It may be a bit of a dumb question. But I have always wondered how directors direct porn movies. Do they just tell the actors what positions they want them to do? Or do they shout out what they want them to do next ? But if they did that why do we not hear it (mostly) Do they hold up cards ? Or do they dub the sound on later ?
I think they tell them out loud. We don't hear it because it gets edited out along with a bunch of other stuff that gets edited out. That's why there is BJ with clothes on, then suddenly the guy's pants are disappeared, then suddenly the girl is naked, then suddenly they are fucking, then suddenly they are doggy, then suddenly they are anal. All the in-between times is when the director talks to the performers about what to do next.
There is a wide variety of things you do with the performers. If there is a script involved then your often practicing the dialogue with the performers and then blocking out the movements first. Often times you do several takes from different angles of the dialogue or intro. The sex is then discussed before hand ie Positions, angles, however at the end of the day once your into sex it becomes simliar to documentary style filmmaking. Often times you have to find the performers and the performers have to work with you and find the camera. You can use a variety of hand signals, but usually you find key points to give directorials. Those directorials are then scrubbed from the scene via audio scrubbing. Otherwise you cut, explain what you need from the performers and then find a cut point to easily and seamlessly get back into the scene.
From my understanding there are all kinds of directors in porn. The range is from the director that says he wants certain positions and lets the performers fuck unimpeded. The other end is a director (I think there is only one or two like this) that times scenes with a stopwatch ("three minutes of doggy") and then cuts the tape and instructs them with his next request ("five minutes of vaginal") -- continuing until the scene is over. Most directors are in between these extremes.
Hi Kevin. There are some behind the scenes aspects about porn that I've always wondered about porn that may or may not apply to what you do these days but as a porn director I wonder if you'd be kind enough to answer... Are the girls usually cast first? When a director starts out with a project in mind does he/she always start with the girls and then find out who she wants to work with? Does anyone start with the guys tey want to use and then have the guy pick the girls? Some girls almost always do anal in their scenes. But not every director wants to do anal scenes. Do the girls who almost always do anal typically ask if the scene can be an anal scene because they like it and/or it pays more and the director has to go along with it or insist there will be no anal? Just wondering what type of negotiating goes on behindthe scenes on the anal issue. Does the pornstar sign the release before or after the scene is shot? I've heard both versions.
Directing porn is very different from your idea of directing based on Hollywood-type directing. Rather than having a director setup and shoot each little shot in a sequence, porn is much more fluid.....you just go with the flow and take care of things in editing. I think the one exception to this recently is in shooting the tease portion of the scene. These shots are much more scripted including dialog, camera angle, lighting, lens selection, focus etc. The Canon 5D is probably single handedly responsible for this with the artistic options available to directors now. The live audio in this portion is usually replaced with music. During the sex, there are always natural breaks that provide convenient opportunities to provide direction. At most, I've told performers something like, "OK, we have enough doggie footage....let's try another position." or "woops, I missed XXXXX, go back and do that again."
You specifically asked Kevin, but I have them sign before and after. They sign before to release their rights to the scene and after to show they were paid for those rights. As for anal, since it usually pays more, that's included in the release and always agreed to before the scene. They can offer, but anal is only included if the scene is intended to have anal.
I think Hollywood movies look so good that they should be the standard for porn to imitate. A Hollywood scene is usually done again and again, until the director is satisfied that this is what he wants the audience to see. The actors are on a contract for the whole film. Which means that it's partly up to them how much work they put in. If they do their scene real well the first or second time. Then their work for this scene is done. But if their performance is poor, then they end up doing a lot more work. Because they have to keep repeating the action, until it looks good enough for the director. Such a set up motivates the actors to do better than their best, if their best isn't good enough. It's a good way to produce very high quality movies. And it will work in porn too. Just shooting porn as it comes provides no incentive for porn actors to do any more than just put in their time and get paid for it. When there is no incentive to do better than the best, then people's work naturally ends up being mediocre.
Thanks for the answer. I directed the questions at Kevin but I'm okay hearing from anyone who knows the answers. Thanks for clearing up the release signing question. I've often wondered what happens if a girl shoots a scene and it doesn't go well or she just flakes ut and she doesn't want it to be released. If she signed before hand that protects the director. If not the girl could basically hold the director hostage. Also thnks for answering the anal question. The reason I asked was I often see movies were there's no anal except for the one girl who always does it. I'm guessing the director probably didn't want that girl to do it but that girl probably always wants to do it because she likes it and/or wants the extra pay. I just wondered if there are girls who turn down scenes if there isn't anal pay.
There's no real need for this with porn sex scenes. Why stop and start when you can just keep shooting and edit out the weaker parts? Constantly stopping and starting over would actually make the scene worse. The guys have to maintain wood and the last thing you'd want is the performers getting bored because they're stopping to repeat the same sex acts again and again. Their incentive is already there...and that's to get it as good as they can the first time so they can keep things fresh and get the scene done without having to hang around all day doing something over and over again.
I shot a scene that didn't go well, not because of the girl, but the guy couldn't get it up. After several hours, I gave up and said we should reschedule. The girl was unhappy because she was counting on the $$. Things turned ugly and I paid a portion of the consideration just to get out of a bad situation. I paid and got nothing I could use, but lived to shoot another day.
From what I understand, Viagra enables most guys to maintain erection regardless of what's going on. And from my own experience I can say that repeating the same sex act cannot bore me, until I have an orgasm. Sex is supposed to be rhythmic and repetitive, because that's the way sex naturally works. If for example, the film director doesn't like the penetration shot and he tells the guy to do it again. Then I don't see why the guy would loose his erection and desire for the woman as a result of that. Penetrating the pretty lady with his cock feels pretty hot for any guy, unless he is gay.
^Viagra helps, but it doesn't give you an erection, it just helps maintain it. Erections are more mental than anything and the constant interruptions are distractions that make keeping wood difficult. Erection issues are easily the biggest problem on porn sets!
^ One good way to decrease interruptions is to tell the guy or the gal ahead of time to repeat a certain sex act 3 or 4 times with some variation each time. When the actors know what they will do ahead of time, then their sexual feelings will be set up for it, and they won't have any problem with erection. And another good way to show rather than tell actors what to do is to take the best examples of porn-acts done before and show it to them. Porn movies are different from each other mostly because the people are different and they perform their sex-acts in a different sequence and for different lengths of time. But there are only so many sex act possible to do, and the only important variation there is how well you do them. It's possible to do a sex-act well or poorly, and this is where quality of the film is determined.
and when directors are performing too? like Mike Adriano or Bobbi Starr.... they can't see the whole scene from the outside, they can't talk to the cameraman... it becomes much harder
Telling them ahead of time or stopping them unexpectedly still ends up with the performers stopping and doing the same thing over and over, thus breaking concentration, making it harder to get into the zone, makes things more machanical, and much more likely less fun for the performers and that would probably lead to better chorographed moves but sap all the passion, energy and spontaneity from the scenes. You site Hollywood directors as an example but most of the know and admit that doing the same scene over and over often rob the performance of energy and some directors even shoot the rehersal and use it because some actors give their best performance sometimes when they don't feel the pressure of getting it perfect for the camera. Lastly, there's a big difference between a trained actor doing a performance multiple times and porn performers trying to keep up the passion/heat after doing the same thing over and over.Gosh, why would anyone want to see porn where everyone is trying to look alike in their approach of positions/staging? I understand what you're trying to describe getting the best performance from the performers but in reality what you're asking for is machanical cookie-cutter porn.
It might be trickier but in some ways it might be easier because they are actually in the scene with the other performer so they "direct" by their actions and moving the people into positions instead of yelling it off camera. Instead of telling the girl to do doggy or that's enough doggy they simply pull out and guide the girl to the next position. They just wouldn't be able to direct camera angles but if they're working with camera guys who've worked with that director for awhile they will know what that director wants.
Gravity as Curved Space: Bootymeister's Theory of General Relativity 1589 Posts 11/08
Posted - Dec 31 2012 : 1:26PM
There was no reason for the things to get ugly. Getting paid in that situation is standard. Are you really in the business? What have you produced or directed? Under what name?
^ Wow, slow down. Different situation. This was an amateur shoot and they were hired as a couple. I didn't supply the guy, she did. He struggled from the start and she got impatient with him and things got worse. I went way over the call of duty to try to save the situation and got nothing but a wasted afternoon for my efforts.
While we're talking about the behind the curtain stuff...Another thing I always wondered if pornstars call each other by their real names when the cameras are off during a shoot. The reason for this question is because some pornstars have names that would sound ridiculous calling them by that name out loud (I'm talking about some of the d-level girls who give themselves strange sexual names).
Posted - Dec 26 2012 : 4:32AM