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Just a thought... given the profusion of untrained amateurs now wielding
equipment with malice aforethought- why on Earth do so many of them think
that it's 'technique' to tilt the cam so that you have to wrench your neck
sideways to see the girls' faces properly. It also makes capping a nightmare...

I can only assume these 17-y-o morons have been watching too many US cop
shows, where the protagonists fire their guns with the wrist rotated at 90
degrees [which doesn't work in fact, BTW- all you get is a wrenched wrist,
powder-burns on your arm and a missed target]. Idiots, grrrr.....

JJ, poor/atrocious camerawork did not start recently.
It started right off the bat, when shot-on-film converted to shot-on-video
in the mid 1980's.
Everything went to the dogs at that time. And I don't know whereto even begin.
My experience has been mostly with US productions, but if I were to go back to
say early French Laura video tapes barely lasting 60 minutes it was no better.

Cheap video cameras, people that could not edit, crappy lighting, poor sound
recording.

In many cases you could actually hear the director giving the cast
certain directions.

Sounds of airplanes flying overhead, police/fire engine sirens,
dogs barking.

Crappy make-up, shitty costumes, cameramen that seemed more
interested in male anatomy than with the female cast (and with cameras frequently
showing the men's hairy asses and stupid faces.

Limp dicks (this was before the Viagra and other enhancing drugs), fake cum shots,
top female stars that were chronic cum dodgers.

Artsy-fartsy directors who though they were porn versions of Ingmar Bergman,
using color filters, slow-motion, black and white photography, churning out scenes and
movies that were more hard-"R" than X-rated material.

Looping of certain portions of a sex scene to pad out the running time, to excuse
the idiotic director who was too lame to shoot sufficient material.

The atrocious and repetitive elevator music that played over the sex scene where
everything else was drowned out. That was like a nail on a chalk board.

And of course no matter how good or how bad the original photography or
production was, it only got worse when duplication to VHS tapes took over.
Using crappy dime-store VHS duplicating equipment and super-cheap video tape
and VHS plastic shells only worsened the situation. Even tapes rolled off by Vivid
looked like they were filmed during a sandstorm.

So practically overnight porn went from say $100,000 shot-on-film productions
(which took months to make and edit and put together) to barely $10,000-$15,000
budgets and with release occurring within a few weeks of shooting.

The professional director, art director, sound persons, editors, cameraman moved on
or could not be used due to budget restrictions and so the hacks took over and
what you got generally was crap. But since shot-on-video (for home consumption)
was new, it sold no matter what they put on the shelves. Those were the
early golden years, from which the porn industry never recovered from. They
thought it could and would last forever

And if someone were to ask me why did porn stopped being interesting and
why video stores started to close shop all over North America and Europe,
I would point the finger at the greed of certain porn producers and crap
distributors continuously put out.

No sooner did DVD started to take off both in mainstream and porn, and slightly
improve the quality of things (at least image wise if not necessarily production)
than HD and Blu-Ray started to wrack our brains and pockets. Blu-Ray in porn really
never took off in porn. Too expensive, and there was an economic downturn. I think
it became big only in the orient (Japan). Everywhere else it was a dud.

I mean who could afford to pay about $40-45 for a 90 minute Blu-ray porn DVD?
Top companies wanted big bucks for their product from video retailers/stores.
Porn used to make up about 30-40% of what video stores rented out. But gradually
it petered down to almost nothing, as video store owners could not afford
to pay top dollars for an Evil Angel, Red Light, Wicked, Vivid DVD. So they
started to stock the video shelves with B and Z grade product (4 hour compilations and older
releases) which they could get for half of that price. But there was a Catch22
with that, since more fussy consumers started to stay away in droves after
seeing there was nothing worthwhile on the shelves.

Aside from poor camerawork that you are presently griping about, you have the added
turn off of what is actually being filmed. I am talking about circus acts and
unpleasant behavior towards the fairer sex. The face and body slapping, four fingers
stuffed in their mouths, spitting in their mouths, pulling their hairs, hands around
their necks chocking them, throat gagging, gangbangs, the back and forth
fucking from pussy to anal and from anal to pussy, shoving their feet over the girl's face.
Has sex in porn become a gladiator sport?

In will end this long discourse by getting back to filming technique
in that while I understand that porn consumers are generally male
and that producers seem to maximize their resources to satisfy that
sizeable market, there are nonetheless female consumers and perhaps
more could be brought on board if producers were paying more attention.
I have seen scenes with more than 2 performers where for practically the whole duration of
the scene you hardly saw the males' faces. What is it with that?

And I can say the same for the girl's face, all you get is huge close-ups
of her orifices. Male and females do have faces, yes, no? Why can't they film that
once in a while. The only time the camera seems to move back to her face
or near that area is when the male is stuffing 4 fingers down her throat or making'
her gag with his dick. It's woman, not a piece of meat in butcher shop!

But I can understand the tilting is some ways. It was more prevalent in the early
days of DVD when they had to shoot in wide angle. It is hard when you are up close to
capture the private parts and their faces, so the cameraman would tilt the
camera at a 45 degree angle to get as much as he could. But I see that
a lot less these days, in that they try to stray focused on the private parts
and they neglect the performers' faces.

I couldn't agree more. If porn was more erotic, less animalistic, less abusive, and less anatomical, I would be more interested in it. It would help if the participants could act a bit too. The directors and the producers are largely to blame.

As things stand, I avoid anything much after the Michelle Wild era. Although she engaged in 'circus acts' she could act. I always found her performances highly charged and erotic.

It is not too late to change!

Marmaduke it is WAY too late to change, because of the changing styles of porn production.
Circus acts are in, and they have been pushing that envelope for the last dozen years or so.
Once you have one guy spitting on a girl, and treating her like a piece of
meat, then everybody does it.

And it's not just the physical acts in themselves that I and many find repulsive, it's also the
language used and male-female relationships. I find that more prevalent in euro productions
than US productions.
Just look at Italian porn movies (mainstream and porn). The women are treated
basically like dirt, and the men are unnecessarily verbally and physically abusive.
It is not stimulating or erotic.

When you ask these male performers why they do that, they say that their
fan base insists on that type of activity and that's what they do. Since they believe it
"sells" then they put it out. I think that some of them have personal issues that
they can only discharge when they perform porn, where all gloves are off, and the
girl is paid for performing those acts.

Porn sold well in the 1980'and and 1990's when such circus acts were nowhere to be
found. But the tide has changed and abusive performances is what seems to go these days.

As for production values and camerawork, US production is basically gonzo/all-sex
so the plot-driven and more relaxed and courteous male-male relationships is no whereto be seen.
The sex scenes begin with the girl already telling the viewing audience that today
she will be doing anal, DP and what have you. And the "fun" quickly begins with the
male being abusive in so many ways.

The Euro porn production is somewhat different, in that the movies are more plot-driven,
but the male-female relationship is markedly different. Perhaps you may not see
quite the same type of circus acts, but the women are treated more trashily and disrespectfully.
The photography is really no better, ad mostly takes place indoors and in dark settings.

Many Italian directors (and actors too, perhaps) are fanatical of dark lights and indoor locations, and in my opinion certain films are better as medical documentaries about the female genital system (or better, about the psychic evidence of how much misogynist we Italians are), rather than pornographic films.

Back on topic, now seems really that it's so cheap to make a porn film, especially in Italy. For example: http://youtu.be/XOhkjumeCgo

Although JJ was basically griping about the "tilt" type of filming, poor photography
and production (locations, costumes, sound, lighting, etc) should be very important factors.

It is true that both US and European porn cinema photography before the video revolution
was mostly on the dark side (I really can't explain why), I can't understand it
why Europeans have tended to under light a porn scene (and I really don't want to get into Salieri opus).
How many horror films have you seen where most of the action takes place in daylight or well lite interiors?
In porn you want to see the naughty parts, brightly lit.
But I don't know why the camera person seems to more enamored of the guys' hairy ass, than the girls'
faces.

The rationale for darkness in horror is of course to let the imagination do
most of the work. While a lot of porn is also horrific, for a variety of reasons,
this doesn't or shouldn't apply : -)

Re the males- why always pan up to the guy's pre-cumshot 'sex face'?
Surely, at that moment, we need to be looking at the other end? Is there
some 'Brokeback' thing going on there..... ?

Well JJ, I wanted to talk about that, but since you have raised the flag on it,
in porn it is perhaps the stupidest thing you can find. On second thought it is
the stupidest thing in a porn scene.
It is called the "reaction shot". Except that in most cases it is NOT shot at the same time
as the ejaculation for the simple reason the director/cameraman are too busy
trying to capture the "money shot". If they miss the "money shot", then the whole
scene falls apart and becomes worthless.
So the girl just crouches there usually on her knees (knee pads should be obligatory
in porn production) while the male shags off for several minutes trying to eject something
from his dick that just becomes quite reluctant. The girl looks like a fish out of
water with her gaping mouth waiting for the manna to come (pun intended here).
When that dirty deed is done with, the director then tells the male to fake some
reaction hot as to he climaxed during the scene. Very painful and embarrassing to watch.

Since usually only one video camera is rolling at that point in time, there is really no actual
filming of that mystical and magical male orgasm. That "reaction" shot has to be faked.
And if you want to see what the mainstream cinema has done with that (male orgasm), I suggest
you Google the latest Lars Von Trier "opus" called NYMPHOMANIAC and the posters
that were produced:

You will surely lose your appetite for a few hours/days.

Len801 wrote:
>
> You will surely lose your appetite for a few hours/days.

Yes, I see.
Not my cup of cinematic tea, although I have 'enjoyed' [if that's the word]
some of Von Trier's earlier stuff.

that recent italian amateur stuff is disgusting!