Brainstorm on porn? What is there to think about
I thnik one of the problems with porn is that I get the impression that because it's such a phenomenally sucessful business, very few people have ever really thought about it from a production POV.
It's not an industry that attracts good writers or actors. It's also an industry where production values aren't a necessary part of having a profitable production.
What this tends to mean is that the adult industry has never really turned out anything that has anything interesting to say about even it's core subject, human sexuality.
Although there have been great indie films that dealt with sex and sexuality, "Blue Velvet" "Last Tango In Paris," the adult industry has never managed to create a product that crossed over into the mainstream.
I think this is because the people it attracts don't have to compete as artists, on those merits alone, in order to be sucessful. It makes for lazy filmmaking, if everyhting you shoot is going to sell regardless.
I'm sure that there is scope for the adult industry to turn out "real films," but only when they realise that that has got to be smarter than glueing on a plot that is only there as a loose excuse to string together a series of "fuck" sequences.
Human sexuality is a potentailly great topic for filmmakers as it brings many of the key elements of drama, conflict, inner struggles with ethics over desire, etc. It's an area where the public face and the private life come into conflict in almost everyone's life. And, it's universal, in that there are points of identification for all viewers.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that I think that there is stuff to brainstorm, but I don't think that industry is ready to do the work. It's too easy for adult film makers to get away with making stuff that indie filmmakers would be ashamed to have credits on, not because of the sex, but because of the quality of the work.
I think the primary fault with the adult industry is that it is male dominated and as such the concentration has always been on the purely physical and not on the emotional charge of sex. I think for many men the idea of sex without an emotional connection is the primary atraction of porn in the first place. However, it means that the films themselves then have these empty two dimensional characters that have no emotional ives and therefore are essentially boring.
This has always been my main problem with porn, not the graphic sex, but just how tedious it is to watch. That's why people fast forward through the plot pieces, they're just not good enough to hold the attention and therefore the film is just a moving girlie mag, or boyie mag (depending on what floats your boat).
My latest screenplay "True" is set in the Romanian Sex Industry, but despite having graphic sex sequences in it, it is primarily a story about the people, what happens to them. The sex is part of the story and part of their emotional journey. To create this script took months of work and if it ever sees production those months will turn into years. It's a different ballgame altogether.
However, if you want to get rich in adult films can I suggest that you think larger than one film and think in terms of creating a brand. Something that you can repeat over and over again with with minimal costs and where the low production values are an asset.
Try this - "Hooker Hotel" it's fake reality TV, you set up half a dozen fixed camera points and pretend that they are "hidden cameras. You tell the audience that you've set up hidden cameras in a hotel used by hookers and then you show the footage, which you degrade in post to make it more realistic.
You do it all with actors, it's cheap, low production costs, low on location cost and give you a product you can reapeat again and again and again and again.
You can run this franchise for ever and it taps into the basic voyeristic nature of all porn buyers.
That took me all of two minutes to figure out and will probably make a multi millionaire out of you. But that's porn for you, no challenge.
