sodome

you're right man there are alot of amazing places to go and be, the problem is deciding on only one.

I'm happy to say that I can still make it from yonge and wellesley to yonge and sheppard on my mountain bike in 30 minutes (insert old saying about spring chicken)

i want to see the site, and i have recently had one of those creative blocks myself, its not cool. but eventually it comes back.

Happy birthday!

You're back!
Tips on making pornographic films?
Ummm
... video's cheaper.
Making from behind or in front of the camera? Be warned that this is advice from a jaded, nasty old man who watches and makes far too much smut and doesn't really grok capitalism. Your mileage will vary.

Generally, I'd advise making exactly what you want to see. Not what's easier to make, what you think will sell or what you think will make you look intelligently, ironically distinct from the million-and-one other pervs with cameras, but what you would genuinely want to wank to watching. Make it in all the peculiar, specific twisted detail of your own fantasies from the perspectives you'd want to see it in, then play it for friends and strangers and trim out the stuff that they all agree is boring or incomprehensible. Keep the stuff they think is disgusting (unless your lawyer advises you otherwise).

Genuine horny enthusiasm is more fun to watch than the best 'acting'.

Editing takes 441,000, 034 times longer than you think, especially if you want to do a decent job (even if your producer *doesn't* pull all the connecting scenes at the last minute.)

Presuming it ain't a documentary, divide your resources into people, pecuniary, and process time, to be divided among the preparation, production and post-production phases of your project.

For a really strong motion picture project, porn or otherwise, each phase will get a similar amount of resources but they'll be allotted differently.

Preparation needs more process time; enables the planning that leaves you less strapped for other resources, permits the spreading around of requests for favours in advance so that you don't entirely burn out a group of friends on trying to produce one tape.

Actual production needs more way more pecuniary & people power so as to occupy less process time.

(Quality) post-production requires less people, more process time and more of the pecuniary resources that were already in short supply. Then it's done and you're stuck with 1000 copies of 'Bambi Blows Godzilla' on DVD (but you've probably pawned your DVD player to help subsidize your star performers' meth habit...)

Being amazing in front of the camera requires only concentration, good company, endless energy and having chosen a project that excites you immeasurably. Really & truly. If you have a memorable, fantastic time while shooting, other people's reactions [positive or otherwise] don't matter nearly as much. As a performer, you mostly can't control what happens to the finished product; entirely can't control how it gets understood. In that context, controlling the experience [first and foremost by not agreeing to perform in anything less than overwhelmingly hot, fun circumstances] becomes more important than you might imagine.

Being amazing as a director and/or cameraperson requires only concentration, good company, endless energy and having chosen a project that excites you immeasurably. It also helps to have lots of experience on lots of motion picture sets watching other people make big, expensive mistakes that you'll know to avoid.

Use a camera that allows full manual control. Get close to your subject with the lens zoomed out all the way wide. If you haven't got a fabulous fluid-head tripod, go handheld.

Shoot much, much more than you'll need. Consider getting extreme close-up, close-up, medium and wide shots of each significant new position/action/gesture. You'll never be able to duplicate the moment exactly, and tape is incredibly cheap relative to the costs of equipment, people, space, food, beer and other production necessities. Three coordinated cameras (each attached to an experienced, awake cameraperson) is one way of capturing this much coverage without killing the cast. If you can't afford the time and preparedness to choose good camerapeople, match the cameras, and work out a shooting plan beforehand, one camera makes more sense.

Imagine a static physical line running from left to right through the middle of the scene along the axis where your performers' attention is most often focused. Don't cross it. You can shoot from either end of the line, directly above, or anywhere along the 90 degrees of rotation on one side of that line. Cross the line and your audience may feel bounced out of their illusion of being there. When camera perspective crosses the axis between cuts, performers on screen who appeared to be facing left seem in the next shot to be facing right, creating an unsettling impression the world's turned inside out again. Distracting.

Pay people. Pay well. Praise and treasure good performers when you find them. Don't hire or accept a performer just because you're dating them or you feel sorry for them or you're otherwise under pressure to pretend they're hotter than they are. Audition or ask for *many* references or ask for a demonstration (in a way that's not exploitative or frightening for the potential performer or you). Check any reference you get really carefully. If a performer or crew person or the guardian of the space you're shooting in doesn't have the exceptional combination of patience, groundedness and social generosity that instantly make you feel a little more comfortable around them, look for someone else. Negotiating public sex gracefully takes above-average skills. One insecure, selfish, unhappy or irritating individual can muck up the whole shoot and/or give the entire tape a tone that sets a watcher's teeth on edge (& not always in a good way).

Expect roughly 40% of your female performers and nearly 80% of your male performers to bail without notice at the last moment. Real life makes all of us somewhat unpredictable, but porn makes us more so. Don't take it personally. They may be more prepared by the next time you're shooting smut, or they may be by absenting themselves be making a caring, respectful sexual health decision they couldn't otherwise articulate. Groom a collection of backup locations, backup crew, understudies and multitalented crew people who're able to jump in as performers at the last minute without unintentionally making it a comedy or frightening off the other performers.

Try to keep people's faces in as many of the shots as possible. How long do you really want to watch disembodied plumbing? O.K., maybe you could watch people's close-up bits collide forever without tiring. Tastes vary. Many folks get off on seeing some of the sensation & emotion of the experience reflected on a performer's face. A (gently changing every minute or so) camera position close to your performers that frames as much as possible of their faces and bodies and as little as possible of the rest of the world is a good place to return to. This doesn't mean to avoid close-ups or wide establishing shots, but to remember where the action is. Video doesn't have enough resolution to show skin/face detail clearly unless you're pretty close. Avoid default angles. Position the camera above or below eye level as often as at eye level, in a way that gives you exactly the composition you want, and change your perspective in a smooth intentional way. Pro camerapeople make their material more usable by planning before they change a shot, keeping the shot steady and still on a pleasing frame for a few seconds at the start and the stop of every camera move, and using manual focus to keep shots sharp without the 'dancing lens' characteristic of bad porn & your kid brother's tourist movies.

Use a single very large soft light from far above & a bit to the side of your performers, or use indirect sunlight if it's going to be a very brief shoot. Bring a large reflector card to bounce light into those deep, dark crannies where half the fun stuff is happening, and have one person scrambling to keep that reflector always pointed at the most useful place. Set up a monitor on a cable feed from the camera if you need to to allow the sound recordist & other folks to see your frame (and thereby see how to keep themselves out of the frame.) Don't position the monitor where performers will see and be distracted (or where everyone else on set will be tempted to add their .005 cents worth of directorial advice.)

Before the day(s) of the shoot, meet and talk to absolutely everybody who's going to be on or near your set. Have all release forms and contracts negotiated and signed *without exception* days or hours before you start shooting, no matter how much everybody trusts everybody. As far as I know, photocopies of performers' picture ID aren't required in Canada until a question about the performer's age gets to the point of being a legal crisis (but by that time you've already lost your shirt and your reputation. Don't risk it.) Legitimate distributors (especially those from other countries) probably won't touch your content without you proving that you have clear images of ID AND release forms on file for all performers.

Rehearse supporting and moving the camera using mostly your big muscles (back, shoulders, thighs) and less with tiny muscles (fingers, wrists). Otherwise you'll be shaky and get tired fast.

A week familiarizing yourself with the camera(s) wouldn't hurt, either.

Err on the side of a slightly-too-big crew.

other tips?
even if your cameraperson is short-sighted. staggeringly drunk and working with a 1980s pixelvision camera pointed the wrong way, it's worth your while (and it'll be easier to sit through later) if you record sound well. Well-recorded sound usually means an external microphone close to the action, manual audio level control and an experienced sound recordist as part of your team. All the cool music in the world won't save a tape with bad or missing sound.

Figure out the legal, practical and ethical implications of whatever choices you and your performers make around sexual health issues, and let everybody know about those choices well in advance. Imaginative, caring solutions to safety concerns don't have to interfere with the sex. Nothing (except maybe an STI) interferes with sex like having a camera up your butt & three strangers giving you conflicting directions about a script you've never seen 'til ten minutes ago.

Don't provide alcohol, viagra, vitamins, or anything more psychoactive than coffee to your performers or crew- the legal responsibility isn't worth it. Similarly, provide makeup, lube and other shared resources only if individual applicators are present & used in way that protect against unnecessary health risks.

A compilation of short, smart, tight scenes is infinitely more interesting than two hours of almost anything.

Expect to lose money unless you're performing in something fairly mainstream or distributing something truly, magnificently perverse.

Keep wearing your magic bukkake shirt.
xoxo

~ d

[Edited on Mar 21, 2006 5:21PM]

Glad you found your camera. Scary!

Hee hee on washroom gender bending.

Dude! You're shilling for Rogers!


And now you're not.
Phew.

[Edited on Mar 05, 2006 9:40AM]

There's a Boy Choir of Lesbos I've never heard about?

How can this be?