I had a good friend who went to film school and ended up in LA “trying to make it.” He wasn’t getting a lot of work but through some connections he had met at a party he was offered a gig as a cameraperson on a porn shoot.
He did it for a few years, as discreetly as possible – apparently it’s an open secret that many camerapersons and even directors early on in their careers will do some moonlighting shooting porn. James Cameron began his career in porn.
We had a really long discussion about it once and these are the big things I remember:
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The job can be really boring from a creative perspective. Most production companies were very rigid with the shots they wanted and it didn’t leave much room for artistic license. Keep in mind this was like 15 years ago, things may have changed.
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the worst part, by far, was the smell. Anyone that’s ever shot a film indoors knows one of your greatest enemies is the massive heat generated by the lights and equipment. Imagine two people going at it for hours in a room that’s getting steadily hotter… add in anal and all bets are off.
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drugs everywhere. Lots of male performers use some kind of viagra coupled with other shit to desensitize their penis. Coke is rampant among female performers. The more professional production companies usually ran a tight ship with regards to drugs but most of the amateur ones, lol, it was anything goes.
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a surprising number of creampie shots are faked. Apparently it’s harder for a male performer to cum from vaginal stimulation than from just jacking off (remember, lots of viagra and hours of desensitized penis + other drugs). So, when a creampie needs to happen and the male performer can’t do it, they use a special liquid that looks like cum and squirt it up into the vagina. Then they have the guy stick his penis in and after a few thrusts it looks like he came. He said you can usually tell because there’s a tell tale transition cut right before the creampie shot.
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everyone is surprisingly normal. They’re just people doing a job for the most part. The industry has some assholes and creeps but in the mid to high tiers of the industry people treat it like any other professional job.
My sister woke up once, damn she was mad
There was this one shoot where the star of the video’s mom walked in. It was a mess. She freaked out, screamed asked what she was thinking. Then she exclaimed “that’s not how you do it, this is!” and it was a really beautiful moment between mother and daughter
I’ve seen a video of somebody speaking about his time as a porn camera man.
The smell was generally bad, I mean they’re fucking for hours in a closed room. Then, when you’re filming from just behind the balls/ass of the dude when he fucks her/him is the most degrading, he said, because you’re filming a dude’s asshole and balls going back and forth right in front of you. It’s probably also the smelliest place in the room.
Is someone a “porn photographer” if they hide in undergrowth and take pictures of their ex through the bathroom window whilst masturbating?