Carter Cruise twitter today saying “Performers get paid a one time fee, then companies want you to promote (for free), resell your pics for ads, & I guess now sell your outfits.”
If you were to listen to this new union, they would have you believe that porn royalties are possible and companies are fucking you by not paying you royalties because those producers are making the big bucks.
But are they?
According to the “union” they are making money hand over fist on cable distribution deals, let alone all the other sources.
But are they?
One fan replied to Carter Cruise’s tweet saying “
@CarterCruise a new studio should come out and offer contracts that give xx% of the money made to the performer(s). Lifetime royalty”
Because yeah that’s so going to happen. But why can’t it happen? Is it even financially possible? Let’s do the math!
Say we are going to produce a 5 scene movie that for our purposes here will be released on DVD. So it’s not just one of those web only things. This is a real deal, DVD with a distribution deal in place.
- Scene 1 – a boy/girl scene: The female performer will get $1,000 and the male will get $500.
- Scene 2 – a boy/girl (anal) scene: The female performer will get $1,400 for doing anal and the male will get $500.
- Scene 3 – a boy/girl/girl scene: Female 1 gets $1k, female 2 gets $1k and the male gets $500.
- Scene 4 – is another boy/girl scene: The female this time is really a big named star and she demands $2,000 to be in this movie. The male gets $500.
- Scene 5 – the last scene is a group sex scene. This scene includes 4 females and 5 males. To help reduce the cost, they hire 4 female newcomers who aren’t really as hot as the other girls so they each only get $900 *4 for the scene and each male gets $500.
Now they have already spent $12,500 on talent alone for this movie (this includes those pesky agent fees). The girl herself might actually make less than stated, depending on what the agent in question charges as a “booking fee.”
Next we have to pay for the director, the production assistant, the photographer for photo stills, the location fee, outfits for girls to wear, sex toys, food for snacks, oils, baby wipes, and last but not least hair and makeup.
That’s another $3,350 added to your budget.
Now your movie is made. Only it has to go to the edit and that is another $800. Plus another $50 or so for music license. Box cover creation is about $1,000 and then another $150 for the trailer. Now you’ve got to create promotional and marketing material for their affiliate program. That is typically another $150 or so.
Now to date you’ve spent $18,000 to make a movie that hasn’t even been released yet. DVD authoring $450. Replication $3,500 (this is the printing of the physical DVDs).
So in all you’ve spent a total of $21,950 to make this 5 scene movie. The scene count is important later on – I’ll explain why when we get into making money on content deals.
Now you have 1,500 physical DVDs. These go to your wholesale distribution company. They will typically sale a new release for $8.
So if they sold every single one of your DVDs you would make $12,000. But now your DVD distribution company will take 30% off of the top for selling them in the first place.
So now you’ve made $8,400 for your movie.
Now we sent the movie over to VOD sites like AEBN. They pay you 25% every time someone downloads your movie. How much will you make? It varies greatly but most people are reporting less than $3,000 over a year.
So now you’ve made $11,400 for your movie.
Now let’s talk about that cable money that the union will have you believe is huge. They will only pay $800 to $1,200. Unlike in Hollywood, cable companies don’t pay production companies residuals every time they play the movie on TV. No, what they do is pay a one time one year licensing fee and then they can play the movie as much as they want for the next year. 90% of movies are not renewed for second or third year.
So now you’ve made $12,600 on a movie. That’s about what you’ve spent on the talent alone to make this movie.
Now what about foreign rights? Certain countries will pay you a flat fee for the right to distribute your movie in their country. What you get from them up front is all you get from them. You don’t get a per unit fee. It’s does vary per country but basically like Mexico will pay you $800 for one year, Germany may give you $1000 while the UK may give you as much as $1,500 if they want your movie and You might get another $1,000 from Spain or $700 from Brazil. Stuff like that.
Long story short, on a decent movie you might get in all about $7,000 on foreign distribution rights.
Now you are at $19,600. But keep in mind, so far you’ve spent $21,950 to make the movie in the first place and to date you haven’t really spent anything on marketing. The only real money you spent on marketing is creating some banners for affiliates and a movie trailers for sites like gamelink.com and adult dvd empire.
You want to spend $4,000 on a fancy ad for your movie, but if you do, are you sure you can make that money back in sales? It’s a risk and you decide not to take it. Instead you ask the talent who stared in the movie to tweet about the movie when it’s released.
Those porn stars who do this are noted and now you know who is easy to work with, so that you can work with them in the future. Girls that bitch about having to tweet about your money they were paid to perform in, don’t get a call back.
Now me, I’m smart. I put it in contract up front. I say, sure I’ll hire you to be in my movie for $XXX but in return you must tweet about my movie a minimum of 5 times over 6 weeks once the movie is released. If a girl doesn’t want to agree to my terms, I simply hire another girl who will. Simple as that.
Now you have made $19,600 on a movie that you spent $21,950 to make. That means to date you are $2,350 in the hole.
Lucky for you, you can put the movie on your studio’s official website and make money on members joining your website to see the movie.
That money isn’t big, a few thousand a month and it includes the rights to watch ALL of your movies, but hey, every little bit helps, right?
So what can you do to make up that $2,350? License it to other websites!
This isn’t big money, but over time it can add up.
When a movie is first released (the first year) it can be licensed for as much as $500 per website, if it’s a decent, not gonzo type movie. So let’s say your friend runs KlubKelli.com. She wants to show your movie to her members. She pays you $500 and that gives her the right to show your movie to her members for three years. Now your other friend runs EroticVideosOnDemand.com. She wants a deal too. That’s another $500 for a three year license deal.
These little deals work out to be on average about $5,000 the first year a movie is released. Not a lot of money, but hey you are now officially out of the red! Your movie has now profited $2,650!
Over time, the value of the movie decreases dramatically and licensing deals go from $500 for all 5 scenes (the whole movie) to being chopped off and discounted off per scene. Per scenes deals can vary between $50 and sometimes if the movie is a few years old – as low a $1 per scene. << Yes, you read that right – $1!
I did a bulk license deal on content for KlubKelli.com and got 1,500 scenes for $.50 a piece! Fifty fucking cents each! So as you can see, after the first year, the value of your movie shit. If you didn’t sell out your entire stock of 1,500 DVDs they are also discounted for about $2 to $3 each.
In terms of VOD, you’ll get a few bucks here and there each month for the first two years but after that you won’t get $100 a year (if that).
So before you start freaking out on those shitty producers asking you to tweet about their movie and making money off of licensing deals and selling your costumes … just remember they aren’t making the big bucks everyone claims they are.
The BIG money is in the long run. When a company builds up a huge content library then sells and gets the fuck out like Vivid did! But there are very few people that can afford to do that anymore and even doing that is a risk.
When the industry took a nose dive in like 2011, companies like Adult Film Star Content swooped in and bought up entire libraries for pennies on the dollar.
So if you ever wondered why you don’t get paid royalties … now you know.
BTW there is a way to make royalty like money on the movies you are in. Talk to @Gamelink and they’ll pay you $$ cold hard cash $$ to promote your movies via twitter. It may not exactly be “royalties” so to speak, but it’s extra money from that movie!
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