TKLMAN said:
Yes. I'm a big boy ... I understand that there are many , many different ways of laughing/reacting when being tickled ... not just one , universal response.
My apologies. I didn't mean to sound rude or patronizing. It's just that there are some people (not you) who are pretty ignorant about such variety, possibly in part due to the various clips and stories posted on the forums. Nothing wrong with it per se, of course, but some act like they know everything about tickling.
Now, I don't pretend to be a tickling expert, far from it. But I have done a large number of tickling shoots and auditions, personally witnessing the reactions of literally hundreds of people. I like to think that I have a good idea of the wide range of reactions people can have. And yet I can still be surprised in some cases. Just because a ticklee laughs in a weird way, or doesn't react much, doesn't mean that she's not ticklish, nor does it mean that she's acting.
TKLMAN said:
If that came off to appear as me questioning your integrity and/or your professional ethics , then I apologize for it sounding that way.
No need to apologize, I didn't take it that way. Like I said, I know you didn't mean any harm. My reaction wasn't aimed at you in particular, anyway. I just can't help but become defensive whenever the notion of faked or forced reactions is brought up when referring to my work. I tend to take it very personally. It doesn't happen very often, but I do get such comments once in a while, and I can't deny that it gets to me me. It's not a big deal in your case, you were just sharing your impressions, which is just fine. But some people are more rude or arrogant about it.
It's something that can annoy me even when the comments are about another producer's material. In some cases I agree that it looks totally fake. But other times I can see that a ticklee just has unique reactions. The model can't help it, the producer can't help it, it's actually totally genuine, but someone calls it fake and is convinced that he/she is right. I have to admit that it's one of my pet peeves. When it happens, I know how the producer must feel, because I know how it is to work with models that don't react exactly the way that some people expect all ticklees to react. I also know how it is when someone claims to know more about your own models than you do.
This is especially frustrating when the person criticizing a clip claims to have a lot of experience and to be able to tell when a model is faking. You (the producer) have talked to the models personally, got into a professional but friendly relationship with them, did some tickling tests, worked with the models for a few hours, maybe even did some of the tickling yourself. You *know* that the models aren't faking and that their reactions are genuine. But this person makes a judgement based on a short clip made up of little bits of footage, and tries to tell you that your models are actually faking. Can you imagine how frustrating that is? Of course, you know for a fact that this "expert" is wrong, which makes you wonder if there is such a thing as a person who can tell real from fake most of the time. I mean, if you know the person is wrong when judging your models, he/she could very well be wrong about the work of other producers, right?
This makes me think of those posts in which someone talk about the various "signs of fakeness". I can't help but roll my eyes at that. For example, I've seen some people claiming that if a ticklee doesn't move her toes when having her feet tickled, she's not ticklish there. Then a bunch of people reply, agreeing with this. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint these people, but even though one might expect the toes to move, it's most definitely not always the case. Oh, several ticklees do react by wiggling and scrunching their toes. It's natural. But many others don't. I don't know why not, it doesn't seem to make much sense, but they just don't. In fact, some very ticklish people barely move at all when tickled. Some are even more or less paralyzed. Like I said, I've seen the reactions of hundreds of people, so I know this is true. So I find it hard to take these such posts seriously. They generalize too much. In reality it's just not that simple.
Sorry about the rant, but it just feels good to vent some steam sometimes, you know? This seemed like a good opportunity.
I also want to be clear that none of this is aimed at you, TKLMAN. I'm commenting in a more general way. This post also serves as an explanation for why I reacted so defensively to your post (even though I realize that I shouldn't have).
I could have sworn the second clip had a girl with blonde hair, buggering hell...whoops too many paint fumes today for me, soz! 
