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I should be interested to know the views of producers/directors/talent to JJ's views on Avninsider:



Slightly different slant on matters oft debated on this Forum

Rock

Read it agreed with some or most, dissagreed with some, some was excellent some was crap. This is an excellent example of someones opinion.
I thought some of us made good world products Ben, Omar, Gazzman, Rem, Trevor...Me. Maybe Joanna neads to look around a bit more then she will have a different view. The one thing I did totally dissagree with was the idea the Americans will flood our market, they need to come in by invite and work with established UK companies or don't come. The world market for porn is Fucked the UK market is not great but better than the rest, please do not try to fix it and make it as good as USA and Europe, 67cents for a DVD scares me.

Phil McC

Hi Guys

Joanna is right about the unity of the British industry, even though Britain is making films to match the Americans there's still no union amongst the people at the top & the mere mortals.
I have more e-mails from America & Spain from people in the industry than i do here, i was talking to Joanna the other week about helping push some of our work in the States. With new laws now coming in (explained in the new April E.T.O. mag) small producers will be forced to stop making films soon as the fee's for licence's & permits will cripple us unless we look for backing elsewhere, America knows this & will use the small U.K. companies as a back door into the british industry.
Over half the films going out now are by new producers but with no advertising on internet sites or mags they don't sell the number they could do, hence with American & European help we to can be seen. 60 odd Euro's or not Phil in our postion anythings better.

Kim

'Well, whilst many US porn stars and starlets (especially those on the west coast) have reached (in almost all cases with a substantial number of encounters with a surgical knife!), what is deemed as, physical perfection for a female by the majority of men in the US and western world, I have found that their sex appeal generally reaches no further than the box cover'


Am I supposed to laugh at this coming from a 'female shell wrapped' male?

Kim, Cents per film. thats about 28pence. I am getting ?3-5
Union ok Rem, Terry, Ben, Marinio, Marcus, Sandie, I could go on. If I asked any or all to work on a film with me they would. That seems like a Union to me. I don't understand what a Union would achieve. The new regulations will only affect the Pro-am's and I am sorry for that but you cannot have good hi-quality programs without investment and why should people like me invest hundreds of thousands to be undersold by someone who invests a few hundred quid. Pay everything including the Actors, Actresses camera crew, editor, packaging, BBFC then say Pro-am's make money.
I have made a living still do always will.
The introduction of BluePrint will help us all. It has been real hard work, loads of long hours and an even longer road to go.
A few great people have helped and come May they will be rewarded for the hard work. They are doing something about the UK industry like me. Joanna has a one sided view of the UK and in her opinion its bad, I know from may views its not that bad. I speak with the top companies in the world all who would love to walk in here because it is such a good potential market. Ask how many of the Yanks can boast 40-60,000 copies of a DVD sold. We have the biggest saturation of DVD per head in the world (next to Japan). British internet traffic is worth 3-5 more value than USA. We have legal mail order (ok its a bit long winded but it works legally). Germany does not.

I think Kim you are back to the ask and we will answer as best we can for you. As for some of you statements "Over half the films going out now are by new producers" where did you get that from, last time I looked at BBFC its the same comfortable old faces, with a few new-commers. Noticed your stuff there.

Jim (Phil McC)

An interesting well written piece by Joanna, but I fear she is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land if she thinks the problem is lack of outlets. As I keep pointing out to JJ, there are umpteen ways of getting your hands on hardcore in the UK today, access is not the issue. Joanna seems to think that if you open more shops they will, as if by magic, be besieged by hordes of eager, grateful, customers gagging to stock up on the porn films they have been promising themselves all their lives but never thought to check the internet, their local boot sale, ask their pals at work, or try one of the moody, but reliable, mail order outfits that have been around for the past 15 years. Total nonsense, the colleagues I know who have existing legit sex shops are nowadays only scraping by. There is today in the UK a general apathy towards porn. Everyone's seen it and done it. They are now sorted.

As phil McCavity sagely points out, the world porn market is fucked and the UK market is not far behind. Yes, total sales of adult products in the US probably add up to some humongously huge figure. The problem is once it's dived up between the thousands of producers, stars, editors, retailers, wholesalers, managers, agencies, printers, website proprietors, etc, etc, in most instances it just adds up to a living. Part of the problem is that now there's too much choice (or, as some might argue, to little. What with seemingly, universally bland, unappealing, or off-putting content) and too many purveyors chasing an evermore bored and blase public. To illustrate what I mean, from my own perspective. Every month I get packs of the latest American and British video and DVD covers from one of the major UK R18 wholesalers advertising their latest releases and exhorting me to stock up. Over the past eighteen months I've just left them unopened on the side, Experience has taught me that there's nothing in there that will have the slightest appeal to me or my customers. Now, because I was at a loose end, I opened one that arrived last Friday - what a load of shite! All the video covers were monumentally unappealing and naff. Shit artwork, badly printed, showing pasty, lack-luster participants, in perfunctory, industrial strength, supposedly 'sexual' acts. Did they turn me on? Did they make me feeling donning my coat and rushing down to my local sex store, like good erotica should? Actually no. I felt rather put off, depressed and queasy. I binned them, sharpish. Now, I don't consider my sexual tastes to be to far from the average Joe, indeed I built a biz on it. So, if that is how contemporary porn makes me feel I don't think it to much of a leap to conclude that it might be having a similar effect on one or two others. Could this be one of the reasons why punters are not besieging uK sex stores?

There are probably also cultural reasons why porn doesn't seem to be as popular in the UK, as possibly in some of America's more liberal regions - like the general perception of it being sleazy, naff and for losers. This perception hasn't been helped by the downgrading of porno production values over the past decade. Generally speaking nowadays a lot of porn, and Brit porn in particular, doesn't look the slightest bit glamours or portray a life style that anyone would wish to aspire to. It's hard to like it, it's hard to defend it. And UK porn is constantly under pressure from both the moral-minority, back to basics, right, and the poncy, politically correct, 'wimmin's issues' middle-class left. These two groups between them have the media sown up. It's only their take on things that gets into the public domain.

I thought a way forward might be to let porno be sold on the High St, in the adult sections of Virgin and HVM for instance. But then I thought, Nah, that wouldn't work either. If it's going on the High St it really needs production values, glamours participants, script and story to legitamise it. Not much of that about nowadays. But at least then you could argue that it was a proper film (but a film with fucking and sucking.) The other problem is, once again, the Brit culture. Have you noticed how everyone avoids the adult section in HMV like the plague - lest fellow shoppers conclude they are pervs?

Haven't heard anything about this 'new regulations' malarkey. But it sounds like it just might be what's neede to address some of the porno problems I have highlighted above. I agree with Phil, if it means that only those who have the financial and technical ability to make quality programs can get their movies to the legit market it will cut out a huge swathe of dross, giving the punter a clearer, less overwhelming, choice of more appealing movies.

Never mind Kim, as one door closes another one opens. A good living as an amateur, guerilla style, under the counter, filmmaker and distributor awaits. And you'll be able to charge punters a premium once some of your competition has bottled out and naffed off. Every cloud...


Officer Dibble

Hi,

I am absolutely delighted that my article on AVN not only became a topic on the BGAFD but also resulted in such considered responses.

As the closing quote on many of my posts suggests ("I tell it as I see it"), I give my personal opinion, which comes from my experiences and contacts in the US and British porn industry.

Whilst my ego would like to consider each and everyone of my perceptions and their eventual conclusions as spot on, my wisdom reminds me that this cannot be the case as I will never have all the facts or understand all the effects on all involved.

Even if everyone had disagreed with all of the comments I had made in my article, it would have been worth it if the reaction were to lead to greater prosperity for the British porn industry.


Finally, I wish to offer my thanks to Phil mCc and Officer Dibble, who posted replies that eloquently refuted some (or many) of my opinions whilst still acknowledging the experience, thought and time that went into my article.


And last but not least, I take off my hat to Joe King for his perceptive and targeted wit
Joe, I cannot agree more. I am, without hesitation, as you put it, a manufactured 'female shell wrapped' male but, unlike those who were the target of my comment, I do not consider manufactured "babeness" to be a substitute for delivering strong arousing hardcore performances.!!


Kiss kiss,


Joanna Jet
xxx

Joanna - Very interesting article. One particularly point caught my eye:

'There are rumours floating around that a "mail-order only" adult licence might be introduced and if that were to happen, the UK porn industry would rocket beyond recognition...'

Any chance of expanding on this ? Given that 3 significant players in the business have recently been found guilty in court for supplying or advertising R18 videos, I'd be surprised if there are any plans to relax the law. If anything, I'd expect there to be more prosecutions.


Peter