LOL - I totally did not intend to hijack this thread, even though there isn't much more to say on the original topic. I'll keep this short.
(Mustang, I'll PM you in a moment with my recommendations.)
There are a couple of things as a producer that I absolutely will not do. I realize this will probably hurt my business in the long run, but that's just the way it is. I will not do nudity, I will not do roleplaying, and most importantly, I will not mislead anyone, client or model.
And on that last note, while I don't know Mike the Tickler's work personally, I will caution you all to take anything a producer says about how he got a model to work with him or the circumstances under which a video is shot with a huge grain of salt, because I know for a fact that some of them lie, either to the girls about the purpose of the video (that's why they get them so cheap; the girls don't know they're doing foot porn) or to you about how they hired her (she's not a rando off the street doing it because she loves to show off her feet; he slipped her a twenty before hitting Record). Also, I'd be surprised if a lot of these guys filming "girls on the street" are collecting IDs and filling out their 2257s for all of these clips. It's a felony if they don't, but they're generally not going to get caught unless someone files a complaint. Also, some of these guys are just super-creepy; you can see it on the video. Sometimes it looks like the girl never consented to the guy touching them but they're willing to play along because the camera's rolling. Are they squirming and laughing nervously? Dead giveaway, but the guy's never going to see her again so what does he care as long as he got his footage (and jollies)? Me, I'm trying to build professional relationships with these women so that they're not only comfortable with coming back, but they WANT to because they had fun.
Anyway, what GQ said about price points is spot on; most of my sales are on my $5-$10 videos, although some of Catherine's more expensive stuff sold fairly early on. It's also spot on with regards to models; there's a price point below which the girls simply won't bother with you, and the more they're willing to do, the more money they'll ask for because they know what they're worth. It's why I don't work with professional fetish models (Barbie was an exception; I didn't know she'd modeled for FM Concepts until we chatted after the shoot); they charge hundreds of dollars an hour.
And speaking of that, these girls charge by the hour, so it's pretty much a given that unless you rush, a shoot will take more than an hour. Some of them even expect a minimum shoot time (one girl answered my ad and demanded at least two hours' work). You'd be surprised how much time gets eaten up just by adjusting the camera to frame the shot right.
Finally, while I like amateurs as much as the next guy (Valerie was one), the pros are often just better on camera. The amateur girls get nervous, look at the camera, or simply aren't good to work with for various reasons. This isn't always the case, but I've had the best luck with professional models who don't normally do fetish work.
Anyway, TL;DR - it's a much more complicated business than people give it credit for. Especially if you don't simply want to do the same thing everyone else is doing.
