I knew something had gone seriously wrong when, during this year's CES ordeal, I found myself riding an escalator behind a couple of veteran video performers, listening in on a passionate colloquy concerning the price of bulk tape-stock. Yet another couple of aspiring entrepreneurs had been lured by the promise of big bucks into the trackless wilderness of self-production. New video lines have become like navels: Everybody's got one. If you haven't started your own video line, there's still time to stop and think. Having had three such lines shot out from under me in as many years, I can think of a hundred good reasons not to proceed with such a perilous enterprise, but for the sake of convenience, I'll cut it down to my personal top 10.
1. You won't make any money\nWait a minute! What about John Stagliano? What about Seymore? What about Shane? What about Joey Silvera and John Leslie and Sean Michaels and Alex Sanders and Tom Byron? These guys have made bucks. Why won't you? Because you're not these guys. You haven't spent literally years getting to know the ins and outs of the business side of X-rated production. It's become a cliché that any schmuck with a camcorder can make a video these days, but not everybody can sell one. In a market inundated with mediocre product, it takes a very fresh, original concept to get commercial attention. Simply attaching a name, even a well-known name, to yet another series of cookie-cutter, five-scene gonzos won't move pieces. The lines that make it are concept-driven AND shrewdly marketed. Until you know how you're going to sell your shows, it's not worth shooting them. Even if you have a hot idea and the technical know-how to carry it off, you're still up against some harsh economic realities. Low-budget production is not cheap. Shooting and cutting a credible program these days is hard to do for less than $15,000. Putting it in a box will cost you at least another $4,000. Duplicating will set you back another grand for your out-the-door run. Holy shit, you've racked up $20,000 on your first show! Hold on, it gets worse. With so many titles from which to choose, buyers don't really need your stuff, and they won't be inclined to pay much for it, or pay soon. If you can hold your wholesale price at, say, $12 a unit, you're doing well indeed. But you'll still have to move at least two thousand of them to come out. And don't expect to see your money back early. Unless your product is in strong demand, wholesale buyers will want terms of anywhere from 30 to 120 days. Since all your printing, duplicating and advertising invoices will be on 30 days net, you'll be eating Spam for a long time before your line buys dinner.
2. One Title Does Not A Line Make\nIf you think the numbers described in Reason 1 are scary, try multiplying them by at least four. Distributors generally aren't interested in buying single titles. Continuity builds repeat business, for you and for them. Until you have at least four titles shot, you might as well not go out the door with anything. Distributors want to see something new from you every 60 to 90 days if they're going to take you seriously. Given the long recovery on each production budget, you'll be making those first four almost entirely with your own money. The owner of what is now a very big company once told me that he lost money on his first nine titles. Do you have the investment capital to sustain that kind of expense over your first year of production? If you do, there are safer places to invest it. Unless you're in for the long haul, best to stay out altogether.
3. It's a Dangerous Game\nStart-up lines often try to compete by promising harder/hotter/nastier action than anything on the market. The legal climate is fairly relaxed at the moment, so the chances of your getting busted for making and selling sex vids, however raunchy, are relatively slender. However, it can happen, particularly if you sell mail order through a Website or otherwise ship your own products out to the hinterlands. A local DA with a hard-on for your kind of porn, or an election to win, can ruin your day. Though you're unlikely to go to jail on a first case, the expense and misery of defending yourself will, as attorney Jeffrey Douglas put it, "end your life as you know it and propel you into the hell of being a criminal defendant." And unlike the big boys, you won't have a million-dollar legal war chest to finance your battle. You'll end up pleading out to some low-level felony that will stay on your record forever.
4. You Can't Trust Anybody\nSuppose you decide to minimize your own risk by handing your products over to a larger, more powerful company to distribute for you. Once you let a dupable master out of your hands, you'll never know how many pieces are actually duped, how many are sold, how much money is collected or when that money comes in. You'll have to rely on somebody else's accounting, and there are some pretty creative accountants in this business. Distributors invariably promise that you'll get your money, no matter what happens to them. But if they're short on their own expenses, it's easy enough for them to "borrow" some of your money as it comes in. Since you'll probably never see a purchase invoice, it won't be easy for you to track this kind of abuse. Moreover, even if your distributor is completely honest, certain inherent conflicts of interest may undo all the good intentions in the world. If, as is usually the case, your distributor is also a producer, the products he owns are always going to be more important to him than your distribution property. If your distributor has to get a big feature of his out the door on your projected release date, you're moving back, even if it means your ad campaign is history by the time your title streets.
5. You'll Lose All Your Friends\nThe first hard lesson you'll learn is that every dollar you spend is really two out of your pocket. Cost control becomes an obsession, particularly for a start-up line. Sometimes, the only way you can get the job done is by extracting favors from others: getting fellow performers to cut rates, getting editors to give longer terms, getting pals to crew for lunch and promises, keeping everybody on the set until doomsday just to crank out that one extra scene. Pretty soon, the reservoirs of generosity begin to run dry. You start to hear grumbling about how you're taking advantage of your buddies and, in general, turning into just another porno dick. Your pictures may be the most important things in your life, but you can't expect others to share your fanatical dedication. Eventually, your calls don't get returned.
6. You Won't Have a Life\nWhen you work on a video for someone else, at the end of the day you get paid and go home and that's it. Producing your own work is essentially an open-ended commitment of time and energy. The more you do yourself, the less you pay for others to do for you. Things you'll be doing: Writing scripts, making casting calls, renting locations and equipment, running to the permit office, doing craft services, sitting in at the editing bay, designing boxes, hauling tapes from the duping lab to the warehouse. These and a million other tedious tasks that have nothing to do with the creative satisfaction of shooting video and everything to do with staying in business will take up your every waking moment. Things you won't have time for: food, sex, sleep.
7. You Won't Get To Make Your Picture\nThe decision to start a line frequently has tangled roots. A desire for financial independence is usually one of them. A desire for creative control is often another. You may think you have the formula for the hottest, most beautiful shows ever made, but you'll have to make them with less time, less money and less help than you need. You'll depend on others to realize your vision, and they may have ideas of their own, such as getting home sometime this year. You'll have to make compromises to see the job through, and by the end, the product may not look much like what you had in mind. This can be the biggest downer of the whole process. You've invested your last dime and drop of sweat in products that don't live up to your own expectations. When you look at the finished product, all you'll see are the fuck-ups and the things that didn't get shot. Even if you come away with a title you really like, you'll then face the daunting task of topping it next time.
8. The World Doesn't Need It\nAs already noted, there is no shortage of video lines, or video products in general. Nobody really wants to see your baby; not the distributors, the critics or necessarily even the public. "We're not taking any new lines" is a phrase you'll come to know well. The eyestrain level is pretty high out there. Getting anyone to notice your genius is yet another task in itself. Unless you have that heaven-sent aptitude for self-promotion, your line may sink out of sight regardless of its virtues, simply because there were too many other titles resembling yours released on the same date.
9. Your Self-Esteem Will Suffer\nHow much rejection and hostility can you handle? Can you deal with wholesale buyers calling you names because you won't come down a buck? How will you feel when your vendors accuse you of putting them out of business by stalling on invoices you can't afford to pay? What about your first truly venomous review? How will you handle all those rumors about where your money really came from, or how little of it you have left? There are some very small minds in this business - small, but busy. Whether you do well or not, there'll be plenty of people just looking for an excuse to slime your good name. And after all the corners you've cut just trying to stay in the game, you may find yourself agreeing with them.
10. See Reason Number 1
