I was hoping some industry people could answer this but what are the average costs of producing a 4 scene DVD? I understand that in a dvd business there is also other costs like manufacture, distribution, promotion, and others but what does it cost to create the product today? Thx
$10,000-$30,000 per title 5-8k on the extreme low end some studios are throwing their web scenes on DVD so the cost is less other studios just buy scenes reducing the cost but times have changed, it's web then DVD distribution now.
^I'm really curious to know what kind of scene you are thinking of that cost from 2500$ to 7500$ because I assume your average porn girl gets around 800$ to 1000$ for a standard vag only scene nd maybe add 250$ to 500$ for anal and most male performers make about 500$. The only time I expect to see a b/g video to cost in those kind of numbers is hen it's a first.
You save a little if you use the same guy often and work out a deal with him, or you are the guy. If you self-produce, you save a little more money there. The girl can do self makeup and save on the makeup artist. If you use your own house, you save some more.
In the middle are bigger companies like Mindgeek that set a budget of $4k-$5k per scene.
Then you have sites that strive for higher quality such as BLACKED.
$1500 - girl $1000 - guy $1000 - producer $500 - location $500 - second camera man $300 - editing $300 - misc (transportation, lube, etc) $250 - sound guy $250 - agency fees $200 - makeup artist $200 - catering
TOTAL: $6000 - this number easily goes up depending on the girl, location, and complexity of the shoot. The girls are paid a little more because they may work the full day, compared to a reality-style shoot that only takes a couple of hours.
Now we have to add $35-$70 for COVID tests of each person on the set. For a shoot like VMG, that could be an additional $420
^Not sure where you got those Blacked numbers but if you are correct then Blacked needs to have a production budget that is between 312,000$ and 438,000$ depending if they update every week or every 5 days. Somehow I doubt they could afford to stay alive if that is their standard production costs.
The porn production community is small and rather inclusive. We all talk to share info and costs don't change. ie, everyone pays the same for a girl, the same for location, the same for gas, etc. But $6k might be on the low end for a VMG site. as you said, there are exclusive deals and firsts for the girls, and renting helicopters and building Basic Instinct sets, cost a lot of money.How much do you expect the costs to be and their revenue? I can attest to the costs based on my experience, and VMG should be lauded for their high production quality.
Now the next question - what is the cost of web hosting and front end software maintenance for a website like BZ, Elegant or the Gamma sites? Is this more of less expensive than dvd manufacture?
@Fit: What is VMG? Thx for your comments, you sound like you have first hand knowledge.
Webhosting and website maintenance are far more than DVD costs because the bulk of revenue is generated from websales. DVD and VOD sales make up a miniscule portion. Webhosting and web developer costs vary widely, depending on the size of the site so it's hard to give you a number, but a large site like realitykings with over 100k members, could easily require at least 20 developers. At a fair rate of $70k USD per developer and graphic artists, that's $1.4 million per year.
The webhosting portion is not expensive. Even a massive site like Elegant or Gamma, may only need a few thousand per month. Bandwidth and storage is relatively cheap. The cost is in the staff you need to maintain it, because there are always something that needs fixing, hackers to thwart, and features to add.
VMG is the short form forum members have been using to designate "Vixen Media Group" which is the new name of the company that runs the websites of BLACKED, VIXEN, TUSHY, etc.
Wow, haven't thought I'll ever get to see an honest breakdown, thanks @fit18 for sharing it.
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Porn Scout Deactivated User
3735 Posts 10/02
Posted - Oct 21 2020 : 4:07PM
I think the VMG sites all have thousands of paying members and make a shit-ton of cash, so I'm sure Fit18 has his numbers right, or at least in the general ballpark.
This I was wondering: there seems to be an ever growing number of "studio" who simply repackage decades old scenes in ever-so-new DVDs, but apparently these must sell somehow, otherwise they wouldn't be produced. And I'm not talking about the 24hrs or 16hrs or 4hrs sampler almost every studio does (New Sensations, Elegant Angel, 3rd Degree etc.), but I'm talking about low-rent studios like "MyPeach" "CutiePie" "AllNiche" etc. They're cranking out DVD after DVD with old scenes featuring either some First-Name-Only russian girls (and a prepubescent looking Markus Dupree in them - clearly showing these were show 10 years ago), or some odd movie with either Taylor Rain, Amy Brooke or Hillary Scott on the cover, for scenes they did 15 years ago.
Just have a look at the upcoming section of AdultDVDEmpire https://www.adultdvdempire.com/preorder-porn-movies.html?media=2&page=4 and tell me the percentage of compilations and re-releases. I reckon they bought the scenes in bulk for cents on the dollar, so that basically only the replication costs of the DVD are a thing to consider.
Speaking of replication costs: PervCity (who do not repackage other scenes, but shoot their own) are lowering replication costs for DVD in a different way: they do not ship genuine DVDs, but rather DVD-Rs. Of course, before they were dual-layer with 8GB per movie, now we have single-layer 4GB crappy artefact-bonanza (they are genuine, as Maestro Claudio has confirmed).
I can only give you an estimate based on what I know about the european ones, and most likely the type you've seen 5+ years and older. They were shot when there were far more girls available in prague, and rent was far cheaper (there were more dodgy small clubs to rent out back then). The scenes were planned weeks, if not a month in advance and it wasn't crazy to shoot only once or twice per month, but long shoots with enough content to last a few weeks. Although you may see at least 50 people, only about 6-8 couples would be having sex. Prices in euros. Let's assume:
100E - background people x 38 = 3800E 400E - girl x 6 = 2400E 250E - guy x 6 = 1500E location: 500E 3 camera guys: 750E producer: 500E bar and general staff: 500E
Total: 9950E
Most of the girls would be doing self makeup except maybe the main performers. Maybe another 250E for the makeup artist. The themed orgies may be re-using costumes they already had, so perhaps 500E to rent and wash
You would have enough content for 5-6 updates. This is just an estimate. They may have paid the extras less money and just said, "hey, show up and you get free drinks for an hour"
Yes. There are a few content resellers such as Adult Film Star Content (https://adultfilmstarcontent.com/) and the license could be bought for under $5 per scene in many instances.
The selection consists primarily of gonzo sources. You see the Taylor Rains and 2000 era stars because they were shot by now defunct studios who made their money selling it on DVDs and the ownership has changed hands sometimes multiple times, since then.
If the content costs are next to nothing, you can pay an adultdvd replicator/marketing company a couple of thousand to put everything together, although the margins are so small, it's surprising more people don't self replicate like pervcity. These replicators charge you $1000 just to design the boxart.
nope,always have been at least 15 girls+lez only performers https://www.iafd.com/title.rme/title=drunk+sex+orgy%3a+7th+anniversary+party/year=2011/drunk-sex-orgy-7th-anniversary-party.htm
Are they all performing? I've never watched a DSO DVD so maybe they save the big blowouts for anniversary releases. I've watched a lot of DSO and Partyhardcore scenes from their site and the number of girls vary. I would recognize pornstars in the background, but they are not having sex in the scene, hence I tag them as background extras. They certainly had way more girls in the old days as I've mentioned.
If pervcity do their own DVDs then they can jump into Blu-ray and Ultra HD disc duplication. This also means Maestro isn't confident he can move 1,000 replicated discs. As I said up top, no one is really doing DVD exclusive anymore, that's too bad.I meant per title, 4-5 scenes, actors, PA, location, insurance, catering, editing, replication, cover art, distribution etc.Yes, studios can do small runs, 25-200 in house. physical media will go to the collector
By that rationale, if somebody can buy a Dacia, they can buy an exclusive Ferrari.
Blu-ray's licensing costs may have come down but they are still at a premium over DVD. Depending on the minimum order quantity, the cost to the studio could be a much bigger gamble compared to DVD.
Can you tell me which part of my post are you referring to?No, I'm talking about duplication not replication the industry can do duplicated blu-ray/UHD they wouldn't need to pay any licensing fees and they can be done by the same factories that do replicated DVDs so they wouldn't need to find a porn friendly replicator. instead of doing 6 replicated DVDs, they could do 1 replicated BD or 6 Duplicated BD.
Whether it's duplication or replication, there is a licence fee. It may not be charged as discrete billed item since it can be factored in to the cost or maybe the supplier is willing to absorb the cost because they profit elsewhere but there is still a licence for AACS copy protection. One Blue might have reduced its royalty and licensing fees on a per-disc cost as well as hardware/software but they didn't remove it altogether.
Interesting side note: the DVD's copy protection also has its licensing fees. That's why no porn DVD has CSS copy protection.
With the exception of older New Sensations/Digital Sins DVDs and older Digital Playground DVDs. Back then, they probably thought it ok shelving out the additional dough for CSS protection, and now they don't anymore.
In the BRCC castings they tell girls for years now that they will earn between 1500 and 5000 $ per day.
I know it´s all fake but I would have expected the payment closer to that numbers than 400 Euro per day especially for a casting scene when you have to decide to show your body and have sex for public use for the very first time.
Are the (East) European saleries still significantly lower than in the US?
Since there have been some posts adressing scenes outside of DVD production I will link to an older topic of mine , where there is also a part dedicated to the production costs .
( "..... because a famous model told me at ADT that in her case such a 3on1 would not be financially feasable on her platforms . ")
On his YOUTUBE channel TT Boy interviews porn stars (mostly from the past). In his Lexington Steele interview at one point during their interview Lex and TT go into detail about Lex's MERCENARY video production costs, number of employees, and distrubution. It's all based on the time Lex had his company so it's not a reflection of today's industry but it's still interesting.
There is no additional licensing cost for duplicated discs, feel free to ask the replicators. No need to attack me calling me absurd. Duplicated discs do not require AACS or BDA fees. They (replicators) do not absorb costs, they include all fees on the quotation for a replication job.
Posted - Oct 20 2020 : 3:35PM
