Do you have problems with models?

lately, say for the last 3 or 4 months, we have been running ads for models for both solo and video work.

Our ads are very specific, eg. Caucasian Gay men 18 to 25 for adult video work and / or gay adult photo shoots. etc etc etc.

We get a good amount of submissions from guys, but then during follow up we get things like,

1. can i do this with my underwear on?
2. do i have to show full nudity?
3. I don't mind jacking off in your video but i am a virgin and don't want to get fucked until i'm married.
4. fuck you dude, i'm straight

Or, they schedule the shoot, and you go to all the trouble of getting the location ready, getting the props, the other models ready, and then you get a last minute call, or email saying they can't make it.

does anyone else go through these issues with models?

Are advertising incorrectly? Perhaps we are advertising in the wrong places?

any tips on how to reduce this type of response to our ads and get more serious minded replies?

Our experience with local first-time models doing solos is that the flake factor is pretty high, probably 50% or better.

I've heard a lot of different approaches for reducing flakiness; Karl at b-e-d-f-e-l-l-o-w does an interview first, makes it very clear, and then schedules... and his flake rate is lower because of it.

When we used to shoot a lot of solos, we'd talk to the guys on the phone and then usually schedule a time to talk (usually at a Starbucks or something), after which we'd go right to the shoot location. That helped the models calm their nerves, figure out that we weren't creeps, that sort of thing.

Two-ways and multiperson shoots are always a mess with local guys. For whatever reason, until they've worked with you a couple times (and often even then), reliability just doesn't seem to be in the genes for most of these guys.

I don't know what to tell you.

I get many of the same things and it doesn't matter what we write.

Lately for us it has been.

"Can I wear a mask?'
"Whats the girl look like and how much?" (Men looking for a prostitute)
"Give me some references."
"Whats your address? I might drop by next week."
"Can you not show my penis?"
"Can we just swing."
"Can I just be a fluffer. I don't want to be a pornstar."

But my favourite happen 2 weeks ago.
I was advertising for black men. Got an email from a guy that said he was Black and in his early 20s. What showed up was a white guy in his late 40s.

well i have 2 different problems working with models, one, they all want a "practice session" off camera, this happened once, i had a potential model come over and i talked with him for hours about doing a shoot with me, and he was all into it, and we eventually fucked that night...off camera. Well the next day we get in touch with him to workout a time to do the shoot and now he don't wanna do the shoot, he got what he wanted and now he's doine.

the other thing is having models "crush" on me after the fact. again i had a model, this time after we made the movie he wanted to hang out all the time, he wanted to date me, he thought what was done on camera actually meant something between us. I avoid him like the plague now.

hope that helped

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Originally Posted by JoshTucker

well i have 2 different problems working with models, one, they all want a "practice session" off camera, this happened once, i had a potential model come over and i talked with him for hours about doing a shoot with me, and he was all into it, and we eventually fucked that night...off camera. Well the next day we get in touch with him to workout a time to do the shoot and now he don't wanna do the shoot, he got what he wanted and now he's doine.

the other thing is having models "crush" on me after the fact. again i had a model, this time after we made the movie he wanted to hang out all the time, he wanted to date me, he thought what was done on camera actually meant something between us. I avoid him like the plague now.

hope that helped

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This is your recruiting method? I see this juvenile drama all the time among the models themselves, which is why I think it's a good idea to keep the models out of the recruiting process to make it more professional.

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Originally Posted by tombarr

does anyone else go through these issues with models?

Are advertising incorrectly? Perhaps we are advertising in the wrong places?

any tips on how to reduce this type of response to our ads and get more serious minded replies?

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The secret to avoiding headaches like this is to ASSUME THE MODEL ISN''T SERIOUS until he jumps through your hoops to prove he is. We make potential models complete an online questionnaire, submit self pics and do a phone interview before we'll feel comfortable enough with him to invest time and money on him. Sometimes I'll lose a real hottie because of this, and that used to really disappoint me, but after being burned you develop defenses to it and now my attitude is "hey... they need me more than I need them". Convince me you're serious, or I'll assume you're you're just another wannabee flake and move on.

Now that we have been producing for a good period of time, we can easily say that we were the perfect models! Always on time, hard and eager to shoot.
Because of this, we expect a lot of our guys and can say that we treat our guys well.

The BIG problem these days is with drug and alcahol addiction.

One model recently called one day before a shoot to let us know that he was checking himself into de-tox for the weekend! (a weekend!?!?!?) Models on drugs can fuck up a shoot and drunks are no better. We have also had our fair share of no shows and last minute e-mails to let us know of every kind of lame excuse imaginable when the bottom line is that these guys were too hung over to pick up the phone and call.

We've heard it all... and for many new-cummers, it's a game, the fantasy of working in a movie, going through the interview process, "...will I need to deliver at the interview..."..."Work with a mask.." , "...can you edit out the face...", "I use to have abs, can you add them in digitally..."

These days, we research as much as possible to try and get some background on our guys. We generally don't like models that escort because they tend to show up used and spent and like to argue about their pay eg: "I can get paid xx$$ for working half the time, etc. etc..." There are few and rare exceptions in our experience.

This is all part of the business and all the early weeding out will help down the road.

My most recent nightmare was working with a model over a two week period. He showed up for the first shoot with a WeHo, wavy flip do and g-tee.
He, showed up for the second shoot one week later with a shaved head and no goatee! He was a billed as a "pro" with more than 60 flicks under his belt!

I wonder if Alfred Hithcock had these kind of problems!?!?

Finally, in my opinion, it's best to avoid any type of sexual interaction with your potential models, keeping it professional works in the long run.

I would like to add that I don't mean this in a mean-spirited way, or for JT to take this personally. It's just something to think about.

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Originally Posted by citiboyz

This is your recruiting method? I see this juvenile drama all the time among the models themselves, which is why I think it's a good idea to keep the models out of the recruiting process to make it more professional.

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Originally Posted by citiboyz

This is your recruiting method? I see this juvenile drama all the time among the models themselves, which is why I think it's a good idea to keep the models out of the recruiting process to make it more professional.

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that's why i don't do it anymore

The most important thing is to make things as professional as possible.

Forms, clinical terms (don't say "jack off" say "Masturbate to ejaculation"), and phone interviews. you need photos. You NEVER fuck the model no matter how hot you think they are, no matter how much they might want to.

anyone who hums and has about anything isn't serious and isn't going to show. If they're hung over or look like they're tweaking in the interview, they're probably not going to show and they're gonna perform badly if they do.

No, you cannot wear a mask, yes, you have to show your cock (it's porn for fuck's sake), yes, your friends are going to see it. Yes, you have to have a good body, and no, you cannot be the fluffer.

There's a guy who calls almost every night and leaves a message on the ansering machine asking if he can be the fluffer. I finally called him back, told him to stay away from the phone when he was drunk and horny and that nobody uses fluffers anymore. He still calls, mind you, but it's now just kinda funny.

Anyone who expresses a fear that their family is going to find out probably won't show, and if they do, they'll be calling you a week after it goes up begging you to take it down.

The best bet, I've found, is to not recruit yourself, but to hire someone specifically for the purpose. It gives the whole thing a professional feel, that the guys are more likely to take things seriously.

First time models are flakes...no matter what part of the country your in! My favorite is when you advertise for guys 18-25 and you have a guy that is 45 years old trying to apply and then they tell you "but I look 21!" (yeah! and I'm the pope!).

What seems to work with us is that you should get into the practice of making sure you recieve a picture and contact information from the potential model first, then set up a phone interview with that particular talent, in the phone interview we ask if they have experience or not. If they say they have experience, we ask them which studios have they worked for before and we kind of feel out there mood on the phone. Once we feel that the phone interview went well, we schedule them into our office for a interview. Make sure that you stay and keep professional when interviewing them on the phone and meeting them for the first time in person. When you schedule a time for the interview, you must call them back that morning and remind them they have an interview. If you don't call them back 9-10 times they will never show up for the interview (phone and email communication is the key) if they don't answer the phone or you leave a message and you don't get a confirmation this means they have changed there minds and decided NOT to do the inteview and are not interested in filming. This saves you time and the inconveinance that a potential model "flaked" on you. We know the model is series when we call them back to confirm there interview, they answer the phone, confirm directions and time and then 9-10 times they show up and we end up using that model.

There are always going to be "flakes" there is always going to be the persons that requests "masks" or "never shows up" or "thinks they look 21 when they are really 45 and really look 55". Its part of the business and with time you develop a thick skin for this type of situation.

Our problem here in South Florida is we either have a "dry spell" and NO models apply or all the ugly ones only apply or its "Feast" we get the hottest models applying all at once. We don't get a steady flow of models interviewing.

Regards,
David

I get the same problem here with applicants for our webcam houses, we use a 25 question questionaire which helps weed out teh flakes, someone who fills it out fully wil have spent at least 30-45 mins on it and will hopefully show they are somewhat serious. Even so we get a lot of people who then dont call us back , if we do talk to them we normally spend about an hour on the phone with them , then if we scredule a 3 day interview at the house so we get to see them and they get to see us. probally 60 - 70 % of people scedule then dont show up.

of course we are offering them a 6 months contract so we have to check them out thoughrally.

hey, i'm shooting NON-nude and still have problems.

some guys don't show up, which i hate because i'm renting a studio by the hour. no big deal but it gets worse fast!

i have guys who answer my ad for muscular men, and they send pics of when they were bodybuilders, only when they show up, they're literally 40 pounds lighter. one guy was actually skinny. another was fat - not fat over muscle, but just fat and no muscle.

then there was a guy who wouldn't wear speedos or posing trunks because they made him "look gay" - like any bodybuilding or 4women mag wouldn't also have him pose in something tight. or the two different guys who showed up after my extensive "what to wear" email without any shorts of any kind, and one of them has superb lower body devopment which i saw when i first approached him at the gym so it made no sense.

one guy came all the way to the shoot to let us know he was afraid to model in case the pics got out. considering that this is a non nude site with no sexual language, i couldn't see the problem, but i don't want to convince anyone to do anything that makes them uncomfortable.

models - they drive ya nutz, but without them you have no site.

A lot of things here sound familiar.

My problems with models pretty much ended when

A) I got an office

B) I hired 3 girls to work in my office that do their job extremely well.

To reiterate other points that eliminated 95% of problems for me:

1) Keep things professional. Nothing turns a model off more then a guy salivating while they answer questions about what they'll do in videos.

2) over schedule your shoots. If they all show.. someone will have to wait, or join in another video, that's just the way it is. Better them then you. (as far as waiting) :-)

3) Keep communication open leading up to shoots, the day of the shoot, and after the shoot.

4) If you don't over schedule have a backup model you can rely on. It's better to have more content of the same model then lose time/money on a location with no model to shoot.

Tombarr... You might be experiencing what I experienced a while back here in Australia... your local competition trying to fuck with your business by sending their guys in and scheduling appointments to not show up. Believe it or not there are people in our business who think there aren't enough hot men to go around and will goto extremes to fuck with your business... but follow the above steps and you'll be removed from that stress. :pimp:

No one has mentioned the problem of over estimation of dick size. We were shooting solo guys for a big dick site. I was amazed that at the number of guys who lied about the size of their dicks. We were looking for anything over seven inches. I just didn't understand the lying. I mean guy, you gotta take it out and show it to us when you get here.

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Originally Posted by basement

No one has mentioned the problem of over estimation of dick size. We were shooting solo guys for a big dick site. I was amazed that at the number of guys who lied about the size of their dicks. We were looking for anything over seven inches. I just didn't understand the lying. I mean guy, you gotta take it out and show it to us when you get here.

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They're probably deluded about how hot they are and they think, "He'll be blinded by how attractive I am and forget about my dick size completely!"

I tried to get a photo shoot off the ground last year for a Web site I was looking into launching just before I got the call to join AVN Online. I had a buddy of mine all lined up to do the shoot, and when I called him to confirm, I got a message and he never called me back, even when I left a second message. Now every time I see him and he says, "I totally wanna do that shoot," I just change the subject and talk about something else, or I excuse myself completely.

I'm pretty much the same way with friends as well. If you flake on me and you don't call or have a valid excuse, I write you off and have no more need for you. As I get older, it becomes SOOOO much easier to lose the drama and let go of flaky people.

I always say, "Flakes are for cereal, not relationships or business."

Too True.

Happens all the time, unfortunately.

Of course, I've been guilty of flaking myself, but I always have a valid reason to do so and always give plenty of notice.

er.. almost always.

the point is, I think, that too many people assume that porn is this half-assed thing with no quality control and no one actually giving a shit about anything.

Which, in some cases is true.

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Originally Posted by Jasun

the point is, I think, that too many people assume that porn is this half-assed thing with no quality control and no one actually giving a shit about anything. Which, in some cases is true.

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You'd be right about that. Unfortunately, we probably perpetuate many of the bad stereotypes about porn in some of the content we put out. Not all of it screams of originality or even passion. I truly think that there is more to porn than showing people having sex on film, but I don't think a lot of content producers get that. For a lot of them, it's just money in the bank, and I'm a little disheartened by that mentality.

I think of porn as socially relevant content created for the purpose of promoting healthy values and ideas about gay sexuality throughout the community, not just something to get off to. I truly think that shows in the work of the directors who hold that same mentality. A few readily come to mind: Joe Gage, who continues to make excellent movies for Titan; Wash West, who truly gets that the best sex is based in intellectual stimulation over physical stimulation; and Jett Blakk, who has such a great sense of humor and artistry when it comes to porn. I think these three guys are really helping to change the way that people make porn. At least I hope they are.

I think that having directors and content producers who have a very specific mission and a creative vision are the ones who really get their models enthused and who help keep them in line. And it's the ones who think of their content as more than "just sex" and/or "just porn" who also help promote a sense of professionalism and respect for each other's time in this business. You can tell when you meet some directors that they really couldn't care less whether it was Brad Benton or Jason Ridge in their movies. They think of the models as expendable and replaceable, which doesn't promote any kind of loyalty on the part of the models at all.

So yeah, you're right. A lot of the times it's not so much the models, but the producers who create the problems with models.

I've actually built into our annual budget the waste involved with models. Last year I believe I bought plane tickets for perhaps 4 or 5 guys who failed to show. They also didn't bother to call to cancel. I've decided it is part of the cost of working with a younger crowd who, well, are young.

Another cost you need to build in, in addition to wasted airfare, is booking more guys than you may need for a scene. I learned that the hard way when I flew 2 guys to a scene last year and only one showed. As we were in the middle of nowhere, finding a replacement on such short notice was impossible. So I paid the guy who showed and that was that.

What I personally think would be very helpful to producers such as ourselves: a message board where we can post -- for our eyes only -- our experiences with guys. Spot the flakes this way by essentially creating a database of flakes. Much in the same way male4malescorts.com has created a database of no-show escorts, we could do the same for models we were with (or wanted to work with, at least). I'm sure many of us would be reluctant to share the good news about great new models we've discovered, but that isn't always the case. Even if such a database were limited to only listing the flakes, it would be worth it. Imagine if we could tell a model I'm putting you on the black list and you'll never work in this industry again!

yeah, but you never know for sure. i shot a model who kept in communication, showed up early, and had a great attitude. another photographer told me the same guy was surly and didn't show.

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Originally Posted by Cruisemaster

What I personally think would be very helpful to producers such as ourselves: a message board where we can post -- for our eyes only -- our experiences with guys. Spot the flakes this way by essentially creating a database of flakes. ... Imagine if we could tell a model I'm putting you on the black list and you'll never work in this industry again!

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We'd certainly be game for participating. Our flake factor is pretty low now, but we had one who ACTUALLY FLEW TO THE SHOOT and then refused to work with us. This after having gone over in explicit detail everything that was expected of him and getting his complete agreement.

His position was "Well, I'm only 20, I can change my mind... people change majors in college, this is no different"... our response was "Sure, you can change your mind, but now you owe us for the ticket, our time, etc..."

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Originally Posted by boyfunk

His position was "Well, I'm only 20, I can change my mind... people change majors in college, this is no different"... our response was "Sure, you can change your mind, but now you owe us for the ticket, our time, etc..."

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Did he ever pay you?

i'm betting against it ;)

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Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude

Did he ever pay you?

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Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude

Did he ever pay you?

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Court judgement -- he signed an agreement promising to pay for the ticket, and an administrative cost before he left, and agreeing that california was venue if we had to go to court -- and I've historically been really good about collecting judgements.

Given the court-imposed interest rate, it's not a bad thing to let it "mature" for a couple years until the guy is real (has a real job) and either contacts us because he wants to buy a house or car, or we contact his employer and garnish wages... doesn't make sense to do that while he's working at Starbucks, 'cause he'll just quit and go somewhere else, so we just wait until the guy has probably forgotten about it. In the past when I've had to do this sort of thing, it's pretty much 100% recovery, and the interest generally makes it worth the wait. Takes a little time, but with the Internet, it's surprising how easy it is.

We feel very strongly that treating people fairly -- on both sides of the equasion -- is the right thing to do, so we do use small claims when necessary.

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Originally Posted by boyfunk

Court judgement -- he signed an agreement promising to pay for the ticket, and an administrative cost before he left, and agreeing that california was venue if we had to go to court -- and I've historically been really good about collecting judgements.

Given the court-imposed interest rate, it's not a bad thing to let it "mature" for a couple years until the guy is real (has a real job) and either contacts us because he wants to buy a house or car, or we contact his employer and garnish wages...

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You have a docket number on that case?

I'd like to see the ruling and judges comments

Thanks in advance

It was small claims. In California, unfortunately, you don't get much in the way of "satisfaction" from the judge... you get a preprinted form where the judge marks "judgement for the plaintiff" in a check box and signs it and puts the amount. But I can dig up the file if you're really interested.

Also, keep in mind this was a written agreement signed by both parties stipulating why the agreement to pay was made, terms for payment, and resolution procedures if the terms weren't met, so it was really open-and-shut, there was nothing to contest. I think it would have been a little more "wiggle room" for the defendant if it had been a faxed agreement, or he wasn't physically there when he signed the thing.

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Originally Posted by basement

No one has mentioned the problem of over estimation of dick size. We were shooting solo guys for a big dick site. I was amazed that at the number of guys who lied about the size of their dicks.

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LOL we had that problem when we were looking for DILF models the other thing we ran in to was during the auditions, a couple of the guys didnt want to get their dicks out, i mean, whats that about? You want to do a porn shoot but, when asked to show your goods you refuse?!?

Needless to say, they never got a job LOL

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by JoshTucker

well i have 2 different problems working with models, one, they all want a "practice session" off camera,

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Well stud, I'd want a 'session' too, if we ever met!! :thumbsup: :cute: :kiss: