Most are actors who didn't make it into the "big time". Jerry Butler, in his book "Raw Talent", says he got into porno so he could make a few extra bucks and get some experience in front of a movie camera. However, he didn't expect the stigma to follow him, and when it did, he found he had nowhere else to act, but in porn movies.

Now Jerry's may be an extreme case. Keep in mind that it acting is very hard profession to break in to. People who go to Hollywood to find their dreams often find themselves on waiting lists for jobs waiting tables. So it is a way to act and make some pocket money.

There are other reasons, too. Some are, unfortunately, supporting a drug habit; some are simply curious (as Hypatia Lee once mentioned in an interview); some figured if they were going to swing in private, why not swing in public and make a few bucks; and some just genuinely enjoy it.

Thanks go to Marc for this one...

It's hard to tell.

Some are very supportive of the industry, and say so on talk shows and in major interviews -- Nina Hartley, Little Oral Annie, and Ashlyn Gere, for example. Others are very vocal against the industry -- Holly Ryder, Stacey Donovan, and others. Most remain guardedly neutral -- presumably they do it because it's a job, and like most jobs they neither like it nor hate it, it's just something to do.

Well, let's just say she did testify in front of the Meese Commission. There were rumors she did it for the money, but by doing so, she virtually ensured herself no warm welcomes back to the porn industry.

Peter van Aarle says:

Roger P. Tipe says he "found the magazine with the final scathing interview from Stacey. It is in Erotic X Film Guide Aug. 1987."

Nick Long says:

"In many cases the women are *not* aroused. It's tough to get females to respond *sensually* as well as sexually when surrounded by cameras, crew, shouting directors, cameras, light stands, hot lights, impossible positions, etc. It's just as tough for many of the guys, which is also one of the reasons there is not more variety in male performers. Many guys try, many love the thought of screwing all those gorgeous gals, but just can't cut the mustard 'on stage'."

"Note the word *performers*. It's just that - *performing*..."

Keep in mind that if the woman should orgasm, you will probably see it. As far as we know, no attempt is made to censor female orgasms.

It varies wildly. Directors stay a long time, because it tends to be a profitable sideline. Some of the photographers have been doing the work for decades. As for actors and actresses, it depends on the person. But, by and large, hetero males stay far longer than females. Male actors stay in porn, on average, approximately ten to fifteen years. Ron Jeremy and Joey Silvera, for instance, have been in porn movies for almost two decades. Eric Edwards has made videos since the 1960's. And Randy West has been in adult videos for almost ten years.

Females, on the other hand, switch very often. The average time spent in the business is a year, and it is a rare actress who stays in the business more than three or four years without some sort of hiatus.

Tim Evanson passes along that Jerry Douglas, editor of MANSHOTS, recently noted that most gay porn stars make about 3 movies and then leave--which means, usually, that they last less than 6 months. Some gay actors have lasted as long as 7 years. "Stars" like Joey Stefano or Matt Gunther often stay about 3-4 years.

No. The Screen Actor's Guild only concerns itself with "mainstream" Hollywood movies. Porn does not subscribe to SAG rules.

This is not to say that SAG performers don't appear in porn films. According to AVN, Ron Jeremy has been responsible for getting many a porn starlet her SAG card, by getting them small parts in SAG movies.

There *has* been one all-SAG porn flick, The 1974 flick "Sometimes Sweet Susan" starring Harry Reems, Jamie Gillis and Craig Baumgarten, who is now a major legit movie producer. It was advertised as the first SAG-approved all-union adult movie.

I think it has to do with the perception that the average het porn viewer is more interested in fresh women than fresh men. While this perception may not be accurate, it seems to be catered to by the "powers that be."

Also, as has been mentioned, it is not so easy to be a male porn stud, and often some of the studs we see last only a short time because it was not what they expected... or their girlfriends told them to stop ;-)

There must be a demand for new males -- I mean, it is getting embarrassing to watch a 45 year old guy having sex with someone half his age, and it's not so appealing -- but most of the directors feel that the main focus of the videos are the females and they care little who the males are.

There are some new faces, but for every Michael J. Cox, there are 20 one shot wonders. Statistically, I would bet that 95% of the movies out there have at least one of the following actors: Ron Jeremy, Randy West, Joey Silvera, Mike Horner, Marc Wallice or Peter North. That's only six actors and they're in almost every movie.

To paraphrase critic Bill Caits, "the only porn stars who officially have retired are dead." (Thanks to AFW editor Jeremy Stone for this one...)

Sure are. While some actors supplement their income by directing the occasional feature (Derrick Lane comes to mind), others retire or quit acting to concentrate solely on directing.

John Leslie, Paul Thomas and Eric Edwards are three that seem to have made the cross into the director's chair, never to be seen again (except for the occasional cameo).

There is an increasing trend for performers to direct themselves in their own line of videos -- Joey Silvera, Rocco Siffredi and Tom Byron are standouts in this area. Ron Jeremy is also very accomplished, having directed 150+ video so far, tho his movies are not so much centered upon himself as the others are...

Steve Drake has also directed a handful of movies, and Randy West has now branched out into production and directing with his "Up 'n' Cummers" amateur series.

On the actress side, Candida Royalle stands out as being one of the first females having made the transition from acting to the production end. That's not to say that other actresses haven't directed as well, they just didn't quit acting to do it. Brandy Alexandre is the proud title holder of "only woman to act, direct and produce her own videos" (Cheeks 5: Cop a Feel and Best Butt(e) in the West). Sharon Kane and Sharon Mitchell have also stepped behind the camera at one time or another.

More recently Shane has enjoyed success with her self-helmed Shane's World and Pornological series. Same goes for Misty Rain and her "Misty Cam" series.

Some female performers have teamed up with their SOs and produced some successful videos: Teri Diver and SO Tom Elliot; Britt Morgan and SO Jace Rocker; Bionca and ex-SO Bruce Seven; Ona Zee and SO Frank Zee; and Gail Force with (SO?) Jim Powers...

Tim Evanson says that "more and more gay porn actors are also going behind the camera. One of the best known and the first to do so were Kristen Bjorn in the late 1980s and Gino Colbert in the early 1990s, but now Karl Thomas, Sam Abdul (who owns Forum Studios), Chip Daniels (who owns Minotaur), Johnny Rey (who owns Bacchus Releasing), Jamie Hendrix (who owns Hendrix Productions), Levvy Carriker, and Christopher Robin are also lensing porn films. Falcon Studios has even set up a "school" for gay porn directors, and many gay porn actors try their hand at this program."

Brandy Alexandre says:

A recent issue of SAVAGE MALE (devoted solely to the making of gay videos THE OTHER SIDE OF ASPEN 3 and 4) notes that most gay porn films are filmed in about 2 days, with big-budget productions like TOSOA 3 and 4 taking over a week to make.

S. Andrew Roberts, an editor out there in pornland, says that some of the scripts for the features by Fantastic Pictures are four pages long. "If I'm lucky, someone will actually include the script in the box with the camera masters. If I'm very, VERY lucky, the performers will actually utter words similar in meaning to those written in the script... I don't often count on it..."

Tim tells me that Douglas' co-authored script for the award-winning Studio 2000 film TAKE DOWN in 1993 was printed in MANSHOTS magazine. In printed form (with photos) it ran only 7 pages. Several paragraphs of directorial instructions were included. The film was noteworthy for being dialogue-heavy, so TAKE DOWN should be read with that in mind.

Bill Majors, a producer himself, is best suited to field this one:

Well Ninn's "Latex" is up there... The John Wayne Bobbit ("Uncut") tape sold in excess of 50,000 units and is the biggest seller of its time period.

It depends. :-)

One thing is for sure, there's not much outright selling going on. Its more along the lines of licensing and distribution deals. Very few producers just produce something and try to sell it. Rather many do it on a budget. Sometimes the budget includes their work, and other times their cut is an add-on. Sometimes they sell all rights, other times they will reserve foreign rights and keep the raw footage. Sometimes two videos are made from one shoot, and/or a sequel.

Bill Majors says:

We should add that the November, 1996 AVN reports that once a tape is distributed, re-selling the rights for compilations is also possible. Any tape older than 2 years old is usually considered "catalog" and can be sold for around $500 as comp footage.

Ah, the heart of the business.

First you have two levels of distribution. Often the producer or company that owns the film is also a manufacturer and distributes their own and other products into the marketplace. The marketplace is very funny now. Some things go out at a total cost of $3-4 bucks. (I don't see how they can make any money but they do.) Many others go out at $11 from the manufacturer, the distributor tags on a "nickel" (5 bucks) and the store another "nickel" and that seems to be the average story.

Fetish tapes still seem to go out at about $18 which is why there are so many folks trying to enter this business, but they don't understand how to do it, and therefore usually have disappointing sales after their first few. (new names, and titles always seem to have a better than average sale)

After Tim Evanson spoke with several distributors, he reports that "it seems that the prices for gay porn--while often comparable at a wholesale level--also can rise much higher than het porn prices. For example, Falcon appears to wholesale its films to retailers at prices in the $30-$50 range, prices unheard of in het porn."

Bottom line, profit is VERY hard to make in this business today. Most of the majors (myself included) are restructuring, trying to maximize profits, lower costs, etc. Amateurs and features, well there just is NO comparison, and while I did produce 50 (next door neighbors) amateur videos I did so when we were able to get 15 bucks each. Today the usual price is about 5-8 bucks out the door. As for shot on video vs. film... some producers still use film. Why? Well in the European market they like film, and also they are looking to the future and hoping that the extra quality of film will result in greater sales in the future.

S. Andrew tells us it's not all fun and games on a porn shoot:

Tim interjects: soft core versions of porn movies do not exist in the gay porn world. Soft core cable channels like Spice and Playboy do not have gay counterparts. Gay porn also tends to be labeled obscene more often due to its homosexual content than do heterosexual films, and so chains like Tower Records and video stores often will not carry it (even if soft core) like they will hetero porn.

Back to Andy...

Brandy says:

One of the reasons movies are so bad, in my opinion, is that there is not one person who sees the project through from beginning to end. The writer is never involved in the shoot and neither is the editor. And the director rarely participates in editing, he just delivers the camera masters. So it's up to the editor to know who is who or just throw up the names.

S. Andrew concurs by saying:

Tim says that putting faces to names in opening or closing credits is a fairly common occurrence in gay porn. Although a trend among some low-budget studios and producers has been to stop doing this, for the most part gay porn films routinely contain such credits.

T.H. Royal tells me that the budget, (or the lack of it) is the main problem. "The only way to mic a video or movie set is with a boom mic or wireless body mics. Obviously the latter present some unique problems in porn. And, [as was pointed out before] you just can't hand the lunch man a mic boom [and expect he would know how to work it properly]. Knowing how to boom a set requires knowledge. What is the best microphone for the acoustic conditions, where to place the mic for best audio and how to avoid boom shadows.

Post-production fix-up work is possible, but unlikely. "A lot can be done in post if you take the time and effort. But again that equates to budget. The problem with porn production today, with few exceptions, is that your biggest budget line item is 'Lunch at McDonalds!'"

S. Andrew Roberts, our editor in the field, tells us that while it's theoretically true that a second camera, positioned slightly differently from the "main" camera could conceivable capture soft- core footage at the same time, many variables come into play that usually spoil the added effort and expense.

Jim Gunn, director of the East Coast Sluts series, sez: