterizes as pretty much a textbook psychopath. And regarding this bit you wrote, darkpriest posted:Porn to me is escapism entertainment. It is like people watching "professional" wrestling. Everyone knows its fake, yet people still love it Just like horror movies and other forms of entertainment allow people to escape the stress of their life and for 15 minutes live out some sexual fantasy they probably will never experience. Sex isn't always rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes we use it to explore our own turmoil and conflict. I fully understand that it is not for everyone and not everyone views it the same as I. 14th footnote in Big Red Son posted:Mr. Harold Hecuba, whose magazine job entails reviewing dozens of adult releases every month, has an interesting vignette about a Los Angeles Police Dept. detective he met once when H.H.’s car got broken into and a whole box of Elegant Angel Inc. videotapes was stolen (a box with H.H.’ s name and work address right on it) and subsequently recovered by the LAPD. A detective brought the box back to Hecuba personally, a gesture that H.H. remembered thinking was unusually thoughtful and conscientious until it emerged that the detective had really just used the box’s return as an excuse to meet Hecuba, whose critical work he appeared to know, and to discuss the ins and outs of the adult-video industry. It turned out that this detective — 60, happily married, a grandpa, shy, polite, clearly a decent guy — was a hard-core fan. He and Hecuba ended up over coffee, and when H.H. finally cleared his throat and asked the cop why such an obviously decent fellow squarely on the side of law and civic virtue was a porn fan, the detective confessed that what drew him to the films was “the faces,” i.e. the actresses’ faces, i.e. those rare moments in orgasm or accidental tenderness when the starlets dropped their stylized “gently caress-me-I’m-a-nasty-girl” sneer and became, suddenly, real people. “Sometimes — and you never know when, is the thing — sometimes all of a sudden they’ll kind of reveal themselves” was the detective’s way of putting it. “Their what-do-you-call… humanness.” It turned out that the LAPD detective found adult films moving, in fact far more so than most mainstream Hollywood movies, in which latter films actors — sometimes very gifted actors — go about feigning genuine humanity, i.e.: “In real movies, it’s all on purpose. I suppose what I like in porno is the accident of it.” Zugzwang fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Apr 24, 2014 |
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Apr 24, 2014 23:40
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Can you explain Tube sites and how they effect the industry? Are they all based out of eastern Europe or something where they can't be touched? I'm assuming they have destroyed much of the profit..they have to be making millions and millions of dollars via ad revenue, right?
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Apr 25, 2014 02:31
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What do you feel is your biggest achievement (direction, production or acting) or your work that you're most pleased with and why?
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Apr 25, 2014 04:39
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Der Luftwaffle posted:Are there any directors/producers in the industry with insane visionary reputations? I've always wondered if somewhere there's a Jodorowsky-type person pitching the most extravagant and expensive porn ever conceived.
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Apr 25, 2014 04:58
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i like nice words
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A few questions because holy gently caress this thread is awesome... -What do you think of Axel Braun? Seems like he's basically the Steven Spielberg of you people at this point. -How big is your dick? Did you feel nervous about whipping that poo poo out on film the first time? -Does seeing a naked woman even arouse you at this point, or are you insanely desensitized? -Does it ever feel awkward running into an actress you've banged? And finally, because I've seriously always wondered about this; how do men make any men doing straight porn? It seems like there'd be a line of horny dudes wrapped around the block who'd be willing to do all this stuff for free. edit: Love the cat photobomb so much man.
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Apr 25, 2014 08:49
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What are the biggest misconceptions or myths about the industry? I'm sure the previous threads have had several questions about things-that-don't-actually-happen. What are the most common questions like that, and how does the reality differ?
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Apr 25, 2014 09:39
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beanieson posted:Can you speak about the std testing? Do you know any performers that had to quit because of an std? What happened to that law requiring condoms? I haven't seen any new porn with condoms used. We are required to test every 14 days. There are two specific labs that nearly everyone in the industry goes to, that caters specifically to us, but also are open to the general public. You go to the draw center, fill out some paperwork. Then you pee into a cup and have your blood drawn. These labs use the Aptima RNA test, which is the fastest way to test a person for HIV infection. In the past there was a window of up to several weeks. With Aptima that window is now 3 to 11 days. The industry used to require all performers to test every 28 days. If anyone has paid attention, last year the industry had some issues, involving both Syphilis and HIV. A well known performer had acquired Syphilis and even exhibited signs of the disease in Stage 2 (spots). For whatever reason Syphilis has had a major rebound in the general population. Large outbreaks in Europe and certain states in the US. No one else tested positive for Syphilis, but the industry went to a 14 day required test after that. Some companies had started requiring it before this issue happened, which is what prompted the rest of the industry to start adopting the same standard. Late last year we then had several performers test positive for HIV. One was a female performer and her boyfriend, who performed on the gay side of the industry. They're female roommate also tested positive. Then several months after that another male performer tested positive. He had acquired the illness from his personal life, as he hadn't worked in awhile. Due to the 14 day testing window, none of them were able to work and pass HIV onto anyone else. Due to their previous tests being negative, their viral load being high and their most recent tests being positive, it showed they had all recently acquired the illness. But it makes the industry look terrible. It was also because of this, that there is a huge backlash against "cross over" performers, which are male performers that do straight, as well as either gay or transexual scenes. Both males mentioned earlier had done gay scenes and it later came to light they were doing gay escorting. There did become for a little bit slight hysteria over "corss overs", with girls refusing to work with any male that has done even a hint of "gay" work. That hysteria has died down a bit, but the damage is done. Whether or not there is a connection is something I don't know. But at the end of the day people have to choose what they are willing to do with their body and the girls have the right to refuse to work with anyone they don't want to. Measure B, the so called Condom Law, that requires condoms in any adult productions shot in LA County, is currently being fought in court. There is currently a bill going through the California legislature to criminalize the production of porn without condoms. It failed last year getting through the legislature. Some companies have begun leaving California. Several have relocated to Las Vegas. Since Measure B tied requiring condoms to film permits, film permits have plummeted.
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Apr 25, 2014 10:01
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doggiebiscuit posted:Thanks for answering! I love your threads and have been reading them since I joined. I work in TV and feature production in NYC so I was curious about those things. I do have a decenet amount of lighting equipment. I have six strobes for all my photo work and that includes a variety of light modifiers. Everything from softboxes, grid spots, umbrellas, beauty dish, and flags. For video I use a combination of Kino-Flo's and HMI's. I have several 4 bank Kino Flo's and a few Kino Flo Divas. I have a couple of HMI's, two 575's and two 1200. Can't really use anything over 1200 without a generator. My photo lighting is fairly involved. I like strong edges and a very bright look to everything. My video lighting is similar, but because of my style of shooting my grip has to be constantly moving lights. I try to use the HMI's to create a nice edge or rim on the performers and then fill it in with kino's. Here is an example. This is a frame grab from video I shot: NWS!!!!!! http://i.imgur.com/tWyr5Na.png There is an HMI outside a window. I blow the window out slightly and the HMI gives a nice rim to the performers, while the kinos fill in the front of them. The fill light slightly illuminates the penetration, which is under my lens being held by my assistant/grip. I'll also use HMI's as a way to light large backgrounds. Even though people will be focused on the sex, I hate when the light falls off in the far distance. The little bit of pop in the background is much more pleasing. We move lights as we shoot and my grip also has a little hand held light that we use to try and light up the penetration a little bit without over lighting it. What makes it complicated is that it is run and gun shooting. If you constantly stop, relight, then shoot, then stop and relight, the performers will murder you. It becomes impossible to have a flow to the sex. Instead I have to use hand motions to let my grip know when to truck in or truck back certain kinos as we continue shooting and also where to put the fill light for the penetration. During dialogue the performers have to hit their marks. During the sex, generally I'm letting the performers run with it and I follow them. If they go off base or aren't opening up then I have to reel them back in. darkpriest fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 10:15
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Do porn stars get residuals/royalties for their work? Do you get royalties for your work, or is just bought out?
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Apr 25, 2014 11:28
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do you feel comfortable with your partner working in the same industry as you, how do you feel about her day in work? is your personal sexlife adjusted.
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Apr 25, 2014 12:34
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With the spread of piracy and tube sites and (lets be honest) no-one paying for porn any more, how has this affected the female performers in terms of their pay? Has it gone down, or do they just do escort work more?
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Apr 25, 2014 12:55
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Clamps McGraw posted:With the spread of piracy and tube sites and (lets be honest) no-one paying for porn any more, how has this affected the female performers in terms of their pay? Has it gone down, or do they just do escort work more? I've always figured that some tubes get money from the companies, since they have the audience and mostly have like the 5 minute trailer bits? I also remember all the big tubes (YouPorn and whatever) being owned by one big cooperation, who make a killing of them.
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Apr 25, 2014 13:56
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Thanks for the thread, this is all very interesting. Have you ever seen a first time performer who just chickened out, & couldn't go through with it? I'd imagine pure nerves (performance anxiety, the crowd, etc) would effect the guys more than the women but surely some of the girls have second thoughts?
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Apr 25, 2014 18:14
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Dr.Caligari posted:Given your upbringing, do you (or did you) ever have any moral dilemmas? I understand all involved parties are consenting, and it could be viewed as any other entertainment business (I think professional wrestling was a great comparison), but I think a good many people see the porn industry as exploitative. I don't have any moral issues with overall aspect of what I do. I have issues if someone is hurt or taken advantage of by elements of the industry that are on the fringe. quote:I have two more questions; It is an interesting point, and actually something I've more and more discussed with my peers. There has been a major shift, I think, in the industry. In the past (15/20 years ago) the studios had all the power. The owners made big money. They could make a girl popular. There was a contract system where girls wanted to be contracted with certain companies, which gave them a certain level of prestige. The studio system began to fall apart as the Internet took over and physical media started dying. Then about 10 years ago the agency system rose to influence. In the past there really wasn't many agents that represented adult models/performers. A little over ten years ago agencies that only catered to adult productions began representing the models. The agents had huge influence. They could help make a girl very popular. Instead of producers being able to directly interact with the performers the agents acted as middlemen. There are pros and cons to that. In some cases the agents helped the performers by protecting them when it came to working with reputable companies and being correctly paid. However, they could also stop a girl from working or even stop a company from booking any of their models if they didn't like them. The agency system over time became more competitive. Large agencies began to openly compete as more girls came into the performer pool. There are now more female performers than ever before. Then came social networking. Social networking allowed performers to directly interact with their fan base and with producers and studios. A performers fan base was now more in their control. It isn't completely in their control. The companies still have to hire them and put them in scenes. However, a girl now has a much larger voice. Which now comes to the concept of the top 5% or the "1%" if you will. That top tier isn't just studio owners anymore. There has been a cycle, where it was just the studio owners, then the agents and now you have a mixed bag. There is without a doubt a top tier performer pool. They can demand much higher pay. They can hurt a company's sales by refusing to shoot for them, because they have such a strong fan base. They can use social media to both highly promote themselves or scene, but also call out any bad practises. The companies know they need these highly popular performers and will bend over backwards for them. The female performers have more ways to earn income than ever before. If you are popular, you perform in scenes, but then can spawn that off into doing Webcam shows. The girls simply promote their upcoming shows via Twitter. Many now have their own websites and that top tier can do well with their own sites. They can do endorsements for sex toys, for example Fleshlight can bring a girl fairly steady income just from that one product. They can feature dance and some even have Amazon wish lists where fans buy them presents off their wish lists and send it to them. The problem is that there's now a divide. The top earners are now all grouped together. It's no longer the performers vs. the companies vs. the agents. It is those that are successful and those that are not. Those at the top are doing very well. But your average performer may never get to the level. This doesn't mean that other producers/performers/companies are destitute. Most are making a middle class living. Part of this is also because there are simply so many women now entering the industry. Work is far more competitive. I'm not sure what you mean by the non performers "wash out" rate. There are so many people in the industry that have nothing to do with performing. You have everyone from Makeup Artists, Grips, Camera Operators, Photographers, Production Assistants and Video Editors. Tthat is just on the production side. Doesn't mention all the various employees that work in the offices of all the major and minor studios. I think you would need to expand on what you mean.
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Apr 25, 2014 18:37
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Are there many women working behind the camera? Most of the pornography directors, etc. I hear about are men. What about drug use? Is drug testing done at all? How do those fresh faced 18-year olds get into the industry? They seem very popular but how do you go from graduating high school to appearing in a film?
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Apr 25, 2014 19:11
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In your experience how much are people able to maintain a defined life outside the industry? Is it something that people are able to do while maintaining their day jobs, or do they eventually gravitate one way or the other? In particular I'm thinking of all of the hullabaloo that recently blew up around that Duke student who preforms. Is having a separate, distinct life outside the industry a reasonable expectation? I'm mostly thinking about the performers here, but if there's also a specific answer that comes to mind for the people doing the crew work etc. I'd be interested in hearing that as well.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:14
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darkpriest posted:The female performers have more ways to earn income than ever before. If you are popular, you perform in scenes, but then can spawn that off into doing Webcam shows. The girls simply promote their upcoming shows via Twitter. Many now have their own websites and that top tier can do well with their own sites. They can do endorsements for sex toys, for example Fleshlight can bring a girl fairly steady income just from that one product. They can feature dance and some even have Amazon wish lists where fans buy them presents off their wish lists and send it to them. It's interesting that you bring this up as there are a lot more pornstars doing webcam shows than I think people realise. Even pornstars who consider themselves to be "out of porn". I don't know how much a top pornstar with a large following makes per scene but the earning potential for a day on cam if you have a large following can easily be 300$/day (that's my absolute lowest projection of their earnings) and it's in their own home etc. However, I think that the novelty wears off pretty quickly as buying webcam shows can be expensive (pornstars often charge way more than amateur models) and what people like about webcam shows is that they're personalized. When you have a huge following it's hard to really care about individual customers - especially if they have a lot. There are a few studios that work with certain camsites that get promotion from the site. I think that they pay their performers a set amount and take the hit if they don't break even which is why they don't often have big names (or rarely do). The buy-ins for these shows are often higher than most guys are willing to pay (considering the culture of the sites now) and I rarely see the shows making their minimum goal (though they start anyway). I'm certain that these shows are getting filmed and then sold later on the studio's website, which is maybe why they consider them worthwhile? I don't know if you know anything about that but I would be interested to know.
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Apr 25, 2014 21:06
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darkpriest posted:I don't have any moral issues with overall aspect of what I do. I have issues if someone is hurt or taken advantage of by elements of I'm not sure what you mean by the non performers "wash out" rate. There are so many people in the industry that have nothing to do with performing. You have everyone from Makeup Artists, Grips, Camera Operators, Photographers, Production Assistants and Video Editors. Tthat is just on the production side. Doesn't mention all the various employees that work in the offices of all the major and minor studios. I think you would need to expand on what you mean. I was wondering how many of the on-set (technical) crew stay for more than say, 10 years. I have one more I wanted to add also. How much does a female performers past shoots hinder her future prospects? Say she applied for one of your shoots and she is the right candidate, but you find out she has done extreme shoots in her past (something like insex). Would that disqualify her? Also, have you ever worked with Siri? 
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Apr 25, 2014 23:00
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darkpriest posted:In the last two years or so there has been a connection, whether real or made up, between the spread of HIV into the straight talent pool coming from the gay and TS talent pool. Due to that, there has been a backlash to the genre's intermixing. Do you have any opinions on kink.com? I don't really feel like going all into it here but I feel like they're a big part of what's wrong with the adult industry. I might be wrong but it seems like the last big HIV scare is all on them- reading on a lot of sites, people mention that besides the TS stuff, the biggest source is probably their gangbang shoots because it seems that they use actors from both the gay and straight porn during these scenes with women who engage in really high-risk poo poo (unprotected, with really rough stuff that sometimes causes the actresses to bleed) and then go back and do more vanilla scenes for other companies. It's absolutely retarded and I guess people could talk about black-listing them but it seems that every person in porn does stuff for kink now. Not to mention that the people who run it seem like self-important assholes who think they're brilliant artists.
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Apr 26, 2014 01:19
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Where did you live at UMASS?
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Apr 26, 2014 03:59
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Can you shed any light on Jake Malone' death? He was my favorite director. Any suggestions of directors with a similar style?
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Apr 26, 2014 04:29
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