Some of the equipment you’ll need to record your BBW/bukkake movie, titled ‘Nut Butter & Jelly’, is irreplaceable and beyond debate (the camera springs to mind), other stuff will make the difference between an expensive home movie, and an authentic, piss off the Attorney General, porn film.
Essentials:
- Camera. You can shoot on DV but the industry’s moving to HDV fast and it’s worth jumping on now (let’s hope you have talent who are still sexy with every pore, stretch-mark and gender-reassignment scar on display).
- Releases. Without paperwork proving that everyone on camera is over 18 you’re not making a movie, as much as producing evidence for the prosecution.
- An edit system. In 2005, any simple edit system provides tools Hitchcock would have killed for so, if your production’s not as interesting as ‘North by Northwest’, it’s your fault. On the flipside you have to edit, even if it’s just to remove those cute SNAFU’s (“Dude, is she asleep? She’s totally not moving dude…”) You can learn everything you need to know about editing from ‘The Five C’s of Cinematography‘ – well worth reading.
Technically Non-Essentials But, Trust Me, They’re Necessary:
- Baby Wipes. Good for de-jizzing people and things.
- Lube. Makes for happy fuckers.
- Toys. When woody doesn’t show, they’ll save your day and give you something to shoot.
- Robes/Slippers. Between shots, and during cigarette breaks, people need stuff to wear. If you have clean, fluffy robes for people to slip on you’ll be a very popular director (and save time wasted while people dress and undress).
- Stills Camera. It’ll help on a practical level (e.g. remembering what goes where) and provide the ‘behind-the-scenes’ shots you’ll use for marketing and PR.
Sam’s Swollen Tip: You can get access to professional camera equipment, and someone who knows how to use it, via an ad on Craigslist looking for a news camera operator. Most local news is shot by independent camera operators who own their gear. When they’re not working, their gear sits around, the interest on their loans accumulates, and they dream of making money on the side shooting porn. I’ve never met a camera operator who didn’t ask me if there’s any extra work I can get them, and they’ll do a better job than you ever could yourself.
Popularity: 26% [?]
AIDS test results from the actors are good to have too…
A mic and soundguy would be nice too. I know technically you can dub it all, but that always sounds horrible–adult actors aren’t expert at lipsynch, and there’s just no recapturing passion.
Holly you’re right – that would make it better (as would lights!) but I’m being minimal here. With amateur-stuff you can capture decent live sound from an in camera mic but I’m with you, dubbing would be horrible…
Ms. Kitka – you’re jumping ahead, I’ll cover that – trust me (nothing’s been forgotten – these things are all planned months in advance…)
As someone with Amateur porn experience I stand by Sam’s minimal approach. Sound guy. Not unless he is also the camera man and possible stunt cock as well.
Seska, thanks for agreeing – we should make it clear that you’re not currently taking applications… (the ellipses is my favorite piece of punctuation trivia fans)
To achieve a high definition pixel array on a data stream no widers than DV, HDV use low grade, on the fly MPEG encoding, and suffers from a high level of artifacting when capturing high motion footage, especially when combined with camera movement.
Porn producers are notorious for putting more into their box covers than they do into their movies. The primary reason that HDV is being so enthusiastically embraced by the porn world is so they can put “Shot in HiDef” on their amaray cases.
You’re right (of course) Tony. However there’s little doubt that HDV will become the new prosumer standard. Interestingly a couple of cameras are on their way which will be able to output an uncompressed video stream. They’ll be capable of noticeably better quality than the systems currently on the market.
Can anyone recommend a decent affordable camera, especially for us that have little budget.
Thanks