WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON WITH THE LAST LAUGH THESE LAST FEW YEARS
My previous series (Last Laugh Ingwaz) was released back in 2013, but I actually didn’t stop working on new videos after that. In fact, over the last few years I’ve done many shoots and accumulated a lot of raw, unreleased footage. I just didn’t release any of it until now. Why? Part of it is fatigue after working on The Last Laugh since 2002. Having a full-time job certainly didn’t help, leaving me with little motivation to work on what’s basically a second job. After a couple years of being somewhat disconnected from the market I also started worrying that The Last Laugh might have lost its relevance or become too outdated, with little demand for more of my videos, leading me to procrastinate like crazy. Then there’s piracy concerns, which can be rather demotivating.
That being said, it’s actually quite stupid of me to have waited for so long before releasing new videos. I mean, working with models costs a fair deal of salary money. So what was I thinking, doing shoot after shoot without selling the footage? It only served to get me deeper in the red for no good reason. Really dumb indeed. Anyway, like I said, I’ve accumulated quite a lot of footage, enough for many new series, and I’ll do my best to release new stuff on a semi-regular basis.
So, what’s new about The Last Laugh? Not that much, really. I feel the content of my videos hasn’t evolved that much over the last four years (although some people might detect some subtle new patterns that I haven’t noticed myself). Same non-nude tickling with a casual, down-to-earth approach. But there are a few aspects of my little business I’d like to go into, here.
CLIP RESOLUTION: STILL 1280x720
The resolution of my new clips will remain 1280x720. I realize this may disappoint some people who were hoping for full HD clips from The Last Laugh. It also means being left behind in terms of technology compared to most other producers. But I have my reasons for this.
My camcorder is HD, but, while it’s decent enough, it’s about 8 years old and is not a high-end professional camera. This, added to the so-so lighting conditions I work with and my lack of formal training, results in a picture quality that’s acceptable but not as good as I’d like it to be. Reducing the resolution makes the final product look somewhat better, at least to my eyes. Some of the video artefacts are less noticeable, and the picture looks a little sharper and crisper than in the original footage. I’m sure some people might still prefer 1920x1080 versions, but I feel it’s important for me to be satisfied with my own work. If I lose some sales due to a lack of full HD versions of my clips on my store, so be it.
FILE FORMAT: MP4
Another technical change, arguably more minor than the previous one, is that I intend to encode all my clips as MP4 files from now on, dropping the WMV format. The latter is fine, but MP4 seems more versatile to me (though I may be wrong about that). I also prefer to avoid cluttering my store with multiple versions of each clip, which is why I chose one standard resolution (1280x720) and one file format (MP4).
MY OLD WEBSITE: CLOSED
Last May I shut down my personal website (
www.thelastlaughinc.com), the one I’d been using since 2002. I came to realize that it just wasn’t relevant anymore. A few years ago it was useful for hosting my preview clips, but since I can now do this directly on my Clips4Sale.com store, the latter is really all I need.
Since I gave up my domain name at the same time I closed my website, I also had to change my email address. From now on I can be reached at: thelastlaughtk@gmail@com
Besides the savings in yearly hosting fees, one thing that I really like about getting rid of my website and domain name is that the "inc" part is gone as well. As some of you may remember, my website's URL was "www.thelastlaughinc.om". Problem is, The Last Laugh was only incorporated for a few months after I created the website. But changing my domain name accordingly was too much trouble, so the "inc" part remained for historical reasons, despite being inaccurate. Not that it was a big deal when people referred to my business as "The Last Laugh Inc.", but that name was incorrect. With my old domain name out of the picture, it's not an issue anymore. It's just "The Last Laugh", now, as it's been from nearly the beginning.
VIDEO PREVIEWS: MANY CURRENTLY MISSING IN ACTION
There’s one consequence of closing my website that I didn’t anticipate, despite it being quite obvious. Like I said, I used to host my video previews there. Well, now they’re gone. On my C4S store, hundreds of clip entries have links to a website that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not a huge deal, but I can’t leave things as is. I’ve already added the previews for a number of my more recent clips on my store, but it will take me some time to work through all of my back catalog and fix everything. My apologies for the inconvenience.
COMBINING MY TWO CLIPS STORES INTO ONE
Many people might not know that in addition to my tickling clip store (
www.clips4sale.com/studio/728) I also have a foot fetish one. Indeed, I’ve produced a fair number of foot fetish clips in the past, and most can currently be found here:
www.clips4sale.com/studio/871
However, the same way I got rid of my old website, I also intend to close my foot fetish store. But before I do that I will transfer all the clips to my main store, thus combining my tickling and foot fetish clips into a single store. Like the preview clips mentioned earlier, this will be a long, gradual process, as I have a lot of clips to move, and it’s tedious work. But eventually I’ll get the job done and I’ll close my second store for good.