He has a vested interest in his contract-girl roommate paying the rent on time.

Edited by - skronker on 7/24/2005 4:26:03 PM

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The amount is around 10%.

However, I rarely collect the full amount owed (that's my prerogative) and I often buy the girls stuff (computers, cameras, etc.) out of that 10%.


SHYLOCK
"Patron of the Tarts"
Spieglergirls.com

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Your post still greatly confuses me. Are you worried about the wealthfare of the female talent? Initially you seemed to be arguing that Mark was preventing them from becoming contract girls because he looses out on making money. My point is in actuality he MAKES a ton of money when he is bought out by a company seeking to sign one of his girls.

Also my understanding is Mark does monthly drug tests and generally tries to keep the girls clean and sober. Completely different then other "agents" who I've seen use a girls dependcy on drugs to keep them working.

Another point is Mark is also doesn't just let his girls work for any joe schmo or do any scene. If anything he seems to generally look out for the welfare for the girls under his management. Hell I've even seen Mark not allow one of his girls to do a certain scene in order to protect the girl and her future career (including if she wanted to get a contract).

Certainly their are many other "agents" in the business who would more fit your profile, but those tend to be on the fringes of this industry.

In the end we live in a capitalistic society and this is a business and all people involved have to make money. Whether it be an agent, talent or a company. If no one is making money no one is going to do this fulltime. I'm sure the same applies to your own life. You have a job (I assume) and you wouldn't do your job for free. Maybe you morally oppose capitalism? If you are then I understand your point of view more, because this industry is extremely capitalistic.

There is a difference between healthy competition and pure greed at the expense of anything or anyone.

Edited by - kevin moore on 7/24/2005 7:57:14 PM

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I do not have any sort of contract with my talent. They are free to leave at any time - whether I like it or not.

Regarding "buying out a girl" - the major companies will pay an agent/manager a large "finders fee" (if you will) to compensate for lost future earnings. This is just one of the customary business practices in our industry.

These same companies are all free to try to negotiate directly with the talent. However, that would be seen as a breach of customary protocol and, as such, an exercise in bad form.


SHYLOCK
"Patron of the Tarts"
Spieglergirls.com

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Just look at how often girls leave agents and go to other agents. If that is any sort of litmus test then girls come and go as they please.

But keep in mind, a good agent in this business makes sure the girl gets a fair contract. I've seen all too often girls getting lousy deals because they didn't have someone in their corner (i.e lawyer or agent or both).

Edited by - kevin moore on 7/24/2005 9:29:16 PM

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That sounds like a conflict of interest. Perhaps you meant something else?

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The same goes for the "finders fee."


SHYLOCK
"Patron of the Tarts"
Spieglergirls.com

Edited by - shylock on 7/28/2005 3:18:42 PM

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Skronker , do you really think one case disproves an entire argument ? That's so ..... artistic of you . Look for mitigating factors : laziness , stupidity , incompetantancy ? Did she dance , sign , "other" ? If all these boxes are checked and sealed , then the answer must be clear . Otherwise the debate still stirs .

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Mr. Speigler has state that this "finder's fee" is compensation for the loss of future revenues, more akin to Croy's example of Goldman and Sachs paying a temp agency a fee when they hire on one of the agency's people on full-time.

I certainly wouldn't want the temp agency negotiating the terms of my contract with Goldman and Sachs, regardless of how their finder's fee was calculated. The agency has an ongoing relationship with Goldman and Sachs providing them with temp workers, and their desire to maintain good terms with the large client (Goldman and Sachs) can't help but factor into negotiating for their smaller client (me).

Conflict of interest rule don't exist to keep dishonest people from doing dishonest things, they exist to keep honest people from being put in compromised situations. When pushed, everyone's ethics are situational. It's prudent to avoid situations that tax them.

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and i dont necessarily think that drug testing his girls makes any difference at all. so when there is a positive test, does he kick them out of his agency or does he get them help and continue to rep them?

but once again, i totally agree with kevin that spiegler does a fantastic job as an agent

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* The chances of contracting HIV on set estimated at better than 130,000,000:1 per year. (Wrong by a factor of perhaps 100,000.)

* Hardcore gonzo videos described as a representation of a sort of sexual utopia ("See 12 she-males get destroyed!")

* The fact that an agent discourages his charges from using drugs and doesn't use drug addiction as leverage to take advantage of them cited as evidence that he's a great guy. (Damned by faint praise.)

You're not in Kansas anymore Lee O, you're in Chatsworth; a place with it's own values and norms, a place where actions and outcomes, risk and reward are judged from an absolutely alien perspective. You'd might as well be telling a New Guinea tribesman you don't understand his rituals or customs.

Edited by - TonyC on 7/25/2005 9:33:22 AM

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Spiegler said he doesn’t believe Long’s work as one of adult’s top female performers had anything to do with her deportation. He said he suspected that authorities learned she was illegally working here “because she may have opened an interest-bearing checking account. And being interest-bearing, you have to pay taxes on it. And she didn’t know that.”

Spiegler said that while he could probably sneak her back in the country, he doesn’t think he will try, since, he said, Playboy has offered her a contract to do an English version of sorts of its Nightcalls program.

“So she’s probably going to sign that contract and do that,” he said.

Spiegler added that he’s had at least two other girls deported in the past, including Dominica Leone.

Edited by - jamesn on 7/25/2005 10:38:33 AM

Edited by - jamesn on 7/25/2005 1:56:43 PM

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(This is not a big issue in the US? It is quite widespread in normal enterprises there, right?
Anyway I don't like the idea of an enterprise/employer/whatever drug testing his "employees", even on a "voluntary" basis.)

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I have a bunch of friends who work in the mainstream hollywood and would greatly argue that their industry is far more bizarre then this one. One of my friends is a line producer and another is a writer and I've seen first hand how quickly people can get screwed over to a degree that has cost them a years worth of salary.

In our industry sex is out in the open, but sex is a huge leverage in mainstream. And if you want to argue about drug use I've seen first hand parties that mainstream producers have had up in the hollywood hills that makes any porno party tame.

This forum allows fans to have a very frank and open discussion with the people who make a product they enjoy and consume. There is nothing in mainstream like this forum. I'm sure if there was a mainstream Hollywood verison of ADT where both fans and industry people had frank and open discussions it would kill people's perceptions of how Hollywood works.

I guess you just would rather believe that porno is full of terrible people and the most evil industry on the planet, when in reality it is no where near that.

I'm sure your response (or jamesn's) will be flippant and sarcastic instead of an actual response that sheds any light of why you dislike the industry, but post on a pro-industry forum.

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I believe your view of this forum is inverted. The scale of the adult industry is small enough that personal interaction with fans can influence the bottom line. The ADT forums provide the industry with acccess to the fans, not the other way around.

There are plenty of Hollywood fan forums. The reason you don't see the degree of industry particpation in those forums that you see on ADT is because Hollywooders don't need to; it would be a waste of their time.

I do find the values of the industry, both as I can intuit from the videos, and as expressed by people such as yourself alien. I expect you'd find yourself puzzled by some of the choices I make.

"Adult DVD Talk also has an ulterior motive (no, it's not as sneaky as it sounds.) We aim to open the channels of communication between the industry and the consumer. Through that we can save the DVD producers money by telling them what's important to us, what influences our buying decisions. And hopefully, we can inspire better adult DVDs. The more we all speak our minds about what we want in an adult DVD, both through our forum and through what we buy, the more the market will adapt to what we want."

What that means is that if we come here for praise, if we come here to hype, if we come here to find out what fans want, we might not like everything that gets said. We might not like having the things we've said quoted back at us either.

It also means that we might be asked pointed question about why we do things one way and not another. If the best response you can muster is to point at someone else and say "He's worse, he's worse!" perhaps you shouldn't put yourself of being asked the question in the first place.

Edited by - TonyC on 7/25/2005 2:00:25 PM

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jamesn - Your mind must be going mushy from reading so much slush . Agent does not equal manager . Not that that will stop "the clever ones" from trying to get away with it . Sleep depravation or too much Ritalin ?

TC - I've told you before that I refuse to even think of putting on Dorothy's dress unless you shoot that soccer mom flick . ASAP .

*Just trying to get Renee to join ADT's old folks reunion week . Come on , bunny girl , join the party !

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On www.spieglergirls.com, you'll see McKenzie Lee and Ashley Blue listed as 'available for stills only'.
This is because McKenzie signed a contract with Club Jenna and Ashley Blue signed a contract with JM. So Spiegler has signed two girls to 2 very different contracts - one to one of the glossiest mainstream porn companies, and one to one of the most hardcore companies.

When I picked my agent in the beginning, I didn't know many agents (and there were a lot less of them back then), but I picked my agent partly based on the fact that he had represented girls like Ashlyn Gere, Debi Diamond, Samantha Strong and Felicia. Girls that I hoped to be even half as popular as them.

On www.ladirectmodels.com, you'll see Lexie Marie and Monique Alexander listed as Vivid Contract Girls, avaiable for stills only.

So there is indeed some incentive for the agent to get a girl a contract - to further his career by attracting new girls who may have a contract as one of their goals.

And for the record, I don't think Mark's a great guy just because he's more honest than the other agents, I think he's a great guy because he is - in any field of work.

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But none of those guys I've mentioned are on here trashing everyone else or claiming everything that comes from gonzo is evil.

Normally I don't get to post this often, but I'm currently doing my best Jimmy Stewart impression and have my leg in a cast. It has suddenly afforded me the time to read up on everything I've been missing.

So I'm curious jamsn when you jerk off to porn are you behaving badly?

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I thought gonzo was Evil?

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no... its more of an angelic kind of evil...

but then again I'm probably biased

Edited by - kevin moore on 7/25/2005 2:59:36 PM

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In closing, FAME will NOT pay your bills! There are hundreds of "famous" porn stars out there that have difficulty paying their bills every month. "

While I agree with Mark that being famous alone will never pay your bills, I must call into question his assertion that Ms. Kerkove had greater income in her first three years than all of Julia's 12. How did you arrive at this conclusion? I had the honor of hiring Bridgette on many occasions early in her career and I have a pretty good idea what kind of money she made during that period of time. A tremendous income no doubt, but hardly comparable to Julia's feature career with Blondage, Playboy TV exclusives and performance contracts with Vivid, Digital Playground and ultimately Wicked Pictures. My point is simple, while a girl can certainly make more money independently with gonzo in the beginning it is short lived. By booking herself daily, she will rack in the bucks initially, but how long will that last? Soon companies will grow disinterested in shooting her over and over again. At that point, what will she have left or what will she even be able to show for it? Bridgette is the exception here. She appears to have been a smart money manager, but most girls are not as fortunate. I believe there to be a more stable and financially secure future for these girls with either a contract with a major company or the financial acumen of Ms Kerkove.

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as to what i jerk off to, it's impossible to know everything but i've got a "shitlist" of companies who've shown enough questionable character that i don't buy from them. and in cases where the directors aren't tied to the next in a certain company i don't penalize a jules for something rocco's done. i make the effort i can, don't hate the majority of the industry and i can live with myself most of the time. fair enough?

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The point I've kept trying to make is that a smart girl with good biz thinking can hit porn for six months to a year and earn enough to quit porn and invest in the "real world" and begin making more money than she would in any kind of porn. A $200,000 nest egg can make you a millionaire pretty quickly inside the current real estate bubble.

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My point wasn't that Eon is like Mr. C - my point was that even us messly gonzo guys can appreciate other things besides gonzo.

Ironically I started my porno career (and my life) in your neck of the woods. I shot tons of amateur girls outside Boston.

Edited by - kevin moore on 7/25/2005 3:23:41 PM

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(Redneck Riveria land grab, catch the wave!)

Edited by - skronker on 7/25/2005 3:41:40 PM

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About a year ago I mentioned on a thread that about 30% of our sales come from outside the porn ghetto. Within a day's time Tricia hopped on the thread with an indignant tone about gonzo not being a ghetto. I don't know if it is or it isn't, but that certainly not what I meant. I was simply relating that a large percentage of our sales are in stores where you don't find any other sexually explicit videos.

I see my work as coming straight out of gonzo. In the absense of the budgets sufficient to mount productions like Misty the stripping of feature-style affectations was a true break through. I've been riffing on a Buttman tape I saw ten years ago in every film I've made (straight and porn).

I've skimmed a couple of contempory features, and all I can think of while I watch them is "Why did they spend all that money renting a firetruck, but they're still shooting on an XL-1?" That just seems stupid to me.

Do feature guys look down on messly gonzo guys out your way? From what I've see, there's no reason they should. Yes, by and large features are more competently crafted, but they're also fundimentally flawed in a way that no amount of money, passion or dedication could ever hope to fix.

Edited by - TonyC on 7/25/2005 4:46:55 PM

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The point I've kept trying to make is that a smart girl with good biz thinking can hit porn for six months to a year and earn enough to quit porn and invest in the "real world" and begin making more money than she would in any kind of porn. A $200,000 nest egg can make you a millionaire pretty quickly inside the current real estate bubble."

Terms of a performance contract vary and are subject to individual negotiation, but I can assure you that most (if not all) contracts with the major companies exceed 60K. For this payment they are expected to shoot perhaps anwhere from 6 to 8 movies a year. Add to that feature dancing income , appearances, toylines, websites, etc. and these girls incomes are well into the six figure range. In the end however, it all depends on ones goals and objectives. A girl who wants to make big money fast can choose to pursue it one way, while a girl who wishes fame and longevity in this industry should perhaps choose another. Again, there are always exceptions.

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I did not dispute the publication of what was meant to be a smartassed offhand statement because I did, in fact, make that statement. That said, I have never "sneaked" anyone into the U.S. As a matter of fact I would not even arrange for any model/talent to travel into the U.S. or even to travel to California from any other state.


SHYLOCK
"Patron of the Tarts"
Spieglergirls.com

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I guess we can see-saw for weeks on this topic.

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but i don't think this is even neatly compartmentalized into gonzo vs. feature as much as contract vs. not. i doubt teagan and keri were signed to do no-anal scenes in the vivid tradition. more acting, sure, but not traditional contract-girl stereotypical scenes. it's more about whether it's better to try your luck in the non-contract meatgrinder and hope you don't get shot-out and spit-out before you make the money you wanted.

and skronk-when i was looking for the long/deportation thing, i came across a few words about speigler sending his charges to sign in midwestern video stores, so the auto-show angle ain't quite got the validity you think it does.

thanks for the valuable input from michael raven.

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Oh well, James, how little I know.

I guess Spiegler is on Eddie Munster's "kickback" list, too. Sigh. And here I thought he was the last honest man in Babylon

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I don't think I've ever called you, Trica, Mr. Spieger, Quasar or the gonzo genre evil. (I do think I called Jewel evil, if not publicly then at least privately.) In the course of a spiritted debate, pointing out that someone is being inconsistant is hardly the same as calling them evil. Neither is accusing them they are making factually inaccurate statements, nor is referring to their values as "alien". These are accusasion to be sure, but hardly accustions of being "evil".

I feel slightly different about lampcords, lightstand legs, street clothes rumpled in the corner of the room, off camera whispers, strobe pops, and the various other annoyances that plague gonzo porn. In my petty little world these things are evil, but it's a relatively beneign evil that only deminishes the human spirit – no one is actually hurt by these things.

Does mentioning these things (over and over again) constitute trashing everyone else? I don't know. Does everyone have these thing in their videos? I don't think I've ever called anyone out on lampcords, etc. , and if I have, I'm sorry. It's rude and unneccesary.

I don't think it's either rude or unneccesary to point these things out or to tell people that there's no good reason to accept that these things are a part of watching porn (Couples friendly or otherwise).

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