Well, ir's not like I LOVED the vignette series -- it was indeed more like early Andrew Blake than anything else in Ninn's dreary canon, & with little wit, unfortunately. Ninn has all the subtlety of the very freshman film student mentality you note, & compared to him even I would say that your average RLD/Ana director has the equivalent of a PhD in (hetero)sexuality.
As for Latex -- Okay, got me again. I have to confess that I probably would NOT be sexually excited by it if I were to see it today. I just think it was one of the best-written & realized porn features from the post-video days & I found its themes provocative & sexy. All right, yeah, okay -- it probably wouldn't stand the test of time with me as viable pornography.
But as for the infamous "shaky-cam" -- there's degrees of everything. GALACTICA is pretty restrained & judicious in its use of the style as opposed to THE SHIELD, which I think utilizes it far more radically -- but far more creatively & compellingly -- than NYPD BLUE, where the style degenerated into unconscious self-parody by the second season, at least ... as for THE KINGDOM I don't think I was either enthralled or repulsed by the camera work -- but I got a major kick out of the script & acting!
I'm saddened to see this thread become acrimonious. A couple of short answers, than a slightly longer observation. I hope this post doesn't increase the level of acrimony.
Quaze: Yes, we're talking about porn. In several previous posts you've made it abundantly clearly you've long lost your ability to care about porn beyond how well it does or doesn't pay the bills, and the occasional glimpse of a woman whose beauty and sexuality mounts an assault on your marriage vows – at least in a Matthew 5:28 sort of way. Is there some reason you feel compelled to remind us?
3SB: Yes, I remember the clothes pile lover. You can also find posts that indicate there are fellows here that are turned on by seeing women eat their own shit, by seeing women's assholes bloodied and distended, or by seeing women who are clearly unhappy to be doing what they're doing on camera. The point isn't whether or not someone is turned on by any of these things, the point is the deliberation with which they appear on screen.
Kperv: A glimpse? Of course not. I won't be detoured by a glimpse of a light-stand legs in the corner of a low-budget gonzo film anymore than a boom-mic dip in a Hollywood feature. There are, however, a few things that many porn directors could learn from Hollywood about how to make the inevitable gaffs that are a part of production (especially low-budget production) less intrusive. None of these would mitigate Mrs.C's sneaker, which took up 10% of the screen real estate, right in the middle, for the entire 5 minutes that the the starlet took a cock up her ass doggy style. Whether your production conceit is loose or tight, you have to maintain a consistent tone. (Well you don't have to do anything, especially if you don't care.)
Walter: More and more, your proclivity to misunderstand has a undertone of condescension. It's going to the corner shop where the kindly old grocer always give the wrong change, and always in his favor. I don't know if you do this on purpose, or it's just a sloppy habit you've picked from dealing with your students, or what, but it really drains the fun out of our exchanges, at least for me.
DAC: Not having seen your work, I have no opinion on whether your a misunderstood, under-appreciated, and under-rewarded artist, or just a hack who can't hack it. I will say that there's a vast audience for porn outside traditional porn world. If the punters don't want to buy what you're selling, maybe try selling it to somebody else. Not as easy as a 1500 piece/month push deal, but not as hard as it might seem either.
Mrs.C: I don't know that I entirely buy your viewer/user paradigm. To me I thin the issue is more one of transportation . I want to be transported, and if I'm watching people fuck, I want to be transported to a place where the only possible response I have to drop my pants and stroke my cock. But much like being manipulated by cheaply rendered sentiment, I don't want to fall back to earth and be embarrassed to find I've been manipulated by cheaply rendered sexuality. The sort of things (technical gaffs, mechanical sex, apparent ill-will on the part of the producers) that your "viewer" finds off putting are what will prevent me from being transported, and enjoying porn as a user. I just can't feel good about jerking off to something that I wouldn't have felt good about making. I want a consensual, joyous experience, which has nothing to do with whether what's being rendered is tender fluffy bunny sex, or hardcore BDSM.
Bob, MLyons, and skronk: I don't mean to be picking on you when I start these sort of threads. I mean that very sincerely, and I hope you believe me. Do I believe that some people have an unhealthy, unwholesome relationships with porn? Absolutely. Do I count you in their numbers? No. (If it matters to you.) In fact, that you find some value in my work, whether or not you find it strokable is very important to me.
This went on longer than I expected, so I'll leave my observation, which concerned the effect of technology and economic marginalization on the creative aspect of porn, for another time.
"Quaze: Yes, we're talking about porn. In several previous posts you've made it abundantly clearly you've long lost your ability to care about porn beyond how well it does or doesn't pay the bills, and the occasional glimpse of a woman whose beauty and sexuality mounts an assault on your marriage vows – at least in a Matthew 5:28 sort of way. Is there some reason you feel compelled to remind us?"
Jeez. relax Tony. I was just joshin' with you. I'm simply appreciating the irony that porn is generally perceived as the lowest of the lowbrow and yet you guys have created a ten page thread rife with words that would send the average goon running for a thesaurus.
I happened upon The Crow: City of Angels today and it occured to me...
Porn, if it is dying or somehow has a problem, it is the same problem that plagues nearly every form of entertainment today: those responsible, the "artists" if you can call them that, suffer from a a lack of creativity, originality and have no sense of history.
I have personally urged and encouraged many a young creator to see what many would consider "classics" in their line of work, regardless of time period and it seems that even if they do take the time to heed my advice, they still miss the point. They've been raised on MTV, Sportscenter and attempting to emulate the success of their peers when not outright plagarizing them or someone else's work. "Subtlety" is absent from their vocabulary and they seem to not know the difference between being influenced, paying homage and outright ripping another off. It's monkey-see/monkey-do with these folks, rather than striving to be innovators.
For example, let's take John Singleton's Shaft remake. The original was groundbreaking for its time and will always be remembered as such, this is something everyone knows. But if you were to film again, even shot-for-shot like Van Sant attempted with Hitchcock's Psycho , today it would not have the same impact, the same social relevance as the original. You can't look to copy something directly, you have to peer deeper and look to see why something is transcendent, what makes it special. You'll find that it isn't always just what's on the screen. I feel it's this carbon-copy, Cliff's Notes approach to things that has made what we used to love so stale. Immitation is not the sincerest form of flattery, it just makes everything the same. Mimickry, if anything, is killing porn.
I've stayed away from this thread because I figured I would just end up repeating myself, and then be dwarfed by the superior intellects surrounding me. So, is pornography dying?
Creatively? Sidestepping an aesthetics of cinema diatribe, I'll just say that I primarily review classic DVD releases now (a lot of those sucked too!), but I am just one consumer. (Crucifixio makes a lot of sense on this topic)
Economically? That's a point of debate. Some analysts argue that the business is cannibalizing itself by churning out far too much product, and as result it is on pace for a bust similar to the one the video game industry experienced in 1983. They're full of shit, though. Right? This is $12.6 billion a year industry. Or is it?
I know you are, Quase. If I seem short it's because I know you have much more to offer us than your appreciation of irony, and I'm frustrated that I continue to fail to be able to draw you out.
Mimickry is merely a way to mitigate risk. I'm not fan of taking chances, bu I think it's worth examining the economic and social conditions that have made what many people think of as a maverick industry so hyper risk-averse.
"the economic and social conditions that have made what many people think of as a maverick industry so hyper risk-averse."
Maybe the much-fabled mainstream acceptance is a factor in this.
As a consumer:
I've watched David Aaron Clark films. I don't share his fetish for Asian women, and the cinematography is hard to get used to. However, I have enjoyed some scenes.
I've watched Eon McKai films. I don't share his fetish for girls who haven't bet a body-ink artist they didn't like. I don't care for his camera work.
I've watched John Leslie films. I don't share his fetish for European women. I struggle to find the eroticism in his harsh lighting, though I trust it is a stylistic choice.
Let's not forget that pornographer live under the constant threat of being deprived of their property and liberty for producing sexually explicit images. Even Mrs.C and I, with our decidely wholesome films, get a little nervous when we send a DVD or Tennessee or Pennsylvania or Georgia.
The Miller test offers three lines of defense for a pornographer, but the focus has been almost entirely on this one:
Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
Presumably this is because the government doesn't even attempt to proscute pornographers who might find refuge in the other two prongs of the Miller Test.
Because of this emphasis on Community Standards , the porn industry has every reason to be optimistic about its revenues – after all, what better a measure of "community standards" than what people are will are willing to spend their money on?
High, often irrationally high, estimations of consumer spending on porn serves anti-porners as well. They need porn to be some irrestistable, out of control monster that threatens the very fabric of our society. If it wasn't, why bother to write books, give lectures, ask for donations, etc.
And of course the press has no reason to do anything but repeat AVN's figures, because it helps to justify their interest in the "multi-billion dollar a year adult industry", which is always helpful when ratings need a boost.
I'm not sure that there's anyone would benefit from a well-documented estimation of porn annual porn revenues.
"[O]ur brains organize and distill our sensory inputs so as to create a sense of unity."
I'm not.I haven't argued with you about the definition of "imagination". I happily accept yours.Nasty.Your arrogance is breathtaking. I'd be happy, at your leisure, to compare our respective educational credentials, life experiences, cultural literacy, and objectively determined cognitive abilities.I didn't realize that my only appropriate function was to entertain you.What debate? You're assuming a larger area of disagreement between us than probably exists. I haven't criticized either your videos or the enterprise of making (or "viewing") cinematic porn. Nor have I argued that nobody is able to "use" porn through a "viewing" modality; I try to make as few assumptions about other people's capacities as possible. My points of conflict with you are limited and specific.I never claimed that you were egocentric. Rather, I suggested that you were inappropriately dismissive and judgmental. As for myself, I'll candidly admit that I'm egocentric -- but not on the basis of my conduct in this thread.No, you haven't. You've expended a lot of verbiage in not answering the precious little that I've asked. Instead, you've set up straw men and then knocked them down.
I asked you two simple, related questions; let me repeat them a final time, rephrased again for (I hope) greater clarity. If you believe I'm an imbecile, do the big-hearted thing: show appropriate pity for the paucity of my intellect; be an exemplar of noblesse oblige; humor me -- but please answer them just once straightforwardly.
1. Given that partner-sex is experienced as a continuous activity in real time, do you have a good reason for denigrating the desire (note that I haven't said, "the exclusive desire") to experience porn-sex in a manner that also feels conventionally continuous, such that reel time appears to correspond roughly with real time?
2. Given that the typical experience of partner-sex (i.e., sans hallucinogens) includes a straightforward visual perception of your partner and your surroundings -- seeing your lover's face, her body, how she looks while sucking your cock, how her pussy looks up close, how your cock looks entering her -- is it fair to denigrate the person engaging in porn-sex who wishes to have a visual experience as similar as possible to that of partner-sex?
TonyC wrote:No worries, TC; I didn't feel picked on by you. Likewise, I hope you didn't feel attacked by me. As I believe you know, my primary () feelings toward you are admiration and affection.
Bob, you're beginning to strike me as either an idiot with good grammar or a troll -- considering your place of origin is the same that JRV's currently sporting over at XXXPT, proof is leaning towards the latter. But just one more time I will in fact answer these questions, & number my answers so you can't claim I didn't. Then I'm going to go watch cartoons.
"please answer them just once straightforwardly.
1. Given that partner-sex is experienced as a continuous activity in real time, do you have a good reason for denigrating the desire (note that I haven't said, "the exclusive desire") to experience porn-sex in a manner that also feels conventionally continuous, such that reel time appears to correspond roughly with real time?"
1. Nowhere have I denigrated the desire -- notice that I, too, am not using the term "exclusive desire," because OBVIOUSLY that's where I begin to opine over too-conversative & never-adventuresome viewers -- to "experience blah blah blah in a manner that also feels conventionally continuous, such that reel time appears to correspond roughly with real time."
Your definition of "conventionally continous" for a form of visual narrative is what's off the mark here. The closest analogous format to the style of porn narrative you're ostensibly championing would be live television sports coverage, which is the only place off the top of my head where the narrative strives to unfold in anything approximating "real time" (outside of an Andy Warhol film, or perhaps more en pointe here, a film like IRREVERSIBLE).
Anyway, am I hostile to stubborn literalists? Of course not. Do I share their aesthetic preference? Obviously, not. Do I feel the need to denigrate them? Only out of frustration and/or amusement on the occasions when they can't see the forest for the trees.
If someone is fixated SOLELY on exterior manufactured narratives that attempt to replicate your definition of a perceptual experience, yeah, I think they deserve to have their aesthetic -- & in the case of porn, the psychosexual issues that formed that aesthetic -- called into question.
As to our respective educations & careers, your dogged tunnel-vision insistence on my answering this one ill-framed question despite your ability to display good grammar skills makes me indeed wonder if you're not some sort of mid-level attorney.
If anybody else thinks I didn't answer Boberino's question by now, please chime in & explain what mysteries in its syntax & intent I am overlooking in my replies.
"2. Given that the typical experience of partner-sex (i.e., sans hallucinogens) includes a straightforward visual perception of your partner and your surroundings -- seeing your lover's face, her body, how she looks while sucking your cock, how her pussy looks up close, how your cock looks entering her -- is it fair to denigrate the person engaging in porn-sex who wishes to have a visual experience as similar as possible to that of partner-sex?"
I would have to allow you your given to answer this the way you'd like, Bob, but I've expended not-inconsiderable band width pointing out that your definition of "a straightforward visual perception" is by my reckoning faulty. Which may or may not come from a lack of i-m-a-g-i-n-a-t-i-o-n, something which includes the ability to make cognitive leaps, which you seem to be, as I said, either incapable of or being incredibly coy about.
I do thank you for the opportunity & impetus to sit down & sharpen my writing skills & organize my own thoughts on these matters .... & I thank Kperv for actually engaging with me in a fun give & take. & I thank TonyC for being the Ward Cleaver of us all ... well, Ward Cleaver with a suspiciously noisy basement workshop .... :)
& I do agree with Tony, Quaze. My impression of you has always been that you're one of the few truly nimble intelligences behind the camera in SoCal porn, but for the most part you insist on exhibiting a sense of disillusioned disengagement on the board that reminds me of the priest who wanders the golf course in CADDYSHACK after being cheated of his hole-in-one stinking drunk & mumbling over & over, "There is no God ...." (it is CADDYSHACK, right?) :) I'm showing none of the sarcasm Bob inspires in me when I say it truly would be a gift to us all if you ever got it up here in public to CARE about porn, whether you think it's a legit art form or not -- for you to even think the debate is worth engaging in would be very cool.
(But excuse me if you've been there & done that & I just missed the threads. Seriously)
BTW, Tony, back when I decided to take the L.A. porn plunge in '98, I had no idea I was coming in on the eve of a plague of wannabe copycat porn directors that would change the economic, political & even social face of the industry. It may not have been pretty up till then, but it's only lately it's gotten downright ugly, & yes I consider alternatives on a semi-daily basis.
Now. Time for STAND-ALONE COMPLEX, vol. 1. Toodles, luvs!
P.S. Crucifixio, about time you got here, with a great post as always. I think we were watching CITY OF ANGELS at the same time on cable -- I am always mesmerized in the most stubbornly literal of ways by the late, lamented Thuy Trang's brief star turn as, to put it in the language of gonzo, "one nasty Asian bitch."
Edited by - dac on 1/21/2006 4:42:50 PM copyedited by dac
I thought I'd let dac try and pull the sword from the stone. But now that he has, and I can't make heads or tails of his answer, I'll give it a try.NoNo
Now the addendum.
I can count the number of times I've seen sex scenes that in any way constitute a cinematic (broad meaning) approximation my experience of sex on my hands. The whole reason I started making porn films was to have the opportunity to see my experience of sex and desire, as I experience them physically and emotionally, reflected back to me from the screen.
From a technical stand point, this had a lot to do with the very static approach that most pornographers use (long long cuts, most notably of tight close-ups of cunts and cocks), and the very "I wish I was doing music videos" style that the others seem to use (very rapid cutting, color FX, etc).
The foundation of our approach was to find a way to shoot sex, without asking the performers to stop and start, that would give me the coverage I needed to get as close to the ideal of transparent, Hollywood-style editing as I could; no shots that were noticeable for being long, no series of cuts noticeable for being especially rapid. In other, I try to edit in a way that no one notices the editing (too much).
It turns out, in porn this is even harder to do than in non-porn.
In the non-porn world, I get teased by my colleagues about the old-school languor of my cutting style, which makes seeing my edit style get called "quick cutting" in some porn review (both positive and negative) especially amusing, since I slow my pace down a bit to get (what I feel/hope is) a more satisfying masturbatory effect.
But besides some people saying I'm a 'quick cutter' people also say my films seem "more like a real movie", which I think they mean as a compliment. And while that certainly has something to do with our efforts to create sympathetic characters and place them inside of some sort of narrative, I think the editing style has a lot to do with why people feel that way too.
Why do I think it has something to do with the editing?
People associate porn with the FF button. Beginner's guides to watching porn recommend watching with your finger on the FF button! I want very much to keep people's hands down their pants, or down their lover's pant. But if I can't even do that, please please please let me not send them searching for the remote! For me a big part of that is an edit pace that doesn't have what I call "flat spot", places where the audience's attention starts to wander. My attention doesn't wander when I'm making love. I don't want your attention wandering while I use my filmcraft to give you a metaphysical blowjob. You will not FF me while I'm trying to suck you off, goddammit!
(I heard a woman on a podcast last week talk about FF'ing through X&D to get to the "good stuff" and it was a like a punch to the gut. But then she said the "good stuff" made her jump her husband and they had the best sex of the last few week. You win some, you lose some.)
For me it gets back to the whole transportation thing, and I just don't find the conventions of porn editing, with it's intermitably long shots very transporting.I like the way that good coverage and good editing, with it's constantly changing POV, seems to put me right in the action, somehow magically mimicking the way that my attention shifts this way and that (her cunt, her face, her hands clutching my ass, my hand on her tit) that I experience real life sex.
The 'porn way' of showing the scene reminds me of the early days of cinema, where they'd just set the camera in the back of a theater and film a stage production. To me it feels remote, removed, distant and static; not the sexiest set of adjectives, eh?
Of course I don't see anyway I could edit the way I like to edit within the confines of the one title/month business model that seems to be so many directors' bowl of rice. I know people are probably tired of hearing me say it, but in film, business choices are creative choices.
I just wanted to say that things you do personally and maybe with closed eyes, don't have to look good for a fly on the wall, they just have to feel good for the involved people. But the main focus in most porn movies lays purely on the visual aspects.
It's just two dimensional film for now and not a holographic person you are able to touch or interact with
Having attempted to read this entire thread but admittedly scrolling through a great deal of it, here's my two cents for what it's worth....
In response to the original post regarding why a porn film can't also be a good film; for me, if I'm watching what I consider to be a "good film" with an erotic subtext ala Body Double, Sex Lies and Videotape etc. I don't NEED to see anything explicit because I'm clearly not viewing these types of films for the purpose of dropping a load in a hanky. I'm watching them for the purpose of entertainment and possibly becoming aroused as a bonus. The hanky may enter the equation after all is said or done or perhaps at a later date. If my goal was to utilize the hanky in the most immediate fashion I wouldn't bother to watch a "good" movie, I'd stick "Butt Banged Cycle Sluts" into the DVD player.
Let us not forget that the true purpose of pornography, regardless of whatever higher purpose we aspire to while creating it, is to facilitate masturbation. That's it. Forgive me if I've grown callous, jaded and apathetic but the bottom line is that no matter how creative my lighting scheme, no matter how artistic my cinematography, no matter how enlightened my motivations, in the end, the thing that I create is going to be used to facilitate a guy sitting in his living room with the lights low jacking into a kleenex.
Period.
To me, any examination beyond that is the equivalent of searching for the meaning of life in a Star Trek episode. While movies like "Pirates" may make oodles of dough because of the many avenues of revenue available to Digital Playground through cable, pay-per-view etc, the bottom line is that anyone who watches the movie in the privacy of their home is scanning forward until they find that shot of Janine that enables them to launch into a tissue.
That being said I feel that I can now join both Tony C and DAC in agreement on where the creative deficits lie in the present porn landscape. For the most part we all shoot the same movie week after week here in porn valley. Company owners want to turn a profit as quickly as possible. The market is flooded with product - FLOODED. It's a quantity business, not a quality business. When Joe Schmoe Company owner sees that Redlight is selling X amount of pieces of the latest creampie series, he needs to find someone who can shoot the EXACT SAME THING so that he too can take his rightful slice of the creampie demographic. This certainly doesn't describe every company but it's a pretty accurate description of the general state of things.
My ADD just kicked in. I have much more to add and probably will after I've had a few :)
Holy Shit. These long, intellectual threads need to stop.
Tony, your requirement of a "consensual, joyous experience" sounds like some of the early, hippy split-beaver guys and gals, who thought they could change the sexual ideology of our society by simply making wet pussies seen and commercially accessible for the first time. That pornography could end sexual repression, that women who embraced their sexual desires would no longer be classified as sluts, that men could cease to objectify the female body as sexual property owed to them by divine right, etc. And of course many people still dig a lot of these early loops and films because they (and the people performing in them) bask in this Austin Powers philosophy. Nowadays, to suggest that pornography has perversely embraced all the attributes that the hippies hoped it would obliterate seems kind of sad, doesn't it?
Secondly, consumerist culture has a knack for turning all viewers into users--no matter what the medium or subject. Therefore, it stands to reason that removing everything that classifies the customer as anything but a "user" is viewed as positive. And this, in turn, has as much to do with the endless copies, imitations, samples, and pastiches as does artistic conservatism. Imagination is a battery no longer required to consume contemporary product. But then, I'm probably manipulating your wife's meaning with these terms now . . .
I felt almost obligated. Your kind words about me painted me as someone with thoughtful and significant things to add so I figured I may as well break out the old Thesaurus and try to live up to the compliment. The last thing in this world I want is to let you down!
Other than that, I've been sitting back in awe (at you, as always) and the other posters carrying this thread. These are the things I love to read. I just wish I had more to contribute. Maybe next time. When the subject of Tory Lane's best two-on-one scenes pops up, I'm your guy!
1) You believe that by and large masturbators – or as Mrs.C would say, users – are insensitive to craft beyond the minimum needed to launch into a Kleenex.
2) You have a low opinion of masturbation, that you think your cinematic craft is wasted creating videos used to fasciliate or enhance masturbation, and that perhaps you are embarrassed to make videos used for this purpose.
Granted there's a certain homoerotic aspect of a man making videos for other men to jerk off to. Maybe not as gay as DAP, but still a little gay. I can see how it might make a fellow uncomfortable. But I don't think that a lonely guy (morosely) wanking to your latest effort need be the only way you can think about masturbation.
Never having been overly impressed with what the porn industry had offered (with a few notable and important to my artist development exceptions) as masturbation enhancement (too much not so friendly contempt for my taste), long ago I turned to sex toys for inspiration. Dildos and lube have come a long, long way in the last 10-15 years. 15 years ago who would have thought that people would pay $10 for a one ounce bottle of lube (Eros Bodyglide) or $200 for a dildo (take your pick of a myriad of beautifully crafted pyrex models). It goes to show what's possible when you're not embarrassed by the idea that someone's going to shove your work up their ass! (Perhaps in the same vein, who would have thought you could sell a 28 minute "erotic documentary for $24.95?)
Also, I've noticed that in the hardcore raincoater world, there's a certain scorn for making material that is perceived as being for women or couples, that the desire to please women is regarded as being unmanly. This strikes me as being similar to the notion held by some that eating pussy is unmanly. Fortunately I'm not held captive by either of these notions, and find it flattering and maybe even a little arousing when I get a fan-letter from a woman that makes it clear my films have had a physical effect on her.
I want to make sure I understand this. Are you saying that the only reason that Digital Playground spent the extra $950,000+ it cost to make Pirates instead of another installment of Internal Combustion is because that's the piper that has to be paid to get the film into more lucrative distribution channels, but that for the person who actually watches it and wanks to it (Mrs.C's "user"), all that money spent on CGI skeletons and boat rental is meaningless? If true, this describes a fantastically inefficient business model. (Of course JJ told me she got Jenna Loves Bella in the can for $60K, and her stuff makes it onto cable, pay-per-view, doesn't it? She's repeatedly described as a business genius, and maybe this is the proof.)You always sound so depressed and disgusted. You seem bright enough you could make a good living doing something else. A few years ago the SOC was begging for new members. Why do you stay in 'the bizz'? Not asked rhertorically, but out of genuine curiousity.Fell free to ignore the next one. It will be easily identifiable by the high page count, and my name in the author column
That's a sad thing maybe reflecting a bit of our society.
I recently watched b/w surveillance camera footage of a couple in a backyard. Looked real and the girl had to give him a lot of bj's but got only some kisses and thrust with her on lying on the cold ground. I doubt she is fully happy being a service animal and if he knows what he could do for her.
I would say many man don't know the potential woman sexually have, even woman aren't sometimes fully aware of it. And I not showing or even not attempting to achieve a female orgasm in porn is part of this, IMHO. There is no "Wow, I want to try that for my gf/wife, because she certainly would like it"-reaction.
As for cunnilingus, it reminds me of that Sopranos episode where Junior is accused for pussy eating.
I do hope that the "end user" has a subtle appreciation for the things that I do different in a movie as opposed to the Acme Gonzo company. Shooting 24p, using actual lights instead of a nearby window as my primary source of illumination, and making every attempt to not shoot on a sofa up against a white wall are all things that I hope don't go unnoticed yet more often than not reviews of my movies (particularly from ex-ADTr Houston Don) always refer to issues with "picture quality". One review went so far as to say that they wished the movie looked more like the BTS footage. Why? because most gonzo movies look like BTS footage. Most end "users" expect to see lens flares, auto-focus drifting and auto-aperture occasionally making the subject pitch black while perfectly exposing the delivery truck parked outside on the street. Is this approach to filmaking wrong? Apparently not if you read the gushing reviews for such product on this site. Sometimes it's good to step back and look at your product not as a "filmmaker" but as a masturbator. Does a guy jerking off care if the camera goes out of focus for 2 seconds? I have watched some of Jules Jordan's movies and I'll be honest, I don't see what the big deal is BUT I'm watching his movies as a guy who's been shooting camera in porn for 15 years, NOT as a guy sitting alone in the dark with a box of tissue by his side. I'm cursing the overuse of the dreaded wide-angle adapter, NOT appreciating the heat of the movie. All I'm saying I guess is that craft is not the primary ingrediant in what people perceive as quality pornography.
Addressing your other point, I do not think that my "cinematic craft" is wasted on masturbators. To the contrary, I don't delude myself into believing that there is some loftier purpose to my trade. I hope people are tugging it to Grand Theft Anal because if they aren't, I won't be paying the mortgage this month. Again, I hope they appreciate the little nuances that I attempt to convey but the important thing is that they bought the movie and liked it enough to buy another one.
Why don't I go into another line of work? I'm 35 years old, this is all I've ever done and I make a tremendous amount of money doing it.I say that not to boast but to simply illustrate a very significant reason to keep doing what I'm doing. Do I wish some things about the biz were different? Absolutely, but I suspect I would feel the same way were I to cross over to the "mainstream" side. I've been working on such a project for the last 14 months and I've encountered just as much bullshit over the hill in Hollywood as I have in the Valley.
Quasar, are you still using the same camera you used on Ass Cleavage #2?
Personally, comparing AC#2 and Jules Jordan's Ass Worship #5, AC#2 wins hand down on almost all counts. Camera work, make-up, outfits at the start, near 100% nudity, styles of sex...
There was one area where I'd rate AW#5 higher: Image clarity. AC#2 had subdued colours, whereas JJ's AW#5 had much more vibrant colours, sharper image and brighter lighting.
It's of course a matter of taste whether you call JJ's picture 'clear' or 'harsh', and whether you'd use DAC's 'operating theatre' analogy to describe the lighting. Occasionally JJ's lighting was almost too much for the camera to handle, but as it is 'just gonzo' there is, IMHO, something to be said for 'operating theatre' lighting, that would look very out of place in a feature.
The image clarity that you speak of, I suspect, is because Ass Cleavage 2 was shot in 30p with a different camera than the one I use now and AW#5 (and the vast majority of gonzo) was shot in 60i. For me the term "movie" means film thus my attempts at emulating that look as much as possible. It's a matter of personal preference and clearly lots of people prefer 60i in gonzo and wall to wall productions.
Quasar, it sounds like you and Tony have something in common with your film-look fetishes.
When we get progressive scan capable HD equipment in our living rooms, that look may well prove the superior format. Interlaced video definitely looks like shit on a computer monitor. If that case, in a few years you may both be laughing, as your back catalogue should look much better than everyone else's.
However, at the moment and with my current interlaced TV, whenever I've noticed a difference I've always leaned heavily in favour of the 'traditional' video look.
I wonder if Holliday's DigiBeta was 60i too. Tony, would you happen to know for certain, if DigiBeta was fixed at that framerate?
I don't have a film-look fetish. Video can have a more or less harsh image. A less harsh video image doesn't look anything like film, except as much as film is a less harsh imaging medium when compared to video.A Digibeta camera is so different from the prosumer equipment used to shoot 99% of porn that inquiring into the frame-rate or interlace scheme used is virtually meaningless. One way to start understanding this is to think about the effect focal plane size on imaging.
What else would you call it? And I stress, that I in no way whatsoever used or use "film-look fetish" in a derogatory sense.Point taken. A pro camera with a lens casing bigger than some consumer cameras, should be able to produce clearer images regardless of framerate. I suppose 'hidden' things like the different throughputs of the codecs are important too.
Couldn't agree more with your entire post, Lazerus. I think that in this day & age anybody who's too self-obsessed -- which is of course encouraged by our mass media -- to see the cultural manipulation bt the gatekeepers on all levels (for the uninformed, I'm not referring to the Illuminati or some Matrix-like conspiracy, but indeed a legitmate mass media theory that's been a cornerstone of media/journalism study for 40 years) is ... exactly who consumer-feeding capitalists want them to be. & as I keep noting, just because it's "only porn" doesn't mean its free from the same values. "It's only a booze commercial" ... "It's only a rap song" .... blah blah ad nauseum from those drunk on the teat of complacency ...
Excuse me for forcing you to geek out like this, Quaze, but even though I will sometimes consciously go for the heat instead of the technical basics (though I figured out the use of neutral density filter settings on my on early on, unlike it seems a lot of gonzo geniuses), I'm thoroughly behind you on all this -- & boy, especially this issue! I've had the exact same experience of reviewers knocking my "picture quality" in perfectly lit and even light-drenched scenes because I dared soften the image -- & go for more saturated colors -- by shooting in the film-like 30p instead of the 60' favored by reality shows, TV news crews & ... gonzo porn.
This is what I'm referring to by the viewer having been trained into having a lack of imagination --- rather than appreciate a style that actually flatters the women we shoot, they would prefer to stare at every venereal zit -- because only then can their gonzo-stunted imaginations put themselves into the action. To me, that's NOT wank-worthy, so it's NOT a question of art vs. porn -- it's a question of what of stunted aesthetics. Of course my saying this brings the likes of Bob -- would that be Bob DOBBS, one wonders -- coming out swinging because no one likes to be told that there might possibly be any more developed ways of looking/thinking etc than the exact point they're at in their own evolution. Hell, my kneejerk reaction would be to flip the bird, too.
BTW, congrats on at least maintaining economic balance -- I'm familiar enough with your shooting schedule & work ethic (Surewood, among others, thinks the world of you) to know you certainly earn it.
How can interlaced be better than progressive? Using the proper hardware...of course.
I'm not that familiar with HD, we (Germany) and Africa still don't have broadcasting of HD-TV. It's a bit underdeveloped, without the FIFA Championship in 2006 and the demand from Japan to deliver data in HD format, we would need several more years, I think.
Even though he sometimes drives me to the frayed ends of sanity, my economic balance has been maintained by working exclusively for Greg Alves for the past 9 years. Imagine a company owner giving you relative creative freedom AND a check every single week. Almost unheard of in any line of work.
Getting back to the picture quality issue, I've long since resigned myself to the fact that some people "get it" and some don't and the ones that don't don't know why they don't get it. If all you've ever watched are movies from Red Light District and Evil Angel, anything that differs will automatically be inferior to you. If you equate porn with wide-angle lenses and available light, you won't understand what you're looking at when you see something that isn't presented that way and you probably won't like it even if it's good. It's like someone ordering tuna at a restaurant and being presented with a piece of seared ahi and not knowing what the hell it is because it's not in a can marked "Starkist".
Now people are starting to complain that their porn is presented in widescreen letterbox format because they don't understand why there's black bars on the top and bottom of the screen and there's many others complaining if it's not Anamorphic widescreen. Trying to please everyone is an exercise in futility.
P.S. I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with Red Light or Evil. Just pointing out that it can sometimes be frustrating when you've shot something that you really think is good but reviewers complain about "picture quality" because it doesn't look like the aforementioned company's product.
The whole notion of "film look" for video is a bullshit marketing phrase that has been and continues to be used to sell hopefuls on the idea that video can be "treated" in some way so as to mimic the look of film. "Treatments" have so far included: letterbox bars, soft focus filters, shutter speed gimmicks, frame-rate gimmicks, interlace gimmicks, pulldown gimmicks and gamma gimmicks. My personal opinion is the most powerful gimmick in achieving a "film look" for video is shallow depth of field, which on cameras with small chips can only be achieved through narrow fieild of view.
These "treatments" look different from video that is shot in the standard ENG style. Whether or not the look is appropriate to the production is a matter of the producer's and audience's taste, expectations, and sensitivities. I have my own ideas about where and when to use any of the above gimmicks, and my choices are generally well tolerated by my audience.
But as useful as these gimmicks may be, they do not make video look like film.
I could be like certain fans & go, "well la-de-da, Tony," because you're stomping all over what I consider not bullshit marketing but a legitimate use of THE TOOLS AT HAND -- kinda like doing your best with eight or 16 tracks when you can't afford the 64-track recording suite -- but I respect your right to have a even more elitist aesthetic than I do. LOL
Letterbox bars, by the way -- let's give it the credit of choosing to compose for 16X9, because of the different pallette of compositions, not just aping film. Also, a lot of the stuff you're calling "gimmicks" are merely video versions of the same techniques used in film -- step-printing, etc.
As you're someone who has put themselves in the position of actually getting to shoot film, I certainly wouldn't pretend to have anything near your technical knowledge on this very broad subject, but I will say that Sonic Youth made better music on their collection of banged-up & reconstituted Sears guitars at Martin Bisi's Brooklyn studio than, oh say, Journey did with their state-of-the-art equipment & $2k an hour mainstream recording studios.
No they are not video versions of step-printing or anything similar. You may use a video equivelent of step printing in your work. I wouldn't know.
If you weren't in such a hurry to be offended and would slow down to read what I just wrote, you'd see that I happily embrace these gimmicks (or if you prefer, tricks) when and where I think them appropiate. You also might realize that you've completely misassessed and misunderstood Bob.
I'm really happy to see this thread has roused you from your slumber Lazerus. But damn! Hippies? You really know how to hurt a guy!
The problem I have with post-pill, pre-HIV sexual mores embraced by the hippies and others is that they posit that in an ideal world, other than the rush of orgasm, sex would be utterly consiquence free. This strikes me as fantastically childish and self-absorbed. It ignores both the gravest and greatest possible consequences of sex, rendering it little more than dancing, but with less space between the partners. (Can I get a "banal"?)
For people suckled on the idea that the period between the advent of the pill and the rise of HIV/AIDS was some sort of sexual utopia, this might sound like heresy. Porn is about fantasy, right? Well it would be nice if it was. The problem is that like sex, porn takes place in the real world, not in some sexual utopia. In porn, the boundaries between reel life and real life are blurry, if they even exist at all. In light of that (as my friend Ernest would say) irrefutable fact , I'm much more interested in depicting sex as being a very adult activity, which is to say every act of sexual union comes with the possibility of profound, possibly life changing consequences. This need not be as dark as it might sound.
You're making it awfully tempting for me to begin my food diatribe, and I see that the mere threat of that has already made Mike shrink back into his shell...
Tony, although I rolled my eyes a bit @ your elitism -- to some us, treated video does look MORE LIKE film (not EXACTLY, of course), I hardly was offended, & didn't mean to come off like that. (The caps, by the way, are because I've never figured out how to use italics in these damn posting boxes -- not because I'm SCREAMING :) )
Also, I dealt with the Bob as he presented himself here in this debate. If there's more to Bob than in this thread & that's what you're basing it on, mazel tov to you. However, I strived to answer everything he asked me, while he ignored nearly all the points & remarks I brought up in return.
Also, if you really meant absolutely no insult to us video barbarians, you would have used the term "techniques" instead of "gimmicks." I'm sure you aware that the latter term is derogatory.
DAC wrote:DAC, I left the thread quietly because there was no point in wasting my energy or yours when it was clear that we had no common ground. I don't share your need to engage in intellectual combat for its own sake.
That you felt compelled to take a shot at me a day later -- and in such a pompous and high-handed manner -- illustrates what a graceless jerk you really are.
Graceless jerk? Good thing I don't get offended as easily as you, Mr. Bob. I don't define "graceless" as not being willing to play intellectual patty-cake by your rules when you challenged me to debate my points -- especially when you betrayed your anger immediately with one of those good old "well, I guess I'm just one of those gonzo etc etcs you're referring to" smartass feints in your opening remarks. That approach might have worked for Spencer Tracey in INHERIT THE WIND ("I might be nothing but an old country lawyer BUT ..." etc etc) but it doesn't wash with me. Sorry.
& I notice that you silently slinked off right when I brought up that you're sharing the same tagline under your avatar -- which makes fun of one of my earnest attempts to explain an accepted theory of the relationship between storytelling & viewer -- as JRV over on XXXPT & wondered whether you might not be trolling.
Also, despite blustering over comparing our respective pedigrees which might have bearing on whom in this argument has spent more of their lives studying about & examining these issues, you also neglected to mention your own. But of course, whatever our backgrounds they really wouldn't matter if you had held up your end of the debate & actually fielded some of my responses -- as I kept attempting to do yours -- rather than doggedly trying to nail me to the floor on a question I had answered three times already.
& I notice that since you left, the subject did get back on track for awhile. In fact, Quaserman added more to the discussion in a couple of hundred words than you did in your endless pestering of me. Just remember that the fascination that comes with being infuriated by somebody is so close to the fascination of romantic infatuation that I'll be expecting a Valentine's Day card from you.
Don't worry, mods. I'm aware that as of now this is more than enough of the love affair between me & Bob. If he wants to have the last word he's welcome to it. Don't want to be too much of thread hijacker. ;)
) feelings toward you are admiration and affection. 
