I'd rather go to work and be abused by others than stay at home and abuse myself 197 Posts 10/06
Posted - Jan 6 2008 : 12:55AM
Has anyone seen our movie SPUNK'D yet? I know the trailer has been on here a few times, but has anyone actually seen the full movie? If so, any feedback, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated as we are gauging whether to make sequels or whether to just let the 1st one be all she wrote..
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BigMMoney Deactivated User
164 Posts 11/07
Posted - Jan 6 2008 : 1:10AM
I don't know if you have seen ROG's review Here but he thinks you should make a sequel. (scroll to the end of the review...he thinks it should be a series!) Looking at the previews, the movie looks really good and I look forward to seeing it.
Strange that you had to ask that question here, what do your sales tell you? However the movie looks good and will go onto my list. I guess one of the main problems faced by porn features these days is finding ways to stand out from the crowd.
I'd say only do a sequel if you can make it match up in quality to the first one. The first one was one of the best films that I saw last year and I would be extremely disappointed if a subpar sequel came out.
I'd rather go to work and be abused by others than stay at home and abuse myself 197 Posts 10/06
Posted - Jan 8 2008 : 1:36AM
Honestly, sales are not that high at all, so going off that it would not make sense to make sequels. But, most people that do see the movie seem to like it and it got nominated for 10 AVN awards, so going off that it would make sense to make more.Very good point Flash, one we've been wrestling with for awhile. Some affiliate programs have approached us and wanted to turn this into a series, but for less of a budget than we used on the first one. Visuals would certainly suffer; costuming, locations, lighting, etc. but even if the budget were lower, we could still spend that extra time in writing and editing that we did on the first one...
A very honest answer. It's unusual to find concern for quality over profits in any business, let alone in porn. For that reason alone I shall order the DVD right now. Of course the problem might be the film's title itself, when I searched for "Spunk'd" the results often brought up an entirely different series of porn DVDs. Maybe some people were confused and ordered the wrong thing.
Less of a budget doesn't mean that the film will be bad. What made the first one work, in my opinion, was the smart funny writing and the cast. As far as locations and costuming, you can write around that so that it fits your budget, plus with tight editing you can cheat on locations and get a great looking film. I wouldn't skimp on the lighting as that is important in making the film look professional and I wouldn't skimp on the cameras either. I guess to answer your question I'll end up giving you a question. With the smaller budget do you think that you can write a film that lives up to the spirit of the original and hire a cast that, like in the original, can act the parts as well as put in great sexual performances while keeping the nice polished professional look the original had. If the answer is yes, I'd say go for it. Personally I'd love to see a sequel. You have to keep Nick Manning in the Ashton Kutcher role though. And it would be nice if you bring back Mikey Butders as well.
I'd rather go to work and be abused by others than stay at home and abuse myself 197 Posts 10/06
Posted - Jan 10 2008 : 12:26AM
With a smaller budget I feel that we can certainly write something that lives up to the spirit of the original. As far as porn performers go, they all pretty much cost the same whether they can act or not, it's just a matter or researching which ones have acting skills and which ones don't. In my mind, the casting and acting are huge parts of what made this movie stand out, and there's no reason that we shouldn't give as much attention to casting in sequels. With a lower budget, however, we might not be able to have as large a cast - i.e. fewer group scenes. The other problem that you alluded to is the lighting and cinematography. While our cinematographer and his crew were fantastic, they, and the high-end cameras we used, were quite costly. Nick Manning is awesome! Whether you love him or hate him, there's just something very engaging and "watchable" about him. I also agree with you, Mikey Butders should definitely recur his role, maybe this time in a sexual role. I believe he's definitely a star on the rise.
What's the fun of getting old if you can't be dirty? 141 Posts 4/06
Posted - Jan 30 2008 : 5:26PM
Gotcha. Then, FWIW, you could probably save quite a bit of cash by moving up to an HD/HDV camcorder. I'm assuming you want the very live video look your normally get with most of the Pro50 cameras like the SDX900. If that's the case a Z1U shooting at 29.97 will give you that same crisp TV look, and the industry is lousy with them which makes 'em really cheap to rent. Also, you'll have a 1080 master as opposed to a 525 which really limits your future options. Just my 2 cents.Frankly, it was a bad one. Even though we had a virtual fortune in porn terms to make Upload, for the movie we were trying to make it was a very low budget, and that meant cutting some corners. I have a mainstream sound mixer I normally with with on big adult projects or mainstream shows who is fantastic, but he's also expensive. Since Upload is more action-driven, I decided early on that we would buy some decent sound gear and make our AC double as a fill-in mixer. Mostly it was a combination of wireless lavs and boom running through a four-channel mixer and into camera B. It was the single biggest mistake I made on that show. It's always the case when you've directed something that you look at it after the fact and see only the flaws. In the case of Upload, the single biggest irritant to me is the audio quality. It didn't help that due to scheduling problems, we weren't able to do any ADR on the show, so every word is live location audio. That money saved in production probably cost us an added month of audio work in post as Ren Savant & I used every trick we know to assemble a soundtrack for that show. There are moments in the second act -- in the desert, particularly -- where a single sentence being spoken has been constructed from three or four other takes. That's part of the reason there are so many sound beds in various spots in the movie; it's hiding really dirty audio. There are also spots with fifty or sixty different elements creating one sound effect or piece of score, but that's just because we're lunatics.
Upload is definantly a product of your blood, sweat, and tears and more power to you! I was just watching the commentary-- Do you plan on making any changes on future projects (in terms of equipment/strategy)? What do you want to do vs. what do you think you'll be able to "get away with" from a technical standpoint?
What's the fun of getting old if you can't be dirty? 141 Posts 4/06
Posted - Feb 1 2008 : 1:59AM
Well, we figure out our gear/cast/crew package as needed for each show during the prep. For this year's big movie, it's being shot partly in Eastern Europe, and partly here, so that's going to determine what gear we use to some extent. It's also dictated by the look of the show.
I'd rather go to work and be abused by others than stay at home and abuse myself 197 Posts 10/06
Posted - Feb 20 2008 : 4:15PM
So we got nominated for the XRCO award for "Best Comedy Or Parody". The other nominees in that category are: I DREAM OF JENNA II - Club Jenna NOT THE BRADY'S XXX - X Play OPERATION DESERT STORMY - Wicked Pictures STOOD UP - Vivid Video Anyone think we have a shot at winning even though our movie is certainly not the "blockbuster" that some of these other titles are? Edited by - wusshater on 2/20/2008 4:34:27 PM Edited by - wusshater on 2/20/2008 4:35:12 PM
I haven't seen I Dream of Jenna II or Stood Up yet. Yours was better than Not the Brady's XXX. Operation: Desert Stormy was incredibly good and very funny, it's a hard call.
Posted - Jan 6 2008 : 12:55AM