Shooting in the Czech Republic
2003-01-27 17:17:38

David Hoffman Interviews Paul & Eva Markham

DH: Tell me about the city where you live and work: Brno. What is it like to shoot there? What is the attitude towards adult work there? Brno is more of a working class city than cosmopolitan Prague, isn't it?

PM: Brno is the second largest city in Czech, it is a commercial and University City, rather than a tourist resort. We chose it because the rents are less and the girls are plenty.

DH: How would you say shooting and marketing in Europe is different than in the United States? Are the challenges any different, and if so, in what way?

PM: Shooting in Europe is much easier than the US. The attitudes are more relaxed towards porn, the girls are less ìargumentativeî. As for marketing we have always sold in the US and UK, European sales amount for very little.

DH: You recently opened an office in Van Nuys I believe. Will you be shooting over here, or have you found it difficult to penetrate the US market without actually being here?

PM: We do not have an office in Van Nuys, we do have one in Aliso Viejo.
I will not be shooting in the US. Never had problems selling to US magazines. They know what they need in terms of documentation and buy on quality. Found some webmasters a bit reluctant to buy from another country, because of trusting the documentation. Our documentation actually exceeds what the law requires and I have posted up on my site those laws.

DH: What are the challenges of being an independent porn producer in Central Europe?

PM: Dealing with girls who do not speak English, but I have Czech assistants who speak English. Other than that it is easier here to produce good porn than in the US.

DH: I understand the huge Private Media Group more or less dominates the Internet market in Europe. Do you have any comment on this, and how does it affect your business?

PM: Private are an excellent company and proof that good content will always out sell good marketing or high traffic numbers. But they shoot their style and ours is different. Have no problem with people producing good porn. More power to them.

DH: What is it like working in Central Europe as opposed to Western Europe?

PM: Good, the girls here are more attractive, open and sexy. My running costs are less and I like being away from the fast life style of London.

DH: You are very close to Eastern Europe. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Mafia has expanded in a big way, and illegal trafficking in girls (girls who are lured away from their homes in the NIS with promises of good jobs then tricked into prostitution and held against their will) has become a major problem. I'm not suggesting you work with such victims, but do you see any of this? And with the proliferation of the Mafias, do you encounter any "trouble"?

PM: You have been reading too many papers this is a myth. I’ve been in this business twenty-five years and never seen any evidence of this. The mafia are not interested in us. You cannot shoot an unwilling girl for porn like ours. The standard of living in the old Russia is so low that the girls come of their own free will. The problem is keeping the girls out there is no need to kidnap them. Two years ago the police raided the “Windows” in Amsterdam. They found 60% of the girls were illegal immigrants and had come of their own accord. Who would want to pay for a forced prostitute when they can have a willing one?

DH: Do you find an abundance of girls to shoot with in the CR? Are they mostly Czech? How are they to work with?

PM: There are plenty of willing girls here, this is a university city and we pay a month’s wages for a days work. So, no problem finding them. Czech girls are attractive due to the round Slavic face. They take a lot of trouble to look good. They are very pleasant and willing, plus I find them to be very sexual. Also they are not full of “Women’s Lib” and trying to compete with men.
The work has to be fun for them, they are less interested in money than US women. They can live on a lot less and if you ask them to do something they do not want to they will refuse, generally.

DH: Have you shot in the US, and how do you find the models different, if at all? (I understand the legal age for girls in most of Europe is 15. But this doesn't apply to adult, does it?)

PM: I have never show a girl younger than 18. Because even if it is legal here, she is not old enough to sign a contract, model release, not old enough to be sold in the US and not old enough to be mentally capable of doing the work.
I have shot in the US. And generally I find the models there unprofessional, lazy and argumentative. They turn up late, unprepared and with an attitude that they are doing you a favour. There are some good US models this is a generalization.

DH: Do you find the girls in Europe willing to do more, without asking for extra fees, as they do in the US?

PM: Yes, it is not unusual for a US girl to arrive with her agent and start saying she does not do this or that for the money I was offering. Even though at the time of booking it had been agreed what she would do and what she would be paid. I have since spoken to a porn star that worked a lot in the US with an agent. She said this was normal with small clients or overseas clients. But I do know two agents here who adopt the same policy, so it is not unique to the US

DH: I heard from an LA producer that when you book a girl in the CR or Hungary, they are "yours" for the entire day, not just for the shoot. Is this true? Though since you are a couple, I doubt you take advantage of this?

PM: You heard wrong. Of course if this guy was paying the girl by the hour, she might choose to stay and increase her earnings. But as I said before only if she fancies him. My wife is bi-sexual and we may have a threesome with a model in the evening. No need to pay the model extra, she does it because she wants to.

DH: As the adult business expands, do you find more and more European girls wanting to shoot for adult, or has the number remained the same over the last 12 years? Also, back to the NIS issue: With the fall of communism and the loss of jobs in many countries, do you find more girls wanting (or at least willing) to do adult? And how many countries are they coming from?

PM: The number of girls available to shoot, determined by where you are, the economy and how well you treat the girls.

DH: Tell me about your products. Why should a webmaster buy from you? What do you feel you have to offer that's different or unique? Go into specifics so our readers will know what to expect in dealing with you.

PM: I’ve been shooting porn for over 25 years and still making a good living from it. We understand what the consumer wants and produce good porn. A lot of other suppliers are good photographers yet bad pornographers. We’ve good-looking teens and the experience to shoot them with an “open and willing” look. We have girls shooting girls and this tends to be sexier for the model. She is looking into the camera for more than the money. This makes a better porn shot. This business is about producing the fantasy that sex would happen, which is easy when you have a model thinking of sex rather than the money she is earning and how unattractive the shooter is.

We have to shoot “Cover shots” to sell a set to a magazine, so within most of our sets are shots that are specifically designed to entice the viewer into buying a magazine or signing up to a website.

A lot of Webmasters want exclusive or semi exclusive sets, they then buy form a shooter who has a limited number of girls, props and locations to shoot. He shoots the girls for the client and the only thing that makes the set different is the combination of girl, sofa covering and underwear. The girl will work for that shooter 10+ times and shoot 100 sets with him. We shoot a girl maybe 2-3 times then move on, the girl is unlikely to work ever again for us or anyone else. This is because the Teen magazines want a constant supply of new faces and not the same girls every month.

DH: I noticed you have something called "Budget Sets." The girls in those sets were kind of ugly. Is that why they're "budget"? Do you tell these girls, "well, you're hamburger, not filet minion, therefore I'm only paying you this much"? I find this rather amusing.

PM: Not everything we have is as successful as we would wish, some of these sets were girls that just did not perform or look as good as we expected. Some are just sets that do not sell. Unfortunately on the Internet there are many who buy purely on price and want the facility to give sets to affiliates or use them unrestricted on free site. The license for these sets allows that.

DH: You certainly have some beautiful young girls. But your categories seem kind of general, and the samples you show are extremely limited (for instance, I only saw two images per category). How can a Webmaster see more of what they're buying?

PM: We do have the filter to further select what the buyer requires. But I would advise webmasters to spend more time when purchasing the product the surfer has logged on to see. There is a small image in the catalogue, click on this and it takes you to a medium size sample image and a large selection of thumbnails.

PM: However if a client buys a set he is unsatisfied with, he can always change it for another one or get a refund. This very rarely happens and when it does it’s normally with the sets in the “Budget” section. A Webmaster wanting a $50 set for $5 maybe.

DH: Is there anything you'd like to talk about that I haven't discussed? Any colorful stories or funny anecdotes about working in the Czech Republic you'd like to share?

PM: When we started to sell direct to the Internet, we set a small target for sales in 2002 and a proper target for 2003. Sales in 2002 exceeded our 2003 sales by 240%. This I think was largely due to the quality of our work and the amount of sets we had in the library to put up on the site. We now sell more on the Internet than we do to magazines. We will always continue to sell to magazines, it keeps our standards up, but the future is the Internet. We would just like to thank all our clients.

We are running a competition that will bring the winner to Czech for a week with us. He will be able to watch us work and this should give him a good insight into how porn is produced. We expect to run this competition at least twice a year.