The Ultimate Superheroines Forum

I have a question for SHP producers regarding the making of custom films. I have never ordered a custom and are unfamiliar with elements relating to the making of custom films. The thing I am curious about is when you make a SHP film for an audience of one, what are the sales expectations when you release the film to the general public. I imagine that for every Joe Shmoe who comes to you for a custom does not exactly have a super marketable idea for a general release, that some of these proposed customs seem to have a limited upside sales wise. What is the business model regarding customs? Do producers make the money back on the fees they get from the authors of the customs and the money they get from general releases is just gravy on top or are they dependent on the money made on sales of these customs in order to make a healthy profit. I also wonder if SHP producers often turn down customs because they are not marketable or they may be off brand, or too softcore or hardcore depending on the company's identity. When I hear about SHP companies talking about a business downturn, it makes a novice like me who knows nothing about the business wonder whether some of these companies rely too much on customs from audiences of one instead of creating a great original story on their own that might appeal to a wider and larger customer base.

Strictly speaking for our studio, it is a combination of things. I think most of what you mentioned comes into play at some point in the decision making process.

For us, we split our time and attention between Customs and Originals.

Customs *DEFINITELY* make more money, but Originals allow us to experiment, and play with themes our studio personally enjoys, and creative freedom in general. That also allows us to ensure the product isn't 'so' far outside of the market that it is completely unpalatable to enough of our customer base to warrant the extensive out of pocket costs. For us, customs allow us to save up enough capital to take chances on originals.

When it comes to customs, first we (obviously) read the scripts and discuss them to see if they are something our studio wants to take on. We are blessed in that we do not have to make films we do not like in some way. From there we have a sort of balancing act between how much the customer is willing to pay vs how marketable the script is. If we feel it is marketable, we do not raise the base costs at all. You are effectively just paying for what it costs us to make the movie, so we can keep the prices down. If we feel it is less marketable but still something we want to make, then we raise the costs to help offset loss of sales. If it is something COMPLETELY unmarketable, just because it is a niche of a niche or so far outside of our genre that our distributor will not host it, then we have to ask for the full estimated cost for a standard film's first few years of earnings. (These are estimates based on a variety of date from our servers. Everything is tracked. ♥)

Customs of that nature are very rare though and often times people trying to shoehorn something else into the genre to take advantage of the typically higher than normal quality production value our genre is known for.

So it is really a case by case basis, and we try to be completely transparent with our clients about this- including offering ways for us to make it more marketable to bring the price down if it is outside of their budget. In a perfect world we would just be able to make anything any time, but sadly these movies are prohibitively expensive to make and we simply cannot afford to take a chance on making a film only a few people buy without prior compensation.

I'm not a producer, but I order a LOT of customs. And I can tell you that many producers alter their price for a custom based on the content. They will generally charge higher prices for the custom if they predict that it will not sell very well.

In fact, I have a custom in the works with Lucia Films (above) right now, and they were very up-front about how they had to charge me a bit more because my custom doesn't contain a lot of fighting - which apparently sells really well. :-P

I'm also not a producer as you can tell by my name. I have purchased five customs; 4 from Primal Fetish and 1 from Cory Chase. I always write scripts for customs to satisfy me and potential customers. I am aware not everyone is going to enjoy all of my fantasies. I write a script that would make me very happy and makes the producer look great to customers for they will be influenced to purchase the movie.

I don't like the idea that custom movies are free of criticism from some people. Customers have the right to criticize a producer for filming a bad custom video. Custom videos are not free from criticism. They are products released to all customers. We as consumers have the right to express our views on all videos, and that induces customs.

GeekyPornCritic wrote: ↑

6 years ago

I'm also not a producer as you can tell by my name. I have purchased five customs; 4 from Primal Fetish and 1 from Cory Chase. I always write scripts for customs to satisfy me and potential customers. I am aware not everyone is going to enjoy all of my fantasies. I write a script that would make me very happy and makes the producer look great to customers for they will be influenced to purchase the movie.

I don't like the idea that custom movies are free of criticism from some people. Customers have the right to criticize a producer for filming a bad custom video. Custom videos are not free from criticism. They are products released to all customers. We as consumers have the right to express our views on all videos, and that induces customs.

I just think that if I were to lay out a considerable sum for a custom film, that I would be a selfish bastard about it. The only concern I would have would be if this custom made me happy and satisfied. I do not think I would be concerned with whether the film would be marketable or not or whether others would enjoy it.

bushwackerbob wrote: ↑

6 years ago

GeekyPornCritic wrote: ↑

6 years ago

I'm also not a producer as you can tell by my name. I have purchased five customs; 4 from Primal Fetish and 1 from Cory Chase. I always write scripts for customs to satisfy me and potential customers. I am aware not everyone is going to enjoy all of my fantasies. I write a script that would make me very happy and makes the producer look great to customers for they will be influenced to purchase the movie.

I don't like the idea that custom movies are free of criticism from some people. Customers have the right to criticize a producer for filming a bad custom video. Custom videos are not free from criticism. They are products released to all customers. We as consumers have the right to express our views on all videos, and that induces customs.

I just think that if I were to lay out a considerable sum for a custom film, that I would be a selfish bastard about it. The only concern I would have would be if this custom made me happy and satisfied. I do not think I would be concerned with whether the film would be marketable or not or whether others would enjoy it.

Trust me. I am a selfish bastard about my customs, but in a different way than you. I pick a script that I love and it would be marketable for the producer. I like everything in my customs, and all of those acts were decided by me in the script.

I consider the producer's risk and business into my orders. Do you want your favorite producer to go out of business because your custom was a really bad idea?

Sometimes producers will film a squeal if a custom is very popular with regular costumers. My last custom from Cory Chase was popular, and they decided to continue the story through three more videos.

I feel pride when people say they like my customs because I wrote the script so I deserve some credit. The producer and models deserve the most credit for their great performances.

BTW... another approach that some studios take is that they take your custom and add to it. For example, I like bondage and forced-o scenes, and not so much fighting. But when I order a custom from Primal, rather than charge me more for a custom that might not sell so well, they basically just add in a fight scene in the beginning so it will sell better. And sometimes they will also add in a Mind-control scene at the end. So I still get everything I wanted and they get a video that will sell. Win/Win.

TIEnTEEZ wrote: ↑

6 years ago

BTW... another approach that some studios take is that they take your custom and add to it. For example, I like bondage and forced-o scenes, and not so much fighting. But when I order a custom from Primal, rather than charge me more for a custom that might not sell so well, they basically just add in a fight scene in the beginning so it will sell better. And sometimes they will also add in a Mind-control scene at the end. So I still get everything I wanted and they get a video that will sell. Win/Win.

I think Primal is really good at adding content to customs. His additions honor the original script and stay within the story. He added a force orgasm scene in between two parts of my script, and I think it evaluated the movie.