GeekyPornCritic wrote: ↑7 years ago
This subject has been on my mind for a while now. As no one has raise this question before to my knowledge. Please correct me if I am wrong and there is already a topic on this subject. First, producers have the right to sell their products for a particular price. I am not demanding anyone to change their prices. However, I am very curious for many reasons.
The first reason is very obvious. The videos feature softcore content. Model's fees for softcore content are less than their fees to perform hardcore sex. That's a red flag. Producers with softcore content are paying the models much less money than hardcore producers. Also, the sexual peril and sex scenes in softcore videos tend to be very short. Most are not longer than 5 minutes.
Some models like Amber McAlester won't do any nudity in videos. I would be paying more money to not see tits, but I can pay less money for a hardcore video with tits on show. Does this not seem backwards?
It seems very odd that so many softcore videos are more expensive than most hardcore videos in the genre. Softcore content from any genre is usually cheaper than hardcore content. The idea of softcore videos having a higher price than hardcore videos is absurd. It would be like selling a Nintendo 3DS at a higher price than the XBox One.
The second reason is some softcore videos have shorter runtimes than hardcore videos. However, the softcore videos continue to be more expensive than the longer hardcore videos. I am getting more time for my money from hardcore videos.
Let's take a look at two examples.
0.57% Unknown by The Battle for Earth costs $39.99. It features Lexi Belle as Supergirl and the video is softcore. The runtime is 31 minutes.
Supergirl Turns Into Perfect Slut Girlfriend by Primal Fetish costs $29.99. It features Lily Radar as Supergirl and the video is hardcore. The runtime is 45 minutes.
1. The softcore video is more expensive.
2. The softcore video is shorter.
3. The softfcore video has less sexual peril.
4. Both videos only have two actors; one male and one female.
Parolee 4 by Chris costs $39.95. The video stars Mckenize as Alpha Girl and the video is softcore. The runtime is 33 minutes.
Supergirl And The Greek Gods by Tropic City Heroines costs $33.99. It stars Allie Rae as Supergirl and Kendra James as a goddess. The video is hardcore, and the runtime is 51 minutes.
1. The softcore video is more expensive.
2. The softcore video is shorter.
3. The softfcore video has less sexual peril.
4. Both videos have three actors.
Hi There
Well, I just want to give my 2 cents worth, it may or may not answer your question, so please bear with me
As a Superhero content producer myself, I only do content that are PG/M Rated material, so I am not even a softcore producer. More often than not, people will come to me and ask me "Hey Ava, how come your video is more expensive than porn?" Especially so when I am currenlly advertising my pre-order on Agent Caracal 3 on HM site for A$50 per order (About USD$37)
To answer this story, I will need to journey back to 3 to 4 years ago when I enter this game. I have a choice between mainstream or porn, and I choose the first one, partly because I don't really do porn (Well, I am a girl and I am not 18), and partly because I have a company on the side producing mainstream content such as independent movie and commercial content (Or maybe I should say that was my main job and this superhero content stuff is my side project...)
Anyway, before I reach that decision, I asked some porn producer back in Germany (Yes, I am a Fräulein, weren't my name is a dead giveaway?) and there are tons of Porn Producer in Germany, it is in our culture probably one of the biggest after Japan and US. Many of these producer laugh at me when I told them I want to go mainstream instead of porn. They all say you cannot make money and I will be shut down as soon as I start.
I don't understand back then, just out of film school, and I want to do what I want, and I was thinking, hey, I can get an actress for $50 an hour and a porn star cost more than $500, who's stupid now? so I ignore all of their advice and "Take The Hard Road". And I don't realise there are 2 things I did not factor in when I start my production.
1.) Overhead Cost
You may think, well, actress cost nothing if that is mainstream, and porn actress usually cost an arm and a leg, You are absolutely right. But then, that's the only thing working on porn is more expensive than mainstream, as some porn producer told me, what you do in porn is to have a person who wrote a mediocre script, then hire 3 persons at least (Director and 2 actors/actress) and you are ready to go, but how about non-porn content?
For starter, your script must be good, I mean, at least better than mediocre, otherwise no one is going to see it because if you are not in for titties, then you must be in for the story. And a story writer and script writer on that level don't come cheap, you get a few hundred dollars down already, for my project, I pay upward to $500 for the script, and just the script alone.
And then you have crew, in porn, crew is not really important, yes, you can get a few stagehand and a few gaffer here and there and get a better porn, but most of them are 1 man or 2 men operation, 3 if you also count the make up artist. Then here comes my production. I have a 10 men crew. Director, Dresser, Cameraman, Script Writer, Story Writer, HMUA, Prop Master, Technical Advisor, AP who run arrant and scout location and a Medic. And then hear this, I am actually "Undercrew" as I don't have sound artist (No boom mic), and gaffer (No one is holding the light) or 2AD (No one to work the camera angle) All those people get paid and especially my technical advisor, who was a former Army Special Force and Army Ranger, we gave our actress 4 hours training before each shoot. granted it still mostly look like shit but you should see the footage of their training. All those amount to thousand of dollar per project (Director got pay $200 per shoot, Dresser 100, Cameraman $150, Script Writer + Story Writer got paid $500 per project, HMUA is $100-$150 per shoot, Medic got paid $200 per shoot, prop master is depending on what kind of prop I need so different every shoot, while AP, and Technical Advisor is Casual position so we don't count them in shoot) and each project contain 3 or 4 shoot. You do the maths.
Then it comes to scene and shooting outside. In Porn, you hardly have more than 1 scene, so you don't change your backdrop and rarely shoot outside (Or exterior as we call it in the business). So, you pay $100 or $200 for a hotel room a day, have the 2 porn actors go nuts at it, and you don't worry about insurance and permit. For my production? I often do 2 or 3 scenes, both in and out, paying for a single studio is about $300-400 half day, 2 to 3 a half day shoot would drop you back $1000-$1200, then it comes outdoor shoot, you need to get a few things, council permit, special permits as well in the case of The Plan as we are shooting at the airport (Have to do it as I don't want to get arrested for terrorism) and then you will also need to get insurance, business Insurance, public liability insurance, third part damages insurance, all these permit and insurance can run up to, again, thousand of dollars (Council permit alone cost $800 more if you want road closure as police would be involved) Let me give you an example, our project Ep 5 and 8 (The Plan part 1 and 2), it cost us A$2300 to shoot at the park and the airport and studio. Of course you can do hit and run with it, but I choose not to.
Then finally you have script time. We have talked about script writing, but we did not talk about script time. In Porn, each page of script can vary between 3 to 5 minutes, I had people send me porn script, it was for 10 minutes and there are only 2 pages, mostly cheesy dialogue and then two guys/girls/m/f going at it and taking off their clothes. It don't need to write much for sex, I mean you cannot dictate how two people have sex, at least I never heard of people doing custom going into this much detail. And since you can probably write 4 to 6 line for 5 minutes or so steamy sex and it take at MOST 1 to 2 hours to finish a 2 pages porn script, as you don't have a big script. Ono our production? Each page represent 40 second to 1 minute screen time, for a 33 minutes movie, it often goes into 40 something pages of script. And it take actors 10-12 hours shoot time to complete that, even if you hire professional actress, that still take 6 to 8 shoot hours but then you pay more money on the actors.
Case in point, Aftermath Part was shot with 5 actress and 10 crew with a 45 pages script, run time (actual runtime) for Aftermath Part 1 is about 25 minutes, and it was shot over 3 days in 10 hours. You can read the script here
2.) Market
Porn have a very big market, estimated 70% of internet traffic is porn or porn related subject, while it is also a very big market for mainstream cinema, but how many softcore producer can call themselves "Mainstream", so most people who like Hardcore porn will not going to be buying softcore, and most people who normally goes to comic convention is not likely to buy your content because you aren't that popular and not generalized enough, so, our audience is a small group of people who are into SHIP and who does not like Hardcore (or also like Hardcore Porn), you can feel how much different between the 2 market.
To be honest, I have produced 11 movie in the last 3 years, not one or once I have make a profit from my movie, I did not count but if I do, I probably spend about A$30,000 on the 11 movies (average 3,000 per) and I only have about 300 purchases til now, my movie is on average $20 per which mean I did not even earn A$10,000 from sales. My superhero content is supplemented by my regular business (As I mentioned before, I do indie movie and commercial content) and without and TBH, $20 Australian dollar is not in the league of TBFE which charge 30-40 US per movie, while I can't say about them, but I do know the struggle for softcore or mainstream producer. As the porn producer said, I would be gone under right after I start, had I not supplement it with my regular income.
So this is my 2 cents on my subject, if it help you? Great, If not? Well, anyway, I have finished my rant...
And to everyone else, sorry for my long rant :( I apologise.
Good Day Everyone and have a nice weekend.
Ava
The Superhero Project