Times Are Changing
Opinion/Editorial
By The Colonel
I think I can say with confidence that the best is over, we’re running out of time and options faster than we can wipe our asses. No longer, the color of your skin, the god you worship, or the size of your dick matters, and as a nation, individuals, or industry, we’re all in this together, and we’re up shit creek without a paddle. Now for a second, let’s forget about the war and poverty and declining environment and global economic meltdown and terrorist shootings in Mumbai and Ebola outbreak in Zimbabwe, let’s talk about the god forsaken smut business. Over the course of 36 years, since the debut of Deep Throat in 1972, blue movies, dirty movies, porn, or whatever the fuck you want to call them, have changed so drastically that it’s sometimes hard to recap the entire process. In a nutshell, the monster that Gerard Damiano created with a dismal budget of $25000, has evolved into something that Damiano himself in one of his final interviews admitted he could no longer comprehend; and it’s not just shaved pussies instead of hairy pussies or ugly transsexuals or double anal fuck fests, it’s the whole nine yards, specially from a business perspective. Allow me to explain:
In early years, when the whole thing was underground, directors had two options: they could work for a director’s fee with no further royalties and sales profit share, or they could produce the movie with their own money, and then sell it to a studio, again, with no further royalties and sales profit share. They could not maintain rights to their movie. In the mid 80’s, after the adult industry became more acceptable and legit, a new beast was invented by no other than John Stagliano: distribution company. Basically, the idea was that you could produce your own movie with your own money, give the finished product to a middle man to sell it for you, give him a chunk of your sales profit, and maintain all rights to your movie. And for a while, it worked, until the early 90’s when John Stagliano came up with another brilliant idea, but this time, nobody knew eventually it’ll come back to bite us all, including himself in the ass.
Again, the idea was simple: pick up the camera, take some whore to a motel room, fuck her up the ass, film it, and boom, you’ve got yourself a movie. Who needs the lame pizza delivery boy set up, ridiculously cheesy lines and awful acting, anyway? I gotta tell you, at the time the idea was so exciting, so fresh and so accessible that almost everybody embraced it, and that was the birth of the Gonzo sub-genre. Little did we know, that in a few years the technology became so affordable and so available that every masturbating Joe Schmoe will buy a fucking camcorder from his local electronic store and becomes a fucking film maker by shooting his drug junkie girl friend sucking his limb little dick. You may ask what could Joe do with his shit quality garbage? By the late 90’s every con artist, cut throat, scumbag, mother fucking thief had became a distributer, all it took was a rental garage, a desk, and a land line to play the middle man, sell someone else’s movies and leech off their work and investment. And the best part, is that many of those Joe Schmoes hardly saw a dime in profit, because those small time distributers took their stuff, sold it for dirt cheap, took the money and told them we are having difficulties collecting payments from the stores and vendors, you’ll get paid whenever we get paid, which of course was never.
Alright, so Joe Schmoes didn’t really make money, instead, they oversaturated the market and drove down overall wholesale prices from $8 to $10, to $4 to $5 or sometimes even lower. Add internet piracy to the menu, a generation of brain dead, low life, masturbating idiots who see themselves entitled to free porn, free music and free dildos. No wonder we’re in a world of shit.
You may ask where do we go from here? Well, it’s hard to tell, but many small timers are going belly up, which is a good thing, I’m glad to see that, because that creates more space for the rest of us, also the entire content delivery is evolving. DVDs are becoming obsolete, these days you can count on DVD sales to cover some of your production costs, and as for making profit, you have to rely on several alternative sources including but not limited to cable TV, video on demand, and clip sales. There are some companies like Vivid and Wicked which tend to release their movies in collector edition formats with booklets, behind the scenes and extras, but even they don’t make a significant profit, because porn is not comparable to classic cinema. Porn has little or no collectors value and by it’s nature is equivalent of junk food: satisfying but disposable. Regardless of box cover design, costumes and the amount of DVD extras, porn movies usually become irrelevant in about 6 months, and porn whores end up quitting, fucking up on booze and drugs, locked up in jail or dead, which in any case, lose their stroke value. So why should anybody pay $29.99 or more for a porn movie, while they can get The Maltese Falcon or The Godfather for the same price which can and will be a part of their DVD Library for the rest of their lives ?
This is a defining moment, the adult industry is in the process of filtering itself, many will fail and few will succeed. It’s hard to imagine anybody can get into this business and makes a fortune anymore, like many people did in the 70’s and 80’s, and it’s hard to imagine Joe Schmoes can or want to become pornographers anymore, like many did in the 90’s. Times are changing, and the best is over.
Yep, the world changed. Now you can practically get all the porn that’s ever been made FOR FREE on 1 HARD DRIVE. There’s no way any company can compete with that.
You are pretty dead on regarding your pron history. It is true with the advent of the three chip ccd camera came the demise of the industry. It is shaking out the fleas. The part you left out is what the Isrealies did to this industry. You know Cheim Cohen, Danny and Ralphy Maman, Tomar, Barry Marx, Rita and Yoseph. If you don’t know who these people are. Your defiantly are not in the game and never have been. Not to mention the damage Keith and Donny at Premier, Jeff Cole, Roy at Empire have done whoring out product for nickles. These folks were devaluing, bootlegging and basically running this business in the ground before most lames I see blogging here ever existed. Colonel why don’t we more on their antics and scumbagness? Is it because most posters here really don’t know shit about the business end of the biz?
That is “porn” for you anal spellers
So will the price of ass go down with the price of gas?
Amen, Colonel.
@jt– I know who all those people are and you’re right, altho you left a few names off the list. But who’s counting? The result is the same.
Joe, I totally agree with you about the damages the Isrealies did to porn market, and I would have mentioned all names in the article, but I believe Cindi prefers if I don’t, due to legal and liability issues. But we can talk about them here in the comments section.
By the way, I must add one particular scumbag Isrealie family to the list: Ovadia family, brothers Guy and Oren and their whore of a mother and thief of a father over at Anarchy Films/Fifth Element. Those pieces of shit went broke years ago, but they stayed in the business by fucking others out of their money under the pretence of distribution. They took people’s product, sold it for as low as $1 to $2 a piece, didn’t pay those people a dime, used the money to buy recycled scenes from small time free lancers like Trevor and Johnny Thrust, and jammed those scenes into DVDs which they labled as new release. But they’re at the end of that filthy trick, too, because people no longer give them their product, and everybody is after them, legally or otherwise.
Jeremy, the price of ass is down as we speak. Man, these days you can shoot anal scenes for as low as $700 to $800. Nobody thinks her shit doesn’t stink anymore.
Hey JimmyD! Good to hear from you. Colonel your right.
I remember when They were @ Sin City. Actually I shot one of the earlier Anarchy videos that JimmyD was originally booked for but had other things to do. I made Guy pay me cash that day. It is good to be blogging with people that actually know the industry and how it really works. Better that than the Trevor Longs, and Donny Thrusts, and other lames that are nothing and mean nothing in the scheme of things. Yes I know the names are incorrect. But who gives a shit?
That is fucked up about the Ovadia family. I was always wondering why the Anarchy/Fifth Element releases stunk of feces.
YO…another one is that Tranny dude with aids who films over in Brazil…whats that fucker’s name?? On bad debt I always tell em “GO Fuck somebody else..cuz your not gonna Fuck me”…just a one liner thats always worked well. JD!! Right On man!!
joe truth and jimmyd to knock a piece out for this site too. the place is starting to get interesting.
colonel, who still can (and does) command an insane rate?
i’ve heard some rates have gone up a bit to compensate for lack of work
Jed, there are a few overrated, retarded whores who demand redicolous rates, including Jenna Haze and Sasha Grey who ask for $2500 for a scene. However, the majority of whores accept rational rates, it’s not that they have much of a choice, anyway.
Colonel if you look at the exhibitors list for the
AEE show in Vegas you will see who is not going to be there. Not one of the major toy manufactures or studios will be there. In fact we are not doing a booth. This will be the first show in 13 years I will not be at. It has become a flea market and only the late comer nobodies will have a booth there. This a definite downward spiral of the industry. Internet “content shooters” exhibiting don’t count. They never have.
Give me a break with your “insight” Colonel.
Boring damned people. All over this site. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.
Get a fucking life and have a very merry christmas and a happy new year!
Joe, that’s right. I won’t be there, either. In the past few years, AEE show has become a joke. I see no redeeming value whatsoever in paying an arm and leg to rent a booth for 3 days and hire a bunch of whores to sign autographs for retarded asshole fan boys. I’d rather invest that money in producing content and increasing my sales revenue. Let Joe Schmoes go there and burn the remaining of their savings on the scam of the year which is AEE show, you and I will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Remember Brett Rockman? He thought he was a player, he started a company in the living room of his Granada Hills house, he distributed his movies himself, and at one time, spent $30,000 on AEE show hoping to promote his company and make a profit. We all know how he ended up, broke, pennyless and homeless. His company burnt into the ground, he lost his house, and rented Jim South’s Sherman Oaks office during the time Jim was retired. After that, he vanished into thin air. I don’t know where is he now, I don’t care either. Let that be a lesson for all Joe Schmoes out there.
Bob, for better or for worse, this is my life.
Merry christmas to you, too.
enjoy
wankus and rockman
https://www.lukeisback.com/images/images/Img0064/DSC_0204.JPG
I think the Rockman Entertainment sign is still up where Jim’s World Modeling sign was for years. For a while when Brett was there the old W.M. sign was still there and now that Jim’s back the “Get your piece of the Rock” sign is still there.
Jeremy, remember Rockman Entertainment’s logo? A picture of a nude Brett, holding a camcorder while gesturing a thumbs up:
http://adultdvdbestdeal.com/cart/item/64508
Right next to the movie title. Retarded gayness at it’s best.
I heard Rockman got involved in some huge lawsuit with a web company. Anyone know anything about this?
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-cacdce/case_no-2:2008cv05932/case_id-425284/
Didn’t Rockman have a DP Best Seller “One in the Pink and One UP the Stink? that one had legs…I know I’ll never forget the Title..hehehe
I don’t know the particulars of this lawsuit, but I know in the past two years Rockman has been going after anybody he could, because he’s desperate for anything he can get.
Lee, that was a Vivid compilation:
http://www.action-dvd.com/info.asp?product_id=STDV17103&referrer=1075&userid=2CE7FD14-7C17-4C92-A5B4-DE969101D49F
Rockman only performed in that. But he did release a lame movie called ‘Stick your pole in my rear hole’.
“joe truth”? Gimme a break. Love the Col., glad he’s writing, he’s 99 percent accurate, but when some git goes overboard by claiming there’s “no major manufacturers” at the 2009 AEE, he’s an idjit. When did Anabolic, Evil Angel, Adam & Eve, Elegant Angel, Exquisite, Heatwave, LFP, KickAss, Jules Jordan, Metro, New Sensations, vivid, Voyeur, Wicked, Zero Tolerance, all stop being major studios? NOTHING but “late comer nobodies”? Right. Yeah, this year looks overall lame, and the show is no doubt shrinking into extinction. But to say there’ll be “no major manufacturers” is nothing but inaccurate, and makes you look like the bitter, foundering mid-level manufacturer you probably are.
Lee, that was a Vivid compilation, Brett only performed in that; but he did produce and release a lame movie called ‘Stick your pole in my rear hole’.
Synful Media LLC et al Trey Borden
Yep, I have seen the work done by ‘Synful’ and it is atrocious and Trey is a con artist. Brett will win this lawsuit.
Colonel…Right…I’m not sure if Pole n da Hole, was as big a hit as Up the Stink, but certainly Brett produced a Classic collection with this masterpiece.
Funny you respond to who is or is not attending in a very emotional way. You sound like a fan boy. First read the list. Anabolic, New Sensations,
Zero Tolerance,Vouyer are not assigned. If you have a clue that means they are not committed. Last year they bribed Vivid to stay. You won’t see Cal. Exotics, Doc Johnson or Topco there. The fact is Heat Wave is a dogged out,played out line. The dvd game is over, new release numbers are a shell of what they were. Black you can assume what you want of were I am at in the industry food chain. For what you think means nothing to me. The whole event and award show has jumped the shark.
The Colonel:
What other lawsuits has Brett been involved in? Has he gone **AA? I’m curious to know! Thanks!
Very informative and glad to see you stepped your editing game up.
You can’t compare watching streaming porn to downloading music. Music is intellectual property and downloading is taking ownership. Porn is for the most part devoid of any tangible quality that makes one porno substantially different than the other. Downloading music is stealing. Watching porn online is enjoying the material but not taking ownership of it, which by the way people can actually do at a library with music or books.
NiceGirl, as far as I know, Brett was also involved in another lawsuit against Antigua Pictures, even though I don’t know about the outcome of that case.
Al, looks like you and I are starting to get along better, right? It’s good to see you’re glad with my editing.
Anyway, I can’t talk on behalf of the music industry or book publications, that’s not my game, but I can tell you this about the adult industry: if you watch someone’s product, you must pay for it, even if you watch that product online, you can log in to official VOD websites such as AEBN & Hot Movies and pay as low as 8 cents per minute to watch them streaming. As long as you don’t, as long as you go to tube sites and watch clips that other usesr are uploading without having the right to do so, it’s considered piracy and thievery, and I believe everybody who invests money, time and effort into this business agrees with me.
With all the free content available on the internet, pumped out by the various studios (not illegal), why pay?
NiceGirl, I think you should answer that question yourself.
Show us some tits and ass.
LOL! I think the porn market is just so oversaturated that the studios, no matter how big or how small, will have no choice but to sell their videos for nickels in order to make any sales.
It is worth noting a large number of clips at user uploaded sites were uploaded by the makers of the material as advertising and are only a minute long. I understand your point, but the pirate is the person that uploaded the material without permission. I’m just going to a website. I didn’t create the situation. I’m don’t even see myself perpetuating it because I didn’t ask them to do it and I am not comensating them in any way to do it. You should go after the people that are maliciously distributing the material, not the people who are just using common sense while breaking no laws.
There’s a segment of the DVD market that people seem to overlook. The used DVD sales. I can’t afford the prices of new adult DVD’s. They’re just too damn high.
There are several mom&pop video stores that I frequent which get get a shipment of new DVD’s every week. They’re put out on the new rental shelves first. After their week in the sun, they are put into the back area. Of course they can’t hold on to every DVD, so they eventually toss them into the bargain bin-usually about $8.00 per title regardless of how many discs are in it.
I haven’t purchased any brand new sealed porn in over 10 years.
Al, it takes two to tangle, the people who go to illegal tube sites have the option to go to an official VOD site and pay a reasonable price to watch whatever they want, however they want; and when they don’t, it makes them responsible in creating the mess we’re in today, the partners in crime, if you may.
I understand that the situation is out of control, we can’t go knocking on the people’s doors and arrest them for uploading or watching a porn scene on the internet, but if people, as individuals act more responsibly and have more common sense, in the long run the situation will be improved.
Lotefa, retail prices are determined by the retail stores, not the studios. Studios sell DVDs for the average wholesale price of 4$ to $5, retailers lable them and sell them any price they can, and depending on different stores, the price may vary from $19.99 to $39.99, same as music CDs, Hollywood movies, computer softwares, etc. If you tend to buy a certain movie in a place like Borders, you have to pay $24.99 for it, while you can get the same movie at Target for $14.99. However, I agree that some retail prices are too high and people don’t have to pay those prices.
AL:
I’m talking about studio-released, non-pirated pictures and clips. Collectively, from all the studios, there is just SO MUCH free content out there that it doesn’t make sense for someone to pay for porn.
How can anyone make money in porn nowadays?
Don’t forget the free websites where people can send clips of themselves having sex in front of their webcam.
Although they’re short clips ranging from less than a minute to twenty minutes, it shows people fucking just for the sake of fucking.
Their enthusiasm is sincere and not because of a paycheck at the end of their session.
Yeah! Unlike a mainstream movie, a porn flick’s entertainment value is measured in minutes (seconds?) rather than hours.
That being the case, why would someone spend money to buy porn rather than just exhaust the internet’s free content?
I thought “Stick your pole in my hole” was about hiding polish jews from the nazis during WWII
Jeremiah Steele- you are hilarious!! (hiding Polish jews from nazis!!)
By the way, I recently saw a scene with Mr. Steele and the lovely Sandra Romaine. They were sucking and fucking with paint all over their bodies.
In the behind the scenes footage, Jeremy and Sandra are in a big shower together trying to get the paint off. At one point, Jeremy assists Sandra by rubbing the paint off her buttocks with his hands.
Who says chivlary is dead? Jeremiah Steele, you are a true gentleman.
Good one, Jeremy. I agree with what George Carlin said: you can joke about anything.
Lotefa: When I have bought discounted porn in the past I always regretted just not spending a little more or just getting less, but better and newer videos.
Colonel: I have seen you link to an interview on you tube, how is that different? I don’t disagree with you, but I’ve spent too much money on adult entertainment to really be sensitive to the adult industry’s plight. Forever they have been charging exorbitant amounts of money and making crazy profits exploiting men’s weakness for sex from porno to strip clubs to escorts to phone sex. No one forced me to spend the money, I did it, but nonetheless I have trouble feeling sympathy for them which could just be indicative of me as a person. I’m supposed to look out for the adult industry now when all the adult industry has ever tried to do for me is milk me for every penny?
Colonel: I believe to prove his point on that one, Carlin said he could make rape funny and then asked you to imagine Goofy raping Donald Duck or some other Disney character.
Al, the Graham Hancock interview that I linked in one of my previous comments, was a promotional interview he did for his latest book: Super Natural, conducted in order to introduce the book to people and generate profit for the writer and the publisher. So in that aspect, that link is helping instead of hurting.
As far as for what you spent on porn, it was your personal choice to do so, nobody asked you or forced you to do that. When you go to a restaurant, you pay for your meal, when you go to doctor, you pay for your visit, when you take your car to a mechanic, you pay for the oil change, so why paying for porn should be different from paying for any other product and services? There is no reason, logic or justification. People don’t pay, because they can.
BTW, I’m on my way to a christmas party. I’ll catch you some other time.
Most services/companies don’t gouge their customers either. I can’t think of any other industry besides medicine that so shamelessly makes their customers bend over. Men either need to be having hot wild sex or watching it, it’s a must, it’s like water, food all that. Like I said I don’t disagree with you but I am looking at it from an entirely different perspective.
Colonel I will take credit for this comment coming out of your mouth.
“but if people, as individuals act more responsibly and have more common sense, in the long run the situation will be improved.”
I believe that is what I have been trying to knock into your head with your “end of Western Civilization”
argument!
And I am going to agree with AL. It’s a business, if they over priced their product someone is going to come in and cut them at the knees.
The porn industry was to short sited when they started pricing their product so high and now they are paying the price, and crying about it.
To stay in any business you need to be ahead of the curve of what your audience wants, the porn industry is still giving them the same thing they have always given their audience, sex.
So what’s gonna happen with the porn industry? What’s the next big thing?
Kay, if you have a valid argument, bring it on, if you want to do this to be amused, which is apparently what you’re doing, that’s another story.
Thievery is thievery, I’m not going to waste anymore time and breath explaining that to anybody. Read my previous comments, use your own judgement, and remember, whether you agree with me or not is not going to make any difference.
And what do exactly mean by this comment: “The porn industry is still giving people the same thing they have always given their audience, sex.’
What else people want from a porn movie, and what are we supposed to give them? What about you, Kay? What exactly do you want? You’ve been browsing this board for sometimes now, but still I don’t know what do you want, I’m not sure if you know that, either.
AL: I have never had one regret when it came to buying discounted porn. I learned a long time ago that porn dvds will eventually be tossed into the bargain bin at my mom&pop videostore. Sure it may take a few weeks to several months, but I’m a patient pornfreak.
Most of the time I rent DVD’s, and it’s only during the days when the store is having a 2 for 1 rental specials. The majority of the time, those rentals aren’t worth a second glance. When I do watch a rental that I want to add to my collection, I make a mental note of that video and then just wait. My patience is ALWAYS rewarded.
I’ve got over a thousand porn DVD’s and NONE of them were a brand new purchase.
I’m not really worried if the porn industry falls apart. I’ll have my collection and the internet with its vast treasury of free video websites and the members-only websites that have very reasonable membership fees.
you left out the part about where you fit into the new order of porn directors. what are your plans for the future, now that the DVD market has taken a dump?
Well Christian, the adult industry is shrinking and DVD market is dying, but there will always be a demand for porn, and let’s face it, no matter how ordinary couples saturate tube sites with fuck clips they shoot with a camera on tripod, it can and will never replace professionally performed and produced scenes, so I’m not worried about those couples, I’m worried about small time free lancers and distrubuters who saturate the market with recycled product and drive the prices into the ground and thievering college boys who spread porn movies on file sharing websites.
DVD market is dying, but it’s only the method of delivery that’s changing, and that’s not something I haven’t seen before: video tapes replaced super 8MMs, DVDs replaced video tapes, and now digital delivery is replacing DVDs. As for the future plans, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, and once the industry filters out itself, the rest of us can and will do better. As long as I can sell my product and make a profit, I don’t care about the method of delivery.
The problem with “professionally performed and produced scenes” is that it’s performed. It’s all fake.
The reason the “actors/actresses” are fucking is there’s a paycheck at the ending of their scene. They go through the routines, pretend to orgasm, then the money shot and boom! they’re done.
Ordinary couples are doing it because of the turn-on that they’ll get knowing strangers are watching them. Their lust for one another is real and genuine.
No professionally performed shoot can ever obtain that type of energy.
How can you possibly make money when you’re competing with FREE?
no matter how ordinary couples saturate tube sites with fuck clips they shoot with a camera on tripod
There isn’t a huge amount of truly amateur stuff on tube sites due to 2257 regulations (any US citizen uploading must provide proof of age upon request). Most of the content on tube sites is stolen content or content available in the webmaster areas of affiliate programs. There is one tube site that lets amateurs sell their videos if they send in their IDs, etc. All of the tube sites have banners for all sorts of paysites, but the profit margins are thin.
IPTV is supposedly the next big thing for porn, but I don’t think it will catch on. The company I saw offering it last year, Fyre TV or something, only wanted to charge $9.95 a month for an endless amount of porn. There is simply too much free content from every niche available. The thieves have really hit stuff that they never bothered with much before, like TS, classic porn, gay, webcam (including stuff recorded from live shows on sites like FrancineDee.com, etc), Euro porn and fetish.
Wile I don’t see amateur porn a real threat due to reasons I mentioned, but still there is too much amateur content on various tube sites. I’m not going to mention their names, because I don’t want to send them any traffic, but they’re out there, and they’re plenty.
As far as IPTV, I don’t think it’ll catch on, either. It’s one of those ideas that sound interesting on paper, but in reality it’s just not very profitable. Cable channels, video on demand and clip sales are among the most viable options these days.
Colonel the answer to your question is you!
Studio A releases 20 minutes of FREE video of your favorite performer for promotion. Studios B and C do the same thing. Now you have a full hour of video for that ONE performer, from just three studios!
How do you plan on fighting for a slice of the ever-shrinking pie? No more FREE promotional content?
Kay my dear, I’m flattered.