We're at 67K+ deaths in the US as of yesterday, with approximately 1.15 million confirmed cases. One study in NY estimated about 15 percent of the population had been infected. I believe 60 percent is the rough estimate for what they call "herd immunity". But even if herd immunity is achieved, it will not stop all cases. Crazy anti-vaxxers have caused measels outbreaks, for instance, even when most people are vaccinated and herd immunity is much higher. So it is not a panacea. Also, the virus is likely to mutate at some point. There are already at least two main strains. But herd immunity will help and may be the only way through this until (and if) a vaccine is made available.
But even saying all this, I think the porn industry should start shooting again with reasonable precautions in place. Most performers are in the low-risk age-range category for Covid-19. Crew members on set should be minimized and wear masks. But everyone involved should understand that they are taking a risk. There is no risk-free way forward here.
I think we should still be at least a few more weeks away from resuming "non-essential" work. I realize ppl are gradually going back to the beaches in Cali and Florida. But workplaces and employers have more liability.
My big concern is the fact we have basically no clue how many total carriers are out there.
The current estimate out of JohnsHopkinsU of approx 1.3m cases in the US is absurd. It has to be well over 10 times that many cases by now, and that would be extremely conservative. It could even be 20m or more by now. It's just that the vast majority are asymptomatic.
Consider the very conspicuous distinction that 80% of COVID19 deaths are over age 60. By contrast, 80% of H1N1 deaths were UNDER the age of 65.
This all reinforces growing suspicions that COVID19 is orders of magnitude more widespread than currently apprehended.
I see way too many people scoffing at comparisons to H1N1 on the presumptuous basis that H1N1 was not nearly as deadly. I have no issue granting that COVID19 is deadlier, but no one should be scoffing at a comprehensive comparison. People have forgotten that H1N1 killed over 500,000 people. This is nothing to sneeze at. And we had much more transparency and immediate vigilance for H1N1 than we have been afforded for this current coronavirus pandemic.
Why do people think we even have a chance that there's less than 10m cases in the US? It's absolutely nutty that people could believe it's only 1.3m cases...
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Porn Scout Deactivated User
3735 Posts 10/02
Posted - May 6 2020 : 7:42PM
^I don't see the difference between now and a few weeks from now.
In Florida anyone can get a test, are there false positives and false negatives? The antibody test.
I wish they gave the same love to cancer and heart disease that they give to Corona, I wish they would tell everyone to drive 5mph so there would be no fatal car accidents. Livliehoods vs. survival
It's a shame that the industry is starting to girls due to the coronavirus. I don't mean death of course, but this shutdown has caused many to rethink their direction in life and reconsider their choice of doing porn going forward in this environment.
Bull, it's more like stopping with red lights , you stop even when nobody else is at the same crossroad or even in the street , same applies with speed limits , it's funny you chose a speed limit in your example , but as a matter of fact you have to stay within limits even in a desert road , why? Why aren't you free to run as fast as you can when you see your car can't crash against any other car?
Because both lights and speed limits are safety rules and you abide by the rules for the safety of everybody involved including the driver, his passengers or any pedestrian around or even those thinking it's safe to ignore the signs because there's nobody around but him until he finds someone else with the same smart thought at the very same crossroad
Maybe we can see some cool helicopter footage of some smoke plumes and shopping mall fires. Media looks like its getting tired of Corona and now beating the war drums over the Georgia shooting of the black marathon runner and the pickup truck rednecks with the shotgun. NYC and LA are not going to go hungry. You have the wonderful combination of the partial openings and unemployed, a regular powder keg
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Porn Scout Deactivated User
3735 Posts 10/02
Posted - May 14 2020 : 4:06PM
^^If this means 3 more months of not shooting, I think quite a few smaller companies will probably go under. Some of the larger companies can probably expand in Europe (if allowed - not sure how restrictive it is there now) or shift production to Florida, or maybe even other parts of California that do open up. But the smaller companies won't have the resources to do that.
My view on this thing continues to be that the country needs to open up where it can and allow people to work, while keeping people over 60 and those in other high-risk categories isolated as much as possible. We should be smart about it and do it in phases, but there is no risk-free way out of this situation.
It's now giving children some delayed symptoms related to Kawasaki. but it's like 100 from like 5yo to about 11yo, 3 or 4 have died. Confinement will make people sick. It's not people over 60 but anyone with immunological deficiencies. Virus has to stay alive, if it kills everyone it kills itself. This one has the contagion of the common cold linked with SARs. A vaccine is pointless because there are 3 strains, with the Italian and NY strain the worst. Maybe 1/3 of all deaths are nursing homes and once a virus gets in everyone is fucked, staff, visitors and patients. The Case Fatality Rate when all is said and done will be pretty low...The USA is about 250 deaths per million, infected and uninfected
^ and ^^^ There is a thread dedicated to non-porn discussions on coronavirus in the WN&N forum. I'd rather not see this one locked because you can't won't stay on point.
This is quite the opposite. Many smaller companies were violating stay-at-home orders and shooting. The risk-averse larger companies like Vixen Media Group, are following california labor laws and obeying stay-at-home. Companies with european production teams such as RK, and even VMG, are indeed preparing to shoot again, as lockdowns have ended in places like Prague and Budapest.
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FenderUser Deactivated User
155 Posts 2/20
Posted - May 20 2020 : 7:46AM
Hello all, so, with the Covid 19 situation getting more into control in some countries and many starting to get out of lockdown, I read the thread and the informations are constantly evolving so is there an approximative date when porn will restart to shoot? It seems in Prague it might never have stopped, not sure, don't want to say fake news. I live in Canada and things are getting pretty good over here (depends which states but some have 0 cases like NB) but from what I understood, a lot of porn is shot in LA and that place is still quarantined like hell, right? I think that controversial governor, Gavin Newsom, is contemplating or already extended the lockdown in California for 3 more months, if I got things correctly. So no porn shot in LA until september? I think there's some studio in Orlando, Florida but I'm not sure. Parts of Florida are getting out of lockdown but some places are still closed like Jupiter, probably Orlando and another whose name is escaping me. As you can see, I am pretty confused lol and if anyone can give me some infos, that would be greatly appreciated. :-)
Most of Florida has begun phase one re-openings this week, which means many businesses can open to reduced capacity, but gatherings and non-retail, are still closed. Authorities will monitor the situation to see if there is a rise in cases, but if everything goes well, phase two re-opening may begin as early as June 1.
During phase two, people can go back to work, but with less capacity indoors, and employers are expected to test for symptoms such as thermometer checks. Because Talent Testing now offers COVID testing, this means porn producers in florida can have all on-set workers tested before the start of production, and production can resume.
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Porn Scout Deactivated User
3735 Posts 10/02
Posted - May 20 2020 : 8:57PM
^Miami could see a mini-boom in porn production for several months.
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Johnconner431 Deactivated User
79 Posts 5/20
Posted - May 20 2020 : 11:35PM
Could Leah Gotti be coming back to porn?
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FenderUser Deactivated User
155 Posts 2/20
Posted - May 21 2020 : 10:38AM
Thank you for the very clear and very explainative post! :-)
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Johnconner431 Deactivated User
79 Posts 5/20
Posted - May 21 2020 : 8:40PM
I have a feeling a lot of female porn performers are gonna be going to Florida a lot for the next two months or so while LA is still under lockdown.
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Johnconner431 Deactivated User
79 Posts 5/20
Posted - May 21 2020 : 8:43PM
Welp it's pretty much official Leah Gotti is back guys!
You know what I would love for studios to release during lockdown? Truly remastered slightly older scenes. Katie Morgan, for example, is one of my absolute favorites, but the video quality on some of her scenes from just a few years ago is basically unwatchable on today's screens. Wiss they could be improved and re-released.
^ A potential obstacle is that a studio may need to hire external contractors for that while so many companies are trying to control their costs during the lockdown. Maybe if enough demand is stirred up that the cost of remastering has a good ROI, we can see more of it from studios?
Virtually all porn is shot directly on video at the same source resolution as the final render, and a lot of it is shot on high-end consumer grade equipment too, so if a scene was shot ten years ago on a 1080p camcorder, it's never going to look better than that.
Old movies from the '70s, like Deep Throat, could be remastered because they were shot on film, which has a "source resolution" estimated at 4-8K, although it depends on who you ask, as well as the stock of film used and the condition of the negative... and digital concepts of resolution are hard to translate to analog forms of media... but I digress.
While that is generally true about resolution (even though there's some companies that were shooting on 4K cameras and only releasing at 1080 a few years ago), bitrate is another thing entirely. Some of these scenes have room to increase bitrate to increase quality (as people are less likely to complain about large file sizes now that they were then).
^^
Remastering work is something that could be done by the same people editing/uploading their current scenes. A lot of it is about taking the source video and throwing it through an algorithm that cleans up the rough edges for higher resolution. The lack of new material for some of these people to work on opens up a chance to work on old scenes.
^ (on ^^) While that's true that you can take a video and run it through an off the shelf, general purpose software to clean up the rough edges as you put it, your results may vary as the algorithm may overcompensate by removing details in an undesirable way. For a good remaster with digital video, you'd more likely need a bespoke solution hence why I am of the view that getting it done properly may be an expense that has to be justified with cost control measures during the lockdown. If you produce crappy remasters that have all sorts of issues due to a cheap and quick algorithm being used, that studio faces a PR nightmare with alienated customers accusing exploiting the lockdown with half-assed rehashes or old material.
^ (on ^) How do you "increase the bitrate"? You can't make something from nothing. Sure, you can transcode video from the original source to a new output for website publication at a higher bitrate than the original output that was published at the site but even then, there are diminishing returns in doing this as you could increase the file size significantly for only a marginal and barely perceptible increase in video quality.
I mean, that's really the answer. Go back to the source, transcode at a higher bitrate, republish. I'm not saying it'll make a huge difference, but it can make a difference, especially given the the further back you go, the lower the original bitrates might be. Also, the type of people complaining about file quality, generally speaking, aren't the same people that are complaining about file sizes.
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Mass Facialties Deactivated User
"Facialized Vol. 7" 2021 AVN Awards Winner: Best Oral Movie 9308 Posts 9/13
Posted - May 29 2020 : 12:45AM
Today, I was surprised to find an article concerning this subject - the porn industry lockdown and the coronavirus - on a mainstream (non-porn) site. This article, featured on The Ringer, explains how self-shot porn content was becoming an increasingly lucrative business for porn performers before the pandemic, and how it's only skyrocketed since then. It's kind of a long read, but I found it to be worthwhile:
Yeah, I have witnessed that before the pandemic. More and more girls going for sites like Onlyfans and shooting their own material. Good for them if it's a very lucrative avenue, I get how having more control over the shooting aspect of your content must be great (and from what I hear, the money is great too), I just hope porn studios won't dissepear in the not-so-distant future. I really like the way studio shoot their content, some directors like Mike Adriano, I REALLY like HOW he shoots and obviously, we all have our favorites but self-shot porn, I don't really like the way it is shot, in my honest opinion. :P So I hope in the future, there will still be a balance and not just like with VHS vs DVD where VHS pretty much dissepeared. we'll see!
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Porn Scout Deactivated User
3735 Posts 10/02
Posted - May 29 2020 : 1:36PM
At some point, the business model could shift to girls themselves funding actual professional-level content production and then selling those scenes directly to fans through OnlyFans or other channels. This, as opposed to the sort of crappy self-shot stuff they're doing now. It wouldn't work for girls starting out and living paycheck to paycheck, but for the more popular girls that build up huge followings, and have the financial resources, I could see it working quite well. They would have to be very business-minded though.
Hmm, I want to throw this discussion out here, but I also hope I don't break any rule by talking about it.
How will piracy be affected by this switch to independent/onlyfans content creation? I think we will probably see a decrease in it, because of how these clips stores are designed.
If clips stores allow downloads (or people figure out ways to download high quality versions of the files), then piracy will still exist at about the same level it does now. There's a slight chance that if Onlyfans gets their tech stuff together, the generally lower entry price for content will mean less people out there that see the need to pirate, but I'm not entirely sure that'll be the case.
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Mass Facialties Deactivated User
"Facialized Vol. 7" 2021 AVN Awards Winner: Best Oral Movie 9308 Posts 9/13
Posted - Jun 6 2020 : 1:50AM
Next week, they'll set a date for the release of the guidelines for the resumption of porn production:
[Tweet is no longer available]
Edited by - Mass Facialties on 6/6/2020 2:23:28 AM
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WhitneyWestgateFan Deactivated User
153 Posts 1/20
Posted - Jun 11 2020 : 8:34PM
Hallelujah! Hopefully there's no BS like everyone has to wear a condom or facemask/no kissing/oral.
Yeah I don't know what this means,concerning Covid-19 I see no safe solution, if adult movies or mainstream stuff, crime shows etc. I am curious what they will present as an solution on sets.
^ The solution, while not perfect, is a very,very recent negative virus test for all involved. That's how sports leagues are starting back up.You gotta get up close to tackle or fuck somebody. There is no avoiding that reality.
I don't know, here in Germany in terms of what the virologists are saying recently, there is no COVID-19 test, that is safe and steady, reliable. So a higher risk will remain, I read all the rules and guidelines released today, but as I said there is still a risk especially for the director of photography where ever he is and of course for the performers. I just imagine who to shoot let's a bukkake or a gangbang or a DP scene, there had to be close to each other.... So let's see what will happen when the 1st shooting is done and who will be the cast ?
'I also think, that the one or another of these performers wil first think really much about the risks for them, female and male. And knowing that older people like myself, have a higher risk for seriously problems in terms of the virus, more mature women, let's say over 45 years, will be even more careful if and when shoot, maybe.
I think that is the best possible solution but sadly they won't be able to implement that type of program because the harsh reality is that I doubt the industry can get the necessary test. Even if they somehow magically can get the test. They won't be able to get the result within an acceptable time. Don't forget that every industry wants to have access to testing and some of these have significantly more power than the porn industry.
The labs that perform the industry's STD tests are already willing to do the COVID testing. Many states (including California and I believe Florida) are also offering free testing to anyone that wants it with a 1-2 day turnaround. Having the capacity for testing isn't the biggest problem.
The porn industry nowadays is incredibly strong-selling. Therefore the big producers of porn will have plenty of ressources available to assert their goals. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.
bigfuckinggeman, do you fuck germans really, I am german, lol...joking. If you are from Germany that, as I areeady wrote, there is no existing Covid-19 tests who really works and is safe. A big insafety would reimain after testing. Positve/negative results. Concerning the big pron companies and players, if understand you IYO the market is in good "shape" right now ? Idon't know, see more problems after Covid and after all this scandelous impacts recently. But I will see, maybe you're riight, would hope so.
^^That's a great offer but mostly B.S made to make people feel like the industry is doing something because sadly it's not worth anything if they can't get the equipment and reagents to do the test and unless you know something I don't. That stuff isn't available right now. I also can't help but point out that unlike the current STI test. The Covid-19 test doesn't give you an immediate result. There is a time delay involved and that means that a performer couldn't get booked until the results came back and while I agree the standard 14 day STI test is only valid the day the performer takes it. Unless they have sex with multiple untested individuals before their next 14 day test. then there is a good chance that they don't have an STI but even if a performer gets a negative Covid-19 test back. Their chances of getting infected with Covid-19 are much greater because transmissions is air borne and not blood borne.
^Not sure where you got your data that makes you think what you do but I think the industry is weaker today than it was a decade ago. There may be more porn being made but it is owned by fewer and fewer studios and the profits that is earned from that porn is lower than in the past because there are more tube sites that keep diluting those profits.
"Facialized Vol. 7" 2021 AVN Awards Winner: Best Oral Movie 9308 Posts 9/13
Posted - Jun 13 2020 : 4:57PM
Yeah, the guidelines are out:
[Tweet is no longer available]
At the end of the guidelines there, there's one bullet point that stands out:
So, I expect that even when porn producers resume shooting, they'll only be doing 1-on-1 scenes; it's gonna be a while before they feel comfortable doing scenes with 3+ performers. Which I totally understand.
I don't expect there to be a lot of outdoor scenes and I can see performers prefering to create content in their household than travelling to location or outside the city they live in.
Audrey Madison Interview
Posted - May 5 2020 : 2:30PM
