Quote:

female talent $800-$1500 depending on double anal, double vag, oral, girl girl.
male talent $600-$800
location - varies
lighting - $400
sound - $400
cameraman - $500/day
photographer - $250/day

It fluctuates so much it is hard to narrow down to what one movie can cost. How many group scenes are in the video. How many anal. How many scenes total.

The economics have changed a lot really. It used to be $22k would do a nice feature with a solid feature performer like Asia or Brianna. $16k a respectable gonzo. Now a reasonable feature can be shot for $18k and a reasonable gonzo $12k-$14k.Costs are always being driven down. What the director gets varies. If they are freelance on a per project rate, they get the worst deals $1500 - $3000 isn't too far off for an average director. If they own the product, they do much better.

Yes there are exceptions to this. There are girls who get paid $3k-$5k for their first anal. There are directors who might make $4k freelancing a project. There are cameramen who might get a grand.

When you get into the distribution logistics, that can be all over the map. Do you have a low end distributor? Are you with Evil Angel? It ranges really from maybe $8 - $20 a DVD. Out the door 2000 domestic is a nice number. The upper end might do 3000. The lower end 800. Obviously Vivid or Wicked can do much higher or any time you factor in catalog sales you might kick ass on reorders. You have to factor in overseas sales which a really good deal would be 1000 pieces in Europe.

Again it is nice to pay for your product out the door or even make a bit extra. Reorders are where the money is at. It's similar to the Internet world and rebills. If you finish out a project with 5k pieces you are really patting yourself on the back these days. It's fairly uncommon for the middle of the road companies these days though.

Then you have to factor in other things like cable sales. Then there is the online streaming distribution which is taking over.

It used to be that DVD's alone could make someone money. Today, almost all of us are supplementing our DVD sales with Internet or small chump change cable deals. Make no mistake that it is still a profitable business, it just isn't as easy anymore.



You've done a nice job illustrating the problem with being in the lower end of production these days.

So you shell out $16k for a 'respectable' gonzo film, of which 'talent' got $10k, so you can clear 2000 units.

Unless you're actually getting half of the MSRP on a DVD (lets assume its $29.95 - which most aren't) your only going to gross $14K a film, but once you take out post production, DVD replication costs, retail packaging, warehousing, shipping and the distributors percentage your talking an easy $10K off the top. This means you're making only $4K off a shoot that ultimately ended up costing you $26K or more to get into the market - not accounting for theft, where your titles are 'falling off trucks.'

Meanwhile, retailers are making way more money than you off your title - for shelf space. Has anybody actually walked into a porn shop lately??? DVD titles range anywhere from $29.95 all the way up to $89.95 for fetish shit. You're making $2 a unit off busting your ass getting the product to market and Jimmy, sitting behind the counter smoking cigs (not in CA) looking like a serial killer, is raking in $30 -$50 a unit.