Even if we give you the full benefit of the doubt that you never coach models or tell them how to react, it does not mean a model is not using her own initiative to appear more ticklish, knowing that it could lead to potentially more money in the future. In fact a producer stated in this thread he caught a model exaggerating her ticklishness, so obviously it does happen.
The key point being that he
caught a model exaggerating. As I've mentioned, I've very occasionally caught models doing the same and have chosen not to release clips as a result. If you shoot thousands of clips you will encounter all sorts of crap but in my own experience, the vast majority of models don't try to fake it and those that do are easy for a producer to spot. I'll give you some details of the way things work in my own case, to provide some more context (you can feel free not to believe me of course)
My shoots are generally around four hours in duration, and I will typically shoot less than one hour of actual tickling in the whole of that time. Outside of that, I am still with the model throughout pretty much the whole shoot and most of that time is spent with relaxed chit-chat, drinking coffee, joking around etc. Throughout the shoot I have
plenty of time to discuss what I need (i.e. real reactions), to put the model at ease and to gauge their personality. One commonly held idea seems to be that the model answers an ad, arrives at the studio a little nervous, gets tied up and tickled, tries really hard to impress the producer then gets paid and runs out of the door having made a lucky escape. It really doesn't work like that in my experience.
On the shoot, I discuss and explain things at length with every new model so that they have a very good understanding of how it all works before we start filming. The simple instructions that I give to every new model are as follows:
1) I ask them
not to look into the camera once we start filming (with the exception of an introductory shot that I normally do). This is because it's distracting for the viewer (i.e. breaks the fourth wall) and because it makes some viewers assume that the clip is fake (sound familiar?) Models very often worry about looking 'ugly' when laughing and if a camera monitor is in eye-shot it's really hard
not to glance at it, so I have to push this home.
2) I tell them to let me know if anything is painful, uncomfortable (i.e. hands/arms/legs going numb, shoulder pains etc), or if they really need a break for any reason.
3) I tell them not to worry about their reactions, be themselves and react however they feel, provided it is real. I always tell them not to force anything and not to worry if they don't laugh very much. If they scream, swear or whatever it is all fine too. I have reinforced windows and the neighbours aren't really an issue for me.
Many first time models really do worry about how they will react. Some worry that they will be too loud or won't be able to cope, whilst others worry that they suddenly won't be ticklish at all or they won't react enough. All of these things do happen sometimes (not every shoot works out) but if the model is overly tense from the start, then it is more likely that they won't feel as ticklish or react as much. Anxiety/tension has a huge effect on reactions to tickling and it's the reason why so many shoots get better after the first scene (i.e. the model relaxes)
The thing is most new models worried about not being ticklish enough will actually
ask whether they should fake it. I always tell them no, as real reactions are way more important to me. If they're not ticklish enough, we just shoot some foot stuff instead (I even re-book models that aren't ticklish to shoot non-tickling content) At the end of the day, it's just a really simple, open conversation between model and producer...it wouldn't make sense for models to keep trying to exaggerate for no reason as it would just be weird. In the cases where faking/exaggerating does happen, you can be pretty sure the producers are very aware of it and don't care, since it's part of the plot.