christophe thinks out loud

What I Learned on My Porn Shoot

Last week, I directed my first porn film. It was a complete blast; I had a great time. I also did a bunch of things that . . . well, things I would have done differently.

For the benefit of any porn directors out there, here are the things I made notes of.

• Everything takes longer than you think — Talent will show up late. The food will arrive right in the middle of a scene, and you‘ll have to cut because it is on your credit card. Talent will take time getting hard. Your brilliant lighting design won‘t work in the space, and you‘ll have to move the lights around to get it right. Talent will get extremely goofy right in the middle of a scene, and you‘ll need to get them to settle down.
• Unscripted sex needs to be scripted — Or, at least, directed. The way most people have sex is not the least bit photogenic: they call it the “beast with two backs” for a reason. Even for a sex scene that is intended to be very natural, be sure you understand that it is a lot of work to get something to look natural. Just pointing a camera at talent and asking them to go for it results in a fleshy blob bouncing around for a few minutes.
• Don’t order pizza — (OK, I didn’t make this mistake, but it bears repeating.) Order food that is light, high-carb, and very low-grease. Your talent, especially the female talent, will thank you.
• Watch her lips and hair — Makeup and hair styles get messed up completely within a few seconds of the start of romping. Make sure you keep track of them, so you can stop and have the talent retouch as required.
• Don’t be afraid to do multiple takes — It is always better to get too much footage than too little. Get a nice, long shot of each position and activity, so you have a lot to work with in the editing room.
• Stop for stills — Between shots, stop shooting video and take a bunch of stills, using flash. You cannot take good stills with typical video lighting, and an on-camera flash going off during shooting is distracting for the talent and looks dopey on the footage.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat . . . once I get this huge pile of tape edited.