Despite the delays, it seems it's pushing through.
Q.
A. Hire pros. Of course, they heve to start somewhere but if you are working with a "pro" actress, why subject her to non-pros/first-timers on your set? THAT is unprofessional, imo, as relating to your industry.
Therein lies my problem with PR and creatives, my friend >.<
The concept is crazy but extremely clever from a PR point of view. They want to cast not pro-actors but her *real* fans "a chance to do scenes with ###!" She has a private but pretty large forum hosted by the channel where she flirts with fans who are paid subscribers of the online channel and gets all sorts of perv comments. They want to cast from this. One reason for the delays is that I was trying to negotiate for "planting" actors as fans to make it seem like the actors were chosen from among them, but it didn't fly with PR and creatives. Aside from the authenticity issue, they want to choose them based on 1) their past comment history (the more perverted the better), 2) the 'best' comments on "why should we choose you to be in the scenes with me?", and 3) the fans' looks (they're not completely anonymous because these are paying fans and their initial signup is via Facebook login), and it's linked to their channel membership which they pay for using SMS Text (they're mostly lower class people with no credit cards). Moreover, "real" actors here in Southeast Asia look very different from her lower class fanbase. Actors, my actress, and upper class people here tend to look very white (yellow) and have east asian features (kinda like Chinese, Korean), while the lower class and her fan base tend to look very rough and dark.
This series is meant to compete against Korean erotica which is taking Southeast Asia by storm, from music to dramas to erotica; and so less and less of the audience is willing to pay to watch, as there's lots of free Korean erotica online. However, the weak point of Korean erotica is that while the audience likes the east-Asian yellow-skinned gals, our audience can't identify with the Korean male actors who are also very yellow and look feminine. So we'll compete by using our own yellow gal but "real" male fans who represent her other fans who look rough and lower class. Kinda like USA theme of "rich bitch" with lower class guys concept.
@sfoster: I guess you're right, especially in this case where they're her fans. I gotta admit I have an off and on thing (non-exclusive) going with her, so I guess it may have affected my judgement. I'm not jealous of her at all with her other 'friendships' (she's what traditionalists may call sensually "progressive" in her personal life). She has a bit of a bizarre streak in the sense that despite her being very sensually progressive in her personal life with male friends, she insists that her acting is all about art and not sex (IKR, but you guys have probably encountered this with other erotic actresses too). My bad, I guess I didn't feel like letting these lower-class fans "have their way with her" in my project, and that emotion was unprofessional of me.
Ironically, my actress is super okay with all this and thinks it's a very sexy concept; and that it is a clever stunt (I agree, I think it's genius; at least from a marketing perspective).
So I guess my concern now is controlling the scenes and preventing the guys from going too far with her in going what's beyond the storyboard. Challenge, as I said earlier, is that 1) no cock socks and no plaster for her as genitals must be clearly seen before contact (it has to look as real as possible with no actual penetration happening; audience should be buzzing about how "it must've been real" and she won't confirm nor deny, to keep the buzz going), and 2) during the scenes she doesn't like cuts and wants it to run naturally, and 3) it's to be very intense like in the Korean erotica references I was made to work with (I can post link if moderator allows, but I'm not sure it would be appropriate coz this is not specifically an erotic film forum. Anyway, you can Google actress Yoon Seol-Hee in "Lies" and "Love Clinic" with Ha Ju Hee.) Our scenes will be that intensity, but with full nudity before, during, and after simulated humping and oral activity with no cuts from nudity to contact. For me, the riskiest scene we have to copy is the oral scene like with Ha Ju Hee in which she pulls the male actor's head tightly on her crotch while she thrusts, the guy can easily forget he's acting and go too far. The female persona will also copy those 2 actress' characters in those 2 films.