Now in its third season, the Canadian reality TV show "Webdreams" is a behind-the-scenes look at the adult online industry. For the first two seasons, show producer Galafilm followed the video chat hostesses, camera people and executives at Montreal's 2Much.net. (The third season is being shot in L.A.)
Since beginning its run on Canada's Showcase cable TV channel, "Webdreams" has been a top-rated show and has been sold into other countries, but not the U.S. So how has this reality TV exposure affected the careers of the adult industry people who appear on screen? AVN Online decided to find out.
Violet Manson: season-two star
Goth/punk porn star Violet Manson is described on the "Webdreams" website as "Montreal's most popular chat hostess." Whether this is true is a matter of opinion, but there's no doubt Manson's "Webdreams" exposure prompted her to launch her own solo girl site, VioletManson.net.
Manson's front-and-center role during the second season of "Webdreams" was no accident. "I knew that it would be a great way to get people to know my name and my site, which was upcoming at the time, and what my life is like," she said. "So I contacted one of the main men I knew involved with the show [and] told them what my life was going to be like for the next year and that he would be foolish not to take me on. So we met up, and ta-da! It happened."
The Galafilm crew followed Manson on and off camera for about a year. She said it wasn't easy having a video crew watching her every move. "It had its moments; that's for sure," she said. "For the most part, it was a little intimidating to have the crew watch me perform with someone during a private session at work. [It] made it a little tricky."
But now that the cameras are gone, "I have to say I miss them," Manson said. "They became like friends and family. They shared some really intense moments of my life with me. They filmed me laughing, crying, showering, getting horny and falling in love. Yes, sometimes I felt pretty cramped for space during indoor photo shoots. There were also times where being alone to deal with personal issues would have been sweet."
What were the pluses and minuses of appearing on Webdreams?
On the positive side, "the series did help for me to generate more traffic and bring people's focus closer on my other ventures," Manson said. "Was the exposure worth it? I say very much so. I am a known name and person, and people are searching me out to work with me. That's always sweet."
However, "I knew my parents would have a hard time having to deal with what I do on national TV," she said. "I just didn't expect to be completely written off and basically made to be dead in my mother's eyes. We have no contact whatsoever. She says she can't be known to have communication with a porn-star lesbian.'"
Asked whether she would appear on reality TV again, Manson said she would, "without a doubt."
She gave a word of advice for any adult industry person offered a similar opportunity. "Be ready to be completely exposed," she said. "They want it real and raw, and that's what gets shown. You have to have balls - big ones."
Vid Vicious: reluctant star
Photographer/director Vid Vicious played a different role on "Webdreams": He was the industry person the audience got to tag along with, to see what life behind the camera is really like. To illustrate this, Vicious said, Galafilm shot more than 500 hours of footage to show "what I do, how I hustle and, more importantly, that we never give up, even with all the hurdles that are presented to us."
Although he only made a splash in season two, he "got involved with ‘Webdreams' early on, before season one," Vicious said. "Not wanting to be a character in the series, I hooked them up with friends of mine in the business, namely Dugmor, who ended up doing the pilot and season one. It wasn't till after the first year of broadcasts that one of my oldest friends asked me why I wasn't in the series. When I told him I didn't want to be seen or for friends and family to know what I did, he laughed and told me, ‘Everyone already knows, and no one sees you differently for it.' That was all I needed to hear."
Looking back at his season-two appearances on "Webdreams," Vicious said, "I feel I was portrayed well." This was partly due to the rules he set with Galafilm before shooting began. "One of them was never to show my personal life, the hardships of being an adult producer/director, the difficulties in dating, dealing with family, friends, et cetera," he said. The second rule "was that I would never talk about costs or how I go about finding my clients, and the most important was to never give details about my past. Unfortunately, that last rule got broken by an overexcited newspaper journalist who wrote plainly about my broadcasting background, naming names. Luckily, it was a small paper, and the article didn't get [many] views."
So has Vicious' 15-plus minutes of "Webdreams" fame paid off professionally? "So far not much, other then a regular flow of emails from viewers that enjoy my segments on the show," he replied. "As for more work, all I'm seeing at the present moment is lots of email and requests to meet me, to discuss possible investments in the business.
"My personal view on this is that the ‘success' of the show will be more apparent in the coming months, as more countries are going to be airing the show. I look forward to the day that I can profit from my 15 minutes of fame three times a week for the next three years."
2Much.net: the home base
As the base of on-screen operations for seasons one and two, Montreal-based 2Much.net's live chat studios and staff play a major role in the show's plot line. "The show has been good for us," said Mark Prince, the company's founder and CEO. "Our name is somewhat known, and we have had a few phone calls and new business, thanks to the show.
"We really wish that ‘Webdreams' would be shown in the U.S. I don't understand the reasons, but Showtime, the U.S. sister station to Canada's Showcase, will not run the show. From what I was told, there was interest from the Sundance Channel and HBO, but so far, nothing has been done, which is a real shame. Users of our website, LiveCamNetwork.com, really want to see the show. But by now, they have probably already downloaded it."
So what was it like trying to run a live chat site with camera crews running around? "We hardly noticed they were there for the most part, but other parts were strange," Prince replied. "I know how I talk and act with people, but I found that when the cameras were on, I tended to act differently. I took the time to choose my words and had trouble removing the ‘I'm going to be on TV' grin from my face. Sometimes, in order to end a scene or resolve an issue, we were asked to discuss a certain topic or repeat a conversation. These scenes were the most fun because it meant that I had to act. I had never acted before. There I am, playing me and trying not to crack up. I loved it."
There were times when the Galafilm video crew proved to be intrusive at 2Much.net, Prince said, but there were other times when he and his staff evened the score by playing pranks on the shooters. "They mostly shot with one camera, so when their tape ran out, it meant about 30 seconds of downtime," he recalled. "One time, in a somewhat emotional scene with Violet, the tape ran out, and they prepared to change it for a fresh one. I pretended not to notice and dropped down on one knee and asked Violet to marry me. The look on the Gala crew's faces were fantastic. Violet played it perfectly, but we cracked up after only a few seconds later. It didn't matter: It was enough to rattle Gala's cage."
Looking back, was the disruption of being shot for reality TV worth the experience? Prince said it most definitely was. "This kind of exposure is worth millions of dollars," he said. "You would be a fool not to take advantage of such a fantastic opportunity."
As for the dangers of being outed to family and friends, that depends on who your family and friends are. "My mom, who is 83 years old, picked up the Saturday Gazette one day and saw my big fat face on the front page of the business section under the header ‘Prince of Porn," Prince said. "She thought it was funny as hell and showed it to everyone."
This article originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of AVN Online. To subscribe, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscriptions .
