I believe that most directors are given an overall budget. Their salary is whatever is left over after they've covered all their expenses in making the movie.
This is also my understanding of the way it works. And may explain why there are so many cheap looking productions. The incentive is for the director to cut on costs to keep more money for himself. Of course, there are also "contract directors" who work exclusively for companies like Vivid or Wicked. They may get a salary on top of production costs, and maybe even a percentage of the revenues.
Edited by - Derek117 on 1/20/2007 7:37:21 PM
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downtowncharly11 Deactivated User
25 Posts 12/06
Posted - Jan 20 2007 : 8:57PM
Doesnt Evil Angel Work differently? anyone explain?
Evil Angel directors, other than the guys doing the "Buttman Magazine Choice" titles pay for and own their own movies. Evil Angel performs services, such as replication, advertising and distribution and gets a cut of all sales.
The amount that Evil Angel director/owners make is directly based on sales of their movies.
Most people already are. While talent fees have risen, companies have cut director's fees to compensate. A lot of your so-called 'auteurs," are barely more than field hands at this stage.
Like any field, there are wage slaves and kingpins, and various spots in between. I have seen contracts from major companies that bascially offer a flat fee of $4,000 per title, with a standard of five scenes, and some BTS stuff. And the company picks up all the expenses. If you want to make more, you could edit the movie and get the editing fee.
There also are deals where the director gets a flat budget and pays for everything, including his/her salary, out of that fee.
This gets more complex when the director/shooter is also talent, and shoots on their own property ...
Just depends how you slice it. And also how industrious the individual director is.
Unless you're starting out, or else some kind of pussy hound who buys a lot of discount privates, I can't imagine why anyone would want to deal with all the bullshit required for less than $10k a month. Unless you're a)already talent, b) owned by the mob, or c) have an ownership deal.
How much does it cost to produce a full length high quality anal flick with decent talent? I mean all costs from stars, to equipment, to staff salaries, to editing?
The 4 g's, (from what I've discerned while being a shooter/editor for a little while) is middle-to-high end of the direct-for-pay slave-spectrum. Realize what the poor smuck who wants to direct has to go through for the ever-dwindling paycheck. Set-up the deal with the production company (read, be told how to make his movie or else), conceptualize/write the script (if it's a feature...), deal with the agencies and talent (oh my god...), get the gear packed (try and get everything on-the-cheap), hire a few production peeps (deal with getting fair rates for make-up, lighting help, PA's), get the location ($100 an hour to $1200 for the day), shoot the thing (if everyone shows up) and then follow through with an editor (unless he/she cuts the product themselves for the extra fee) to deliver only to hear how mediocre the flick was and can you do the next one for a smaller budget. Even if the director has a Production Manager to help expedite all-of-the-above, they still have to cross their i's and dot their t's to make sure it all goes according to some plan. It is in no way a one day process and at least a full-time week is involved if not two. Nothing glorious about it. If you do not have ownership, and that's a supreme rarity, it just does not seem worth it, to me. The headaches are unfreaking imaginable. And if you don't handle the stress and offer a decent product, you do not get to do it all again.
I probably should have written my post better. When I wrote "except for the 'Buttman Magazine Choice' titles", I really meant that I didn't know how those were handled. In re-reading my post, it sounds like I was saying that the "Buttman Magazine Choice" directors don't pay for their own movies.
I still don't know how it works with the other directors, but it's nice to hear that Nevaquit was able to maintain ownership of his own movies.
Don't let Chris & Gregg hear you say that. Isn't that the thought process that allowed Red Light District to be created with all of Anabolic/Diabolic's old directors?
Says Wango Chic, once fabled gonzo ringmaster, “I remember when RLD announced they were going to start producing a feature a month – that was a warning, but I couldn’t hear it. Then almost overnight gonzo porn went from being an easy way to make a good living to being a hard way to make an okay living.
“One day I realized my buddy was making more money as the assistant manager of an OutBack Steakhouse in Culver City, and getting better quality trim too. All those young Hollywood hopefuls eat there, and you’d be amazed what they’ll do for an Awesome Blossom Ring.”
The colorist for D&H, M&K and the upcoming A&K makes about $120K/year, full bennies, and 6 weeks/year paid vacation. He's right in the middle for colorist in this part of the country, and there must be several dozen guys like him doing the same job on the island of Manhattan. Widen that circle by 100 miles and that several dozen becomes a few hundred. Some make a little less, the best make half again more or better.
And that's jus the colorist. Between the time I bought the stock from Kodak and when I got the Digibeta cassettes back, the film was handled by no less than four people making similar wages and benefits, and probably another two or three, who while they made not have been paid as well still had medical, dental and at least some paid vacation.
How many porn directors are making $120K/year, with medical, dental, retirement, and paid vacation? Of course there are the intangibles. You get to see The Minion getting rimmed, or watch a woman grunt and strain to squeeze semen back out of her asshole. There are somethings you can't put a price on!
Patience is a virtue, but who wants to be virtuous? 4283 Posts 4/00
Posted - Jan 22 2007 : 3:43AM
BM Mag Choice is very similar to the EA lines. The directors do pay for their own movies, and BM gets a distributor's fee just like Evil does with the EA lines. It's just not 'quite' as exclusive as our Evil directors. Jazz is exclusive. I hope HJ is. But we've recently made a deal for a movie from Steve Holmes, but he won't be exclusive this year.
Porn Directors today make between $1,000-$3,000 depends on the show they make. However, they make more since most of them are talent as well. They get paid for their scene and their directoral fee.
Good question. There's big difference between a $120K salary, plus bennies and paid vacation (and someone else making sure the lights stay on and the checks don't bounce,) and $120K at the bottom of an annual P&L statement.
Patience is a virtue, but who wants to be virtuous? 4283 Posts 4/00
Posted - Jan 22 2007 : 1:33PM
I heard LOTS of rumors flying around AEE about how much Evil directors make per year. Some of the rumors were pitifully low, some were ridiculously high. Either way, it made for some good humour for me during a really crazy week! :)
One of my favorites is when a struggling (as in struggling to make films on budgets of $75K-$250K) indie filmmaker says, "I should just quit and do porn."
Owning and just directing are two different things. If you own you pay for your product and collect on the sales and if you just direct you get a directors fee and that's it.
A lot of things that fall under the porn-rubric of "directing" have nothing what so ever to do with anything the rest of the entertainment world understands as the role and responsiblities of a director.
Although I no longer idolize Ayn Rand, she can't be written off so blithely, I think. Have you formed your opinion by reading something she's written, or are you merely making a second-hand judgement?
P.S. -- I was joking with Quasarman because he wrote in another thread that she's a dead person he'd like to meet. And she believed in the sanctity of the ego (properly understood).
Gary Cooper deserves a lot of the blame. He's even more wooden in that movie than usual. However, as someone who had worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, Ayn Rand should have known better than to turn over her brainy, uncinematic novel to the tender mercies of a movie studio.
True, but she was a russian newly enamored by the land of the free and she clearly made a bad decision. Were it not for Ayn Rand, I would still be a blithering bleeding-heart liberal parroting the tired and sanctimonious ramblings of Noam Chomsky and Michael Harrington instead of the quasi-successful Libertarian porn director that I have become.
It seems this thread has been derailed.
Gun-for-hire porn directors don't typically make a lot of money. Directors with contracts can do pretty well. Some better than others. Director/owners can make boatloads but only if they shoot for Evil Angel.
Audrey Madison Interview
Posted - Jan 20 2007 : 3:24PM