Last year I got e-mail from a reporter who said she wrote for a British newspaper called The Metro. Never having heard of it, I was cautious when I talked with the reporter, and didn’t expect much.
But it turned out The Metro prints about two million copies of each edition and is read by about five million people each day. After the article ran orders from the UK picked up substantially.
Last week another Metro reporter got in touch, wanting to know my take on YouPorn, and how budding internet exhibitionist could put their best foot (tit?) forward. This time the communication was entirely through e-mail, and it offers a good chance to compare what I wrote with what made it into print. Here’s what I wrote:
Tony Comstock’s Tips for Putting Your Homemade Smut Online
I’ve been been interested in erotic art my entire adult life, but nothing has been a source of greater inspiration to me than the window into the sexuality and sex lives of real people that internet opened up more than a decade ago. In fact, I often tell people that what I’m trying to do in my films is capture sex with the same lusty and joyful enthusiasm I first encountered in amateur erotica more than ten years ago.
Posting sexual pictures can be thrilling, validating, exciting. But it’s not without risks and consequences. With that in mind, here are my tips for making a posting, starting with finding your comfort level.
1) Once your picture is on the internet, you can’t control who might see it.
Maybe sometime in the future having a naked picture on the internet will be like smoking a little dope in college; something lots of people do and no big deal. But for now there are still some people who think sexy pictures are A BIG DEAL. Tits are mostly okay. Bums are okay. Maybe even some bush or a limp dick (if it’s “art”) But anything more than that and someone somewhere is going to be cheesed, and that someone might be your boss, student, mom, dad, co-worker.
2) Off With Your Head!
Guess what? That beautiful, handsome gorgeous face of yours is your most identifiable feature. If you want the thrill of posting sexy pics and vids, but not the pain, shoot from the neck down.
3) Be a Page 3 Girl
What hollywood star hasn’t done a topless scene?
4) Give’em the Bum Rush
Like tits, we just don’t seem to get to upset about asses. A rising moon is unlikely to sink your career.
5) Continental (and we’re not talking breakfast.)
For better or worse, it’s the baby-making parts that people get all excited about, and spreading your legs or showing the family jewel (especially if you’re hard) is the rubicon of naughty pictures. If you’re not sure, see #1
6) Going All The Way
Playboy’s rule is that no one who’s ever done porn can ever be a centerfold. Call it the pictorial version of a virginity fetish. Stupid? Yes, but it does reflect larger attitudes about what is and isn’t okay to do on camera. If you decide to go all the way, don’t expect that everyone who might see your pics and vids will approve or understand.
Your best defense against the haters is to make great images. With a little thought, planning and attention to detail, you can make gorgeous sexy images with a webcam or cheap digital.
1) Take the Time to Put Your Best Foot Forward
You don’t need to spend hours in hair and make-up, but a few minutes in front of the mirror will help you pick out things that we don’t notice when we’re face to face, but stick out like dog’s balls on camera. Give yourself a the quick check over you’d do before going into a job interview or meeting a blind date.
2) Unclutter the Background
You don’t have to put up a backdrop. But take five minutes to tidy up whatever is in the room behind you. Put away the laundry, throw out the stacks of old magazines (or at least chuck them in another room.) Tidy up the messy desk on the other side of the room. A little orderliness will keep the focus of the picture on you.
3) Use Enough Light
The number one reason amateur photos/video look muddy is because there’s not enough light and/or there’s more light on the background than there is on the subject. Basic rule: whatever you want to show, you should put in the light; whatever you don’t want to show, you should put in the shadow
4) Being Closer to the Camera Makes Things Look Bigger
This can be a good thing or a bad thing. Experiment to learn how to maximize you assets!
5 ) Smile!
In 20 years of being an erotic artist, the most consistently sexy thing a person can do is smile. Yes, all the pouty oh-so-sexy can be fun, but the smile is the number 1 go to. An authentic smile shows you’re having fun. A authentic smile shows you *want* to be doing what you’re doing. An authentic smile gives a feeling of consentuality to the images that commercial smut never seems to have.
Keep these things in mind and you can make pics and vids that are dirty fun, not dirty stupid. And if someday in the future someone tries do get down on you for it, you can say “Yeah, that’s me. I’m having sex. And don’t I look good!”
This is what made into the article titled I Spy with My Little Eye:
Want to look good on camera? Erotic filmmaker Tony Comstock shares his top tips:
*Posting sexual material online can be thrilling but there are consequences. remember, once
your picture is on the internet, you can’t control who will see it. start by finding your comfort level and what you do and, more importantly, do not want to reveal.
*You don’t have to spend hours doing your hair and make-up but a few minutes in front of the mirror will help you preen those bits we usually keep hidden.
*Similarly, you don’t have to create a set, but take five minutes to tidy up whatever is in shot. Having things in good order will ensure the focus stays on you.
*The number one reason amateur videos look ‘muddy’ is because there’s either not enough, or there’s too much, background light. Basic rules: put whatever you want to show in the light and whatever you don’t want to show in the shadow.
*Being on camera makes things look bigger – this is either a very good or a very bad thing. Experiment to learn how to maximize your assets.
*Smile! The most consistently sexy thing a person can do is smile. Yes, pouty can be oh-so- sexy, but an authentic smile shows you’re having fun. it also gives a feeling of reality to the images that commercial porn doesn’t have.
It’s a simple fact of life that these sorts of things get edited for length and style, and overall I’m happy with how The Metro distilled what I said (though I do with they had got more of the gist of my primping tips. I was talking about making sure you don’t have spinach in your teeth more than making sure your twat is well-groomed.)
But it doesn’t always turn out this way. Last month I had a go around with a magazine that had given us some great coverage last year, and came back for “tips” on an upcoming sex article. The magazine wanted me to be their “expert” on how couples might move from smoothly from position to position.
My first thought was “no.” I’m a filmmaker, maybe even an expert in making a certain kind of sex film, but I’m no sort of bedroom advisor. But it’s publicity, right? So I reconsidered and decided that after 10+ years of watching people have sex, and ten years of editing loving-making with special attention to “transition continuity” I might have some useful things to say about how to get position to position smoothly. My underlying theme was (big surprise) don’t worry too much about it.
Big mistake.
When the magazine’s fact-checker showed me “my tips”, not only was it like they had been written by someone else in terms of style, most of the tips completely contradicted what I had said. I referred them back to the original text, but to no avail. The upshot was that I got a terse note from the managing editor that they had found a different “expert” to sign off on the article.
Oh well.
Dealing with “the press” can be a funny thing. On one hand, good press coverage is vital to a small company’s success. Good press relation is the marketing budget at a place like Comstock Films. On the otherhand, there is sometimes an odd expectation that the little guy (that would be us) will be willing to do anything to get in a magazine, or get on TV. Often times there’s a strong feeling that the article is already written, or the “documentary” segment is already cut, now there’s just trying to find some faces to put on their preconceptions. (TV people are by far the worst. We’ve had very odd encounters with HBO, the BBC, and the CBC.)
But what good is it to be on TV or in a magazine if the picture they want to paint isn’t you, isn’t your work, isn’t something you’d be proud to put your name on? So you learn to say no. You think about the spike in sales that came with the last bit of national coverage, then you remind yourself that who you are and what you do got you where you are today, and you say no.
Unless it’s the right time to say yes.