I've already done a search and got some good reading in, although I would not be surprised if this has been asked before but I didn't search for the right words. But anyway, just how often is a scene shot, only to be shelved and never released? And for what reasons? Are they overwhelmingly due to inferior delivery by performers, or do technical or legal problems also often play parts in keeping a scene away from the public? And how often is a scene cancelled and never performed at all, at the last minute? I've heard/read about performers showing up at the set late and/or not in the best condition for being on camera, and girls being hired as replacements at the last minute when the first choice for the scene couldn't do it, for whatever reason. So how often do they have to completely cancel a scene because someone couldn't do their job and they were unable to find a short notice replacement that day?
If a scene gets cancelled becuase of a no-show its allways re-booked, BUT 99% of the time you need to get the scene done that day, becuase your paying for the location,director, PA, male talent, etc etc
That being said we have 2 scenes we shelved because in one the lighting was blown out(too white in this case) and the other had a smudge on the lens.
SO obviously were not gonna release scenes that are technically inferior to the other ones in the movie. Allthough i dunno how many companies have that policy.
I do know that Zero is one of the best in terms of quality control, we have less than 10 titles because were newer and they have hundreds so i cant imagine how many scenes Greg is sitting on that he hasnt released.
Same goes for us Jon...Doghouse Digital has a standard of quality we need to live up to and WILL NOT, under any circumstance release an inferior scene...in almost 55 releases i would say we have not only shelved but burried in the neighborhood of 20+ scenes....maybe one day we will release a dvd of the worst blunders in porn!haha
I just find it strange that lighting issues and dirty lenses wouldn't be caught before shooting starts. Those are pretty basic elements to lose all that money neglecting.
I can tell you from sad experience that nearly anything you can think of can be overlooked until it's too late to do anything about it. This list of inexcusable fuck-ups I've personally commited is long and embarassing.
Also, the rise of flip out LCD screens can be a huge contributor to on set fuck up itisThe exposure/color of the screen changes depending on angle of view making using them to judge exposure problematic, and they're too small to reliably count on the for critical focus, smudges, etc.
youd be surprised. you cant baby sit everyone through everything all the time. plus with the LCD that tony mentioned, you dont get SHIT for resolution, you can easily miss a smudge, or a bad white balance
I agree... That's what video taps are for... Or hardwiring... Your average 13 year old knows how to hook up a video camera to a tv to get an image... C'mon guys...
I don't mean to be critical of others' posts, but it just seems that there are always alot of people with nothing whatsoever to do with the industry who seem to think they know how simple everything is.
I just sometimes get tired of all the armchair quarterbacking.
You sound like a man who hasn't been burned or frustrated enough after spending hard-earned money on bad, bad porn. Bad from a technical, many times correctable, perspective.
The title and initial post on the thread invites critical discussion, so it shouldn't be a surprise that that's what ensues.
As for folks not being in the industry having an opinion, again, we're not talking high art here. We're talking about the things that make a porn scene unreleaseable, unwatchable, or distracting. Many of them are very basic items; lighting, sound, etc. You don't have to be "in the industry", or really sophisticated to know when those things are wrong, any more than you need to be a chef before you can comment on a meal that tastes bad.
I believe it's not the point JAG was trying to convey. Sure, we can express critique on certain things that we don't like, but you can't tell people who do this craft, "it's easy and anybody can do it, so why does it happen?" because unless you have experience in shooting commercial videos yourself, you just don't have a clue about how hard or easy it is.
Like Tony said, sometimes it's too late to do anything about a seemingly simple problem because you realized half way through the scene that there's been unidentifiable DNA residue in the corner of your lens. That being said, the rise of the flip-out screen shooters and wide angle adapter-users coupled with people who don't know that shooting into a bright window while your camera is set to auto-iris will ensure that the subject you are shooting will appear black as night,not to mention that every speck of dust and dander on your lens will be alarmingly apparent is why some porn looks worse than others IMHO.
Embarrassing fuck-ups are not limited to amatuers however. I have been shooting for 13 years and have scrapped at least a dozen scenes over the years because of being lazy and/or ignornant. Most recently I shot an entire anal scene without sound. Ask Katja Kassin about it. She remembers it well.
Aside from my sometimes-incompetence, we scrap scenes all the time because they just plain suck. Sometimes I edit them down substantially to include just the highlights and use them as bonus scenes and sometimes we just toss 'em.
BTW. I haven't scene any of their movies but the American Hardcore boxes look awesome.
So Mike Quasar (and any other insiders at other companies), approximately how many scenes were filmed in 2004 and released in the main movie of a DVD, how many were edited down substantially and relegated to bonus scenes, and how many were scrapped altogether? And of the ones that became bonus scenes or were completely scrapped, how often was it a specific technical problem and how often was it a more nebulous the-scene-just-doesn't-quite-click problem. It doesn't have to be exact numbers, just more specific than all the time or sometimes. I'm not asking it as a rude money question, I'm asking completely out of curiosity.
I'm sure that it is very easy to make mediocre porn. Anyone can do it, which is why there is so much of it. But to make your movie stand out from the crowd in a good way in a saturated market is quite a bit more difficult.
I understand your point completely - and as someone who has in fact been nurned a few times too many, I appreicate constructive critical thinking.
What I meant to say, however, was that it obviously isn't as simple as it looks. There are many, many artistic (and unfortunately business) decisions, miscues and foul-ups involved that we cannot be privvy to. I'm not saying that mistakes aren't made or can't ever be corrected, I just tire of the blanket statements sometimes made that give the impression that anyone off the street could do a better job at this than those who are comitting their lives and careers to the industry.
I'm constantly amazed of how often the sound is blown out--even with directors who have decades of experience. I do a lot of video work and even when I was just starting out I managed to never oversaturate the audio. You'd never get another job if you did that outside of the porn world.
