Ask The Pornographer - 2015

[KölnElch]

Did any of your performers have a boyfriend (or gf), who had issues or prejudices with the guy's work, but tried to overcome her/his issues for love? Any happy end?

 

[Latimer]

I heard recently that in most major movies today the stars are digitally "shopped" to look better than they would otherwise look. (Or worse, if the plot requires.) Has any of this come yet to porn? Do you think it will be coming?

 

[Soilwork]

I have a question about pornstars.

Have you ever met the pornstar Danny Mountain?

He seems like a charming man.

I directed his SG4GE scene. I only vaguely remember working with him, so he was probably nice.

 

[Soilwork]

Did any of your performers have a boyfriend (or gf), who had issues or prejudices with the guy's work, but tried to overcome her/his issues for love? Any happy end?

Yeah it's happened. Sometimes it ends the relationship, sometimes it ends the porn career.

Happy ending... Liam Magnuson left porn to be with his boyfriend. We're still in touch and he's doing great.

 

[Soilwork]

I heard recently that in most major movies today the stars are digitally "shopped" to look better than they would otherwise look. (Or worse, if the plot requires.) Has any of this come yet to porn? Do you think it will be coming?

I mean.. stills are always Photoshopped. Even if we're just smoothing out a discoloration of skintone or removing a scratch or a pimple.

It's possible to do it in Video, too, and yes... they're already doing it.

 

[travis82]

The short answer is "you don't necessarily need to, but the less light you have in a space, the wider your aperture needs to be and the shallower your focus will become." This works if you just want to take a picture of a flat thing that doesn't move. You can just leave the aperture all the way open and focus on what you want to shoot. The moment things start to move, they come in and out of your focus range and the greater the distance between the closest and furthest from your lens that you want to shoot, you need to have a higher (smaller) aperture so you need more light to hit your subjects. The longer your exposure, the more still your subject needs to be if you want to keep a tight focus.

Add to this, your eyes are amazing creations. Coupled with your brain, they can change focus and adapt for white balance almost immediately as you look from one thing to another. They will adapt to remove shadows from one thing and balance all the information that comes into your eyes to create a single 3D picture for your brain to input and that all happens in real time.

Cameras aren't like that.

If your only light source comes from above, once your aperture is open enough to actually get a visible picture in your lens, shadows and light discrepancies will be very apparent in your picture. So you need to bathe your subjects in as much white-balanced light from multiple angles as possible. And do NOT under-estimate the power of a good white balance. We've all seen those horribly yellow or blue images which are the result of poorly-balanced camera settings.

Your light source must be the same light temperature as the existing light in a room. If your light is sunlight streaming into your room, that usually means you need to add blue gels to your white electric lights (or gold if you're shooting with sunset or sunrise light).

The more light you have on a subject, the deeper your focus can be AND the better your colour will appear in the resulting image. It also means that the more light you have, the faster shutter speed you can use and moving object will remain crisp in the image and not blurry or smoothed-out.

For the record, For most of my scenes I actually use 6-8 lights. I triangulate my 1K (1000 watt) lights on either side and spot those for a tighter focus of the light and then I fill in the gaps with huge light boxes that throw a very defused light to fill and soften shadows. I then will add a floor light or two to keep shadows from forming under people's arms or chins (or assholes) and occasionally I''ll shoot a .4K light at a white ceiling to bounce down and give everything a nice sheen from above. Every time you move the cameras more than a few inches, you need to move your lights or you'll start having light and dark fields on people's bodies or places in their surroundings.

Play with lighting things and see which effect you like the best. There are times I've intentionally used shadows and flares for effect and there are times I've done the opposite.



here's a good example...

I recently shot a scene in a house with mirrored walls, white marble floor and flat white ceiling. Using just a few lights and the natural light streaming in, I was able to get a really nice image of the men but I decided to switch around the point of view to have the glass doors looking outside behind them. that meant that once I had my aperture open enough to see the men, the outside was totally blown out and looked like a big white blob. My solution was to hit them with every light I had. I had four 1K lights on them, 3 soft boxes, both floor lights and two .4K spots aiming up at reflectors I attached to the ceiling. Looking at them with a naked eye was almost blinding, but it meant that I could bring my aperture closed all the way to a 16 so they were lit well enough to see them and my background wasn't blown out. That also meant that my focus depth was huge and the area behind them was crispy in focus even though it was about 30 feet back.

Hope that helps.

Thank you very much for the explaination. I feel like I learnt a lot.


These are the parts I don't understand...


"The longer your exposure, the more still your subject needs to be if you want to keep a tight focus"


What do you mean by "the longer your exposure"? Are you trying to say....the longer the lens, the less the Depth of Field (shallow focus) ???




"It also means that the more light you have, the faster shutter speed you can use and moving object will remain crisp in the image and not blurry or smoothed-out."


I don't quite understand this. Based on theory, the speed of the lens is it's maximum aperture. (f/2, f/1.4. etc) The lower the f/stop (larger aperture), the faster the lens.


The higher the f/stop (small aperture), the "slower" the lens.


A deep focus will mean a smaller aperture which means a slower lens.

 

[ronboy]

Hey Jasun,

It's been a long time since I checked in with you, and I just wanted to let you know that I am still a fan.

I think you do a great job with this thread, giving us a rare inside look at the reality of gay porn. You are still funny, and have your "edge" too.

 

[Soilwork]

"The longer your exposure, the more still your subject needs to be if you want to keep a tight focus"


What do you mean by "the longer your exposure"? Are you trying to say....the longer the lens, the less the Depth of Field (shallow focus) ???

"It also means that the more light you have, the faster shutter speed you can use and moving object will remain crisp in the image and not blurry or smoothed-out."


I don't quite understand this. Based on theory, the speed of the lens is it's maximum aperture. (f/2, f/1.4. etc) The lower the f/stop (larger aperture), the faster the lens.


The higher the f/stop (small aperture), the "slower" the lens.


A deep focus will mean a smaller aperture which means a slower lens.

That's really more for stills than video. What I mean is "the longer amount of time your shutter is open." Video cameras generally are just going to shoot 29.97 frames per second so your shutter is open the same amount of time. If you go to 60 frames, it's "open" a shorter time (I put that in quotes because with digital video it's all simulated, of course).

One tip... NEVER try to compensate for lower light by boosting your gain. Gain should ALWAYS be set to the lowest setting. Boosting the gain will give you very grainy video that's much lower in colour depth.

- - - Updated - - -

Hey Jasun,

It's been a long time since I checked in with you, and I just wanted to let you know that I am still a fan.

I think you do a great job with this thread, giving us a rare inside look at the reality of gay porn. You are still funny, and have your "edge" too.

I'm not nearly as mean as I used to be, am I?

 

[medic1]

^Nowhere near mean.

You are just a forthright kinda guy when responding to "some" threads........

 

[ronboy]

I'm not nearly as mean as I used to be, am I?

Naw, you are definitely a "kinder and gentler" Soilwork, but even with the hard edge, you told it like it is!

 

[travis82]

Hi Jasun,


Based on your earlier reply to me......


If you want your image to be in deep focus (everything is in focus), more depth of field,......then you close the aperture.
Example: F stop 5.6



But when you close the aperture, less light will be entering the camera, making your image darker.


The solution is.....you put light stands ( artificial lights) to make your image brighter.


So your image will be bright and in deep focus.


I think this works for indoor and outdoor shoots. Am I right?

 

[Soilwork]

Hi Jasun,


Based on your earlier reply to me......


If you want your image to be in deep focus (everything is in focus), more depth of field,......then you close the aperture.
Example: F stop 5.6



But when you close the aperture, less light will be entering the camera, making your image darker.


The solution is.....you put light stands ( artificial lights) to make your image brighter.


So your image will be bright and in deep focus.


I think this works for indoor and outdoor shoots. Am I right?

Yes. Although 5.6 still won't have a very deep focus. You need to be at 11 or higher before a really noticeable deep focus is achieved. Hit it with as much light as you can and do your best to have as much light splashing around the room so it hits your subject from as many angles as possible.

 

[travis82]

Yes. Although 5.6 still won't have a very deep focus. You need to be at 11 or higher before a really noticeable deep focus is achieved. Hit it with as much light as you can and do your best to have as much light splashing around the room so it hits your subject from as many angles as possible.

Hi Jasun,


Thank you so much for your explaination.



I asked a person. He said , "If it's outdoor shoot, you might need ND filters. Because under the hot sun, you may close the aperture to a F stop of 11 and it will still be bright." Is that true?





So if I want the subject to stand out among a lot of things, then a shallow (shorter) depth of field will work better, right?



Example: F stop 1.8 aperture.

Example, you want the subject in the foreground to be in focus, while the background is in a blur shot .....


Am I right ??

 

[Soilwork]

I asked a person. He said , "If it's outdoor shoot, you might need ND filters. Because under the hot sun, you may close the aperture to a F stop of 11 and it will still be bright." Is that true?

A neutral density filter is a great idea when shooting in bright sunlight, especially if you're in direct sunlight and or want really crisp details.

So if I want the subject to stand out among a lot of things, then a shallow (shorter) depth of field will work better, right?


Example: F stop 1.8 aperture.

Example, you want the subject in the foreground to be in focus, while the background is in a blur shot .....


Am I right ??

The lowest aperture setting is generally 2.8 and after that it's called "open." But yes. A very low setting like that would give you focus on your subject and then anything more than a few inches closer or further away would be blurry.

I've used that when I'm trying to make things look "old school." I did a porn scene years ago that I wanted to make look like a 70s "blue movie" (where the white balance makes everything a little blue) and used that shallow focus as a device.

 

[smokeshadow]

The thing I've always found amusing about ND filters is sometime how fake they looked. If you remember the old Perry Mason TV show, there were a lot of episodes filmed outdoors where it was supposed to be night time. However, they were filmed in bright daylight and the cinematographers utilized ND filters to simulate night, but because of the shadows it just looked weird

 

[Soilwork]

The thing I've always found amusing about ND filters is sometime how fake they looked. If you remember the old Perry Mason TV show, there were a lot of episodes filmed outdoors where it was supposed to be night time. However, they were filmed in bright daylight and the cinematographers utilized ND filters to simulate night, but because of the shadows it just looked weird

Day for Night always looks stupid. Just shoot at night and light it well.

 

[Telstra]

travis82,
you should go to youtube if you want to learn about photography.
Its all about the lenses and the light situation.

 

[Soilwork]

travis82,
you should go to youtube if you want to learn about photography.
Its all about the lenses and the light situation.

well, it's about much more than that. Although yes, that's part of the equation.

 

[Telstra]

well, it's about much more than that. Although yes, that's part of the equation.

well for photographing human,
it is all about lenses, lighting and having fun/jokes with your models and making him/her feel relax and safe

 

[Soilwork]

well for photographing human,
it is all about lenses, lighting and having fun/jokes with your models and making him/her feel relax and safe

there really is a lot more to it than that. I spend hours with my guys teaching them how to stand and how to hold their muscles and bodies and what to flex and what to push out and relax. It's being able to capture the perfect angle of a body, capture a person's real essence. It's not just making them relaxed.

here's a video of me teaching Eddy CeeTee the proper way of breathing and flexing and how NOT to stand.