But like anything else, by slowly cicumventing the rules, a mistake here, an oversight there,
it wont be long before other studios get fed up with it, conclude theres no foul in doing it, and follow suit.

I hope what were seeing, is not an expanding trend.

Edited by - Endless Loop on 5/4/2005 3:39:33 AM

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If you really wanna be informative, start a new section devoted to mistakes where each company which has been noted for a mistake has its own thread. That would help out a lot of viewers avoiding these products. If it catches on tt would probably put some more pressure on careless companies to avoid falling in that category. Just a thought.

Edited by - p_ramezap on 5/4/2005 10:29:06 PM

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The release of Pleasures of the Flesh 10 with the tag line of "Bobbi Eden Does Anal" is nothing more than a mistake. There is no grand conspiracy to defraud our customers. This mistake is so blatant that how anyone could assume that it was intentional is simply crazy. I did not wake up one day and say "Shit, let's piss off our customers by misleading them."

The title was recalled the second the information was learned. I understand that doesn't do much good once it has already been released into the market. There is no excuse for this error - only an explanation.

The scene was licensed from DDF. The pictures that accompanied the scene clearly showed Bobbi Eden doing anal. The art department, who creates the box and writes the copy, saw the pictures, chose Bobbi Eden as the cover girl and since Bobbi Eden doing anal is a pretty cool highlight, decided to make it a tag line on the front of the box. We have licensed several scenes from DDF for a multitude of series. I have NEVER seen a descrepancy such as this in their supplied materials EVER. As it turns out, the scene was shot at a different time than the pictures. It is entirley our fault that we did not do a better job of ensuring that indeed this anal scene was included and to their credit the accompanying paperwork listed the scene as Boy/Girl and not anal.

We had a quality control system in place that was intended to make sure everything that leaves here, was as good as it can be and correct in every way. This one, in a very big way, got by that. Changes have been made to prevent this from ever happening again.

Those who know the history of our companies, New Sensations, Digital Sin and Hot Boxxx, expect the highest quality products, so having something like this happen is a bit shocking and gossip-worthy. I can expect and understand this. It was devastating news and I believe it to be the ultimate sin to have an error such as POTF 10 occur. My apologies to those of you who who feel defrauded. It was most certainly not our intent. If anyone has a problem in returning their copy for full credit, please let me know. We have authorized this credit with ALL of our distributors.

We release 4 new titles every week. Our directors have and do include some of the top names in the business (Johnni Darkko, Tyrone Shuz, Axel Braun, Nic Andrews, etc) and those who certainly will become such. We are currently shooting many new products in High Definition and have ALWAYS been a leader in quality. Our customers are of the highest importance and the primary reason for the success of the company. This simple fact will never change. We will continue to make high quality products and can only ask for understanding should an error be made along the way.

Should anyone ever have a question or comment, the best place to reach me is tshuz@newsensations.com.

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I had a feeling that he was working and hadn't seen the thread, so he hadn't posted.

Maybe he'll give us a taste of what's coming up from New Sensations and Digital Sin now that he's wrapped some shoots and made it into ADT to post....

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#12's scene with Cytherea was just off the charts! Overall it's a good series, but as Ramsey noted, better camerawork/director would make this line sizzle! More variety of cum shots would be great too, such as poppin' on the pussy, etc...

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"Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat." - Coupling

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It's good that you care enough about your products to come here and explain the situtaion. Hopefully we won't see this kind of mess up from DS/NS again.

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Have you seen the dick on this guy yet??? Jay and I dragged a photo of his package into PS to see if it was real. You can tell if they've touched up the shot with a little PS magic, and looking at Deisel we figured they had. But it was all real. That fire hydrant between his legs is the real deal.

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Great to see him get his own serie eventhough I hope he's not DS exclusive. I would love to see him work for other companies also.

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As far as Shane. He is only getting better as a perfomer and a legend in the making. Those who have not seen him should follow along as he will become a big star. He is a humble and honorable man and it is a pleasure to have him on our roster.

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FYI - LeCastel has made one a month since Feb under a new deal we have in place. Ass Wide Open # 3 streets on May 12 and #4 is scheduled for June 16.

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-T.C.

Edited by - TonyC on 5/6/2005 6:22:06 PM

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So if you prefer the look of the 24p camera, then how are you feeling about HD, which is crisper (some might stay harsher) than 30 frame SD?

Also, just in case you aren't aware, Windows Media Player discs for movies are becoming more common, if you were interested in releasing your HD movie in HD, or at least a version on HD.

BTW - very cool to see you deal with the situation so level-headed.

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How does picture quality take away from the heat? The heat is either there or it isn't.

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Anyway, I think a "dirtied-up" picture (DV vs. Digibeta, 16 vs. 35) can add a certain spiciness to things, not always, and overdone-done-to-death in gonzo, but still a useful approach.

Speaking of 24P video, did you know you can make a 24P DVD? If you shoot the DVX-100ap on advanced pulldown mode (3:2:2:3) you can do realtime, losses pulldown removal going into FCP HD. When you go back out to an MPEG2 stream, you don't have to add 3:2. 24P MPEG2 files are complient with the DVD 1.0 standard and will play back on any set-top box.

The advantage is that you stay 24fps through the entire post and authoring process, and your resulting MPEG2 stream has 20% fewer frames for the same runtime. That means more running time on the same size file, or less compression for the same running time. As an added benefit, there are no interframes (previously an unavoidable artifact of any 24fps work). Interframes are probably the worst thing you can feed an endoder, especially on high motion subject matter, i.e. close-ups of piston pounding sex.

-T.C.

Comstock Films:Real Life, Real People, Real Sex

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I prefer the film-like quality of 24P. Ask Johnni Darkko. HD does not leave much room for blemishes. It is also an adaptation to shoot in 16X9. Sometimes it is very cool and I like it the more I have to frame things that way. There is a learning to curve to the Sony HDRFX1 which I am using but once I got it dialed in, I am pleased. There are some things you can do to soften the HDDV image so it is not too crisp should the model be a bit short of perfect. For now the in camera down conversion for SD offers its own softening.

....and thanks for the compliment.

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Edited by - Asmodeus on 5/6/2005 6:57:52 PM

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I have often wondered if there is some "variable bit-rate" as opposed to "constant bit-rate" thing at play here as well. Sure, variable bit-rate saves some file size, but you also get the blur/jaggies/pixelization thing when moving to faster action.

Often, fast-moving DVD action can be inferior to old analog VHS stuff in terms of clarity (which drives me nuts).

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-T.C.

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-T.C.

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My head is spinning. Those guys (and gals) are geekier than a hive of kernel hackers.

Anyway, I want to see every detail dammit. [stomping foot]
I had hoped soft focus went out with Joan Collins.

BTW, Tony. Do you have any idea what cameras Jim Holliday might have used in his movies shot from about 2000 onwards?
The clarity and sharpness in those is absolutely amazing compared to just about any other porn I've seen.
Getting wood just thinking about it.

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Edited by - The Pervert on 5/6/2005 8:20:53 PM

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Now if we can only work on the sex and enthusiasm....

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The most lucid thing I've ever heard re: Ziess v Cooke, specifically the sharpness was, "It's not the amount of alcohol in a bottle of wine, it's the taste."

I don't know how Jim Holiday is.

-T.C.

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Steadicam! Addressing my personal pet peeve? I'm honoured.

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I'll take a guess that your man was one of the last of the Betacam shooters. Even a cheap Betacam is still a serious tool, rather than the toys that are used today. It has a real lens and larger chips. Even if the array resolution is higher on today's toys, the glass and the bigger chips still count for at least as much, especially in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing. That's not the only answer, but it's a possible answer.

-T.C.

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Not that I'm defending NS/DS in this instance, but your assertation is a bit over the top.

scipio

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My curiosity compelled me to check out the BTS footage.
Here are some (heavily compressed) screenshots.
Serious looking camera
Lots of wires
My that's a thick...cable
Various gear
Sound matters too
Mission control

Not your average Gonzo shoot.

It's true that such gear does reveal any and all 'blemishes'. Even in SD.

In Sorority Sex Kittens 5, the scenes with Phoenix Haight (aka Vivian Valentine) are particularly revealing, and she looks absolutely incredibly gorgeous to me. Blemishes and all.

+1000 crisp video.

I don't want the girls to be so caked in makeup and filmed with soft focus, that they look like pre-rendered CGI characters.
If I wanted that, I'd just watch stuff like The Incredibles and Shrek.

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-T.C.

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The whole scene is shot in Prague and was actually for my website and his, but I founded out he sold it to New Sensations anyway. (very strange of doing buisness anyway)

I know its a good scene, but for the anal lovers, sorry your not gonna see that.

Ok thats all i want to say.
Love Bobbi Eden

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The difference is remarkable. Those movies really are the best looking porn DVDs I've got. By far.

I suppose were not likely to get clearer picture that this in the future, even with HD cameras. What studio is going to spring for lenses like that, just for shooting porn?

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What you say about the dickhead director selling the scene to NS/DS is a strange thing if there was an agreement made to use it on your and his web site.

so the director (who was he anyway?) lied to you about what he was going to do with that scene, then some idiot at NS/DS made a faulty box cover and description to go with it, and someone else failed to do his/her QA job at NS/DS.

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Even 70mm film is a pretty small negative compared to what is used to produce a lot of the high-end imagery we see. Dispite claims to the contary 4"x5" film is still the industry standard for commercial photography. 120/220 twenty is used where speed of loading is important, but even there the RZ and GX680 are more popular that Hassleblad because (in a rectangular crop) the negative is nearly twice the size.

To create the "illusion of sharpness" in the cinematic image, the easiest trick is to show some difference between what's in focus and what's out of focus. What's in focus will look sharp by comparrisson. (there are other reasons to do this, and the technique is common in still photography as well.)

Because of the immutable physics of optics, particularly the relationship of angle of view, focal plane size and depth of field, this effect is more difficult to achieve the smaller the focal plane. (conversely, achieve deep focus is more difficult with a large focal plane.)

As porn, both moving and still, has become more and more dependend on (remarkably capable) consumer gear, it has in turn become more and more dependent on gear with small focal planes. No matter how Moore's law advances, there will never be large chips in consumer gear. Large chip are exponetially more expensive than smaller chips, and that is further compounded by economies of scale.

The distinctive look of small focal plane photography has changed the face of porn. I suppose whether or or not you like that change is largely a matter of personal taste. I don't. Deep focus shows all the clutter in the background. Without the soft/sharp relationship, everything looks soft, which further compounds the fact that images from this kind of gear are soft . I just don't think it looks very nice, and it's a big part of what makes porn look different from everything else. It's part of what makes people say "ewww, that's porn."

Of course I could be wrong. American Aparrel has adopted the greasy skin, on camera flash, deep focus look for their adverting. I bet the person charged with crafting their image has a nicer house than I do.

-T.C.

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Like most everyone else I've gotten used to the poor image quality. But when I see how it could look, I do become ever so slightly wistful. ::sigh::
The leap from much of Pixies amateur stuff to 'professional' (yeah right) gonzo is barely worth mentioning. But from there to Holliday's crisp and extremely well lit movies, the difference is unbelievable.

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IMHO, it's because of a lot of things. (and I'm not just talking about Jim's movies, I'm talking about a lot of the high-video-quality movies) The bigger and heavier the camera (a Digi Beta is remarkably heavy camera - in the 20 pound range; HD Cam ... the $100,000 ones, not the $5,000 ones are in the 45+ pound range), the harder it is to get the camera angles.

Meticulously lighting a set makes for a pretty picture but a less improvised sex scene, since the actors aren't as free to move around.

Different things are important to different viewers. Some would gladly give up a little heat in the sex to see better videography. Some would watch mediocre videography all day if meant seeing really good sex.

Maybe someday there will be a lot more directors who are good at making both aspects look good.

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There's no doubt that using smaller cameras makes it easier to do the quick cuts from crotch to face and back again.
It's also easier to get in close between the legs for that quick gape shot.

But a crew that knows what they're doing can obviously get the job done with DigiBetas too.
Holliday used two (or more?) cameras and must have spent some quality time in the edit bay.
The camera men were also well above current gonzo standards. Even watching the sex scenes using the secondary DVD angle compares not unfavourably to those.
And they didn't seem to have any visible problems getting good close-ups. Perhaps better zoom lenses helped there.
Even extreme close-ups came out great, and the improved picture made them so much better than close-ups with a prosumer camera.

Anyway, camera angles are largely a matter of taste.
Holliday's angles, framing and editing are spot on for me. The way the camera utterly worships the women never fails to get my heartrate, among other things, way up.

I'm not totally convinced using good lighting limits the movements of the performers. Apparently Holliday used smaller handheld spots to get light into every nook and cranny, regardless of the position.
Wouldn't a poorly lit set require the performers to be pointing their rude bits towards the lightsource more?

Different things are indeed important to different viewers. The same things are also viewed differently by different viewers.
For instance you speak of heat in the sex. But what is heat in a sex scene?
DAPs? Well, if you use insufficient lube.
But just watching some guys manhandling the newest teenybopper and stuffing her holes is not enough for me.
Other viewers are able to see something more in those scenes. I just can't.

For me, heat in a scene is seeing performers who are able to convince me as a viewer that they're into each other.
Not just enjoying a good fuck, but enjoying fucking this particular partner. And if they can crank up the intensity, and make it seem like they both want to fuck the other into oblivion, so much the better.

Granted, Holliday wasn't necessarily the greatest ever at this.
His hallmarks were great sex-oriented videography, many incredibly beautiful (and well made up) girls, a few good looking guys and lots of licking of the girls' toes and butts. All cobbled together with a wafer thin plot.

Still, he was just as good, if not better, than 99+% of the current releases.
At least he managed to get guys who could actually make it look like they got off on sucking the girl's toes and trying to stuff as much tongue as possible up her pooper.

The sex scenes we see from the new breed of performer-directors simply doesn't cut it.
For a while I thought they did, but I soon got bored with them.
They keep insisting they're having hot sex with the starlets on and off camera, but if they can't give the impression to the camera that they can tell one girl from the next, what's the point?
I don't care if feature sex is more choreographed than Pro Wrestling. If the finished product looks real, that's what counts.

And what about letting the girls show some personality and initiative for once?

Perhaps it's an inevitable result of having a male director performing in his own videos.
When the dick takes over, and you can't manage to care about yet another girl you've never met before, there might not be much thought capacity left over for anything other than plugging her holes until there's enough footage in the can and then getting your rocks off ASAP.

When the director is nothing more than a camera man, and lets the performers (usually the guy) 'just do their usual stuff' the results are similarly lacklustre.

If I want to watch some more genuine looking sex, and I'm feeling willing to accept lacking technical aspects, some amateur productions are more likely to scratch that ache.

Reality porn series from some feature companies are good for that too.
The directors from those companies bring with them another approach that I like, to shooting this gonzo-like style of porn.
And some of those scenes just couldn't be shot with high-end gear, unlike studio gonzo and fullfledged features.

-
Phew, what a rant. Sorry for taking the thread so far off course.

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In my opinion, it is very limiting to use lights. I don't want to stop the scene to readjust anything. I like to be able to put the camera wherever it is best without fear of shooting light stands, lights or shooting my own shadow cast over the performers. I think sex should look and feel real but shot in a way that keeps it erotic. Amateur product, however real, generally lacks style.

This is merely my personal opinion as many people have made lots of money with a an entirely different approach.

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"Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat." - Coupling

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I hate using Jim Holliday as an example, since he truly was a great guy and isn't here to explain his choices, but on a movie 'like' his, any time I tried to watch one as a simple viewer, there was always something missing for me. Some sort of raw energy. Maybe it had more to do with a style that the director was looking for and much less to do with the type of camera or lighting. Maybe it's just coincidence that so many of the 'feature' directors shoot sex that just doesn't turn me on. Believe me, there's very few gonzo directors that match my tastes either. They often go to the other extreme (like you pointed out) of shooting their version of raw sex, and it ends up missing something too.

Anyway - it seems like we almost meet in the middle, kinda. :)
Sex where the performers are into each other WITH production values that look like the director gave a damn.

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