FROM THE STUDIO · #02
Locations, outfits, props, special effects, subtitles, multiple performers and huge scripts: every layer of complexity requires time and work. The question isn’t only “can it be done?” but “how much are you willing to invest in doing it properly?”
One of the most interesting things about custom videos is that no two requests are exactly alike.
Sometimes a customer simply has a fetish activity in mind, chooses a performer and gives us a reasonable amount of creative freedom.
Those are often the easiest requests to handle because we can take the essential idea behind the fantasy and adapt it to the performer, the environment, the camera and what we know will actually work on screen.
Other times, something completely different arrives.
An elaborate script. Several outfits. Multiple locations. Indoor and outdoor scenes. Darkness and daylight. Specific props. Unusual objects. Special effects. Dialogue. Subtitles.
Basically, a small movie.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But at that point we have to address a very simple question:
How much are you willing to spend to make it happen?
A cinematic fantasy comes with production costs
We are a small independent production.
Most of our videos are filmed in environments we know and can control. This allows us to produce custom content at accessible prices even when the customer’s budget isn’t enormous.
That doesn’t mean we cannot do something more ambitious.
We can change locations. We can source costumes. We can use props. We can organise different scenes. We can spend more time shooting and even more time in post-production.
But every additional element requires something.
Time.
Organisation.
Equipment.
Preparation.
Editing.
Sometimes travel.
Sometimes purchases.
And therefore money.
The problem begins when someone sends us a request that is essentially a short film and expects to pay the price of a straightforward ten-minute custom.
Those two things simply don’t match.
If you want a simple production, we can try to keep the price simple.
If you want something cinematic, you also need to be prepared for a more expensive production.
You cannot ask for Spielberg with a €100 budget.
The production time the customer never sees
One of the most common mistakes is judging the work involved purely by the final running time.
“The video is fifteen minutes long.”
Yes.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean it took fifteen minutes to produce.
Take a request involving five different outfits.
Every change means stopping, changing clothes, checking the costume, possibly fixing hair and makeup, preparing the scene again and making sure everything is ready before shooting resumes.
If the environment changes as well, objects have to be moved, the set rearranged, lighting adjusted and the camera repositioned.
Five costume changes inside a short video can take longer than the actual footage itself.
What the viewer sees as a simple scene change may represent a significant part of the production.
Two minutes outdoors can cost more than ten minutes indoors
Outdoor shooting is another perfect example.
In the fantasy it’s simple:
“Then they go outside and continue the scene in the park.”
In reality, we have to travel there, bring whatever equipment is needed, find a suitable area, deal with natural light, noise, weather and — most importantly — people constantly walking through the shot.
Some locations are easy to use.
Others aren’t.
And naturally, the more unusual the content, the more important sufficient privacy becomes.
A two-minute outdoor scene can therefore require considerably more work than a much longer indoor one.
That doesn’t mean we can’t do it.
It means those two minutes cannot necessarily cost the same as two minutes filmed in the next room.
More performers means more than another fee
The same applies when more people are involved.
Adding a second performer doesn’t simply mean adding her fee.
We have to find a date that works for everyone, make sure every performer accepts the specific content, coordinate outfits and roles and manage a scene that inevitably becomes more complex.
With three people on screen, the possibilities increase.
But so do the things that can go wrong.
Everyone needs to remain visible. Movements need to be coordinated. One performer must not constantly block what another one is doing.
So “just add another model” isn’t always such a simple addition.
Special effects don’t appear by themselves
The same applies to special effects.
From the viewer’s perspective, an effect might last five seconds.
From the producer’s perspective, those five seconds can mean preparing a scene differently, shooting specific material, repeating it several times and then working on it in post-production.
The more unusual the effect, the more likely it is to require additional time.
And production time is part of the cost of the video.
Sometimes the customer only sees the final result and thinks:
“But it’s only a few seconds.”
It may be only a few seconds on screen.
That doesn’t mean it only took a few seconds to create.
Even subtitles are work
An even simpler example is subtitles.
It can sound like an almost free addition.
We already have the video. Add the text underneath and we’re done.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.
The audio in our videos is usually recorded live during the scene, in a real environment, together with room noise, movement and multiple voices.
Automatic speech recognition can help, but in many situations it isn’t reliable enough to simply press a button and deliver the result.
If a transcript needs to be manually checked and corrected — or almost completely transcribed by hand — that becomes another stage of production.
That’s not a problem.
We can do it.
But it is work.
And work has a cost.
Even a simple prop has to come from somewhere
Another sentence we often hear is:
“We only need this one object.”
Only.
Maybe it’s a particular uniform. A specific pair of shoes. A certain chair. A medical device. A very specific accessory.
If we already own it, perfect.
If we don’t, somebody has to find it.
Then we need to know how much it costs, order it and wait for it to arrive.
And we might be talking about an object that appears for thirty seconds in the final video.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth buying.
But appearing for thirty seconds doesn’t make it free.
Sometimes the problem isn’t the budget. It’s physical reality.
Of course, not everything can be solved simply by spending more money.
Some ideas encounter much more practical problems when they move from imagination into the real world.
The customer imagines a particular arrangement of bodies, a specific position or a precise camera angle.
In his head it works perfectly.
Then we actually try to reproduce it.
And discover that one body blocks what the camera is supposed to see.
Or the position is too uncomfortable to maintain.
Or the requested action makes it physically impossible to place the camera where the customer wants the viewer to be.
This is something people watching videos rarely have to think about.
The camera has to physically exist somewhere.
What we can see with our own eyes while standing in the room is not necessarily what the lens can see.
That’s why we sometimes ask customers to modify a pose or sequence slightly.
Not because we want to change the fantasy.
Because we want to be able to show it.
One continuous take isn’t always the best choice
Sometimes the customer wants an entire sequence filmed as one uninterrupted take.
Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes. Sometimes longer.
That can be an interesting choice.
But it also introduces a very simple risk: the longer an uninterrupted take becomes, the more opportunities there are for something to go wrong.
A line is missed.
A sudden noise.
A problem with a prop.
A position needs adjusting.
Something happens out of sequence.
Then there are two possibilities: leave the mistake in, or start again.
And perhaps the mistake happens eighteen minutes into the take.
Sometimes discreet editing and a few intelligent cuts produce a far more natural and enjoyable video than forcing a scene to remain perfect from beginning to end.
Continuity takes work
Continuity becomes particularly important when a script contains many changes.
The customer imagines a linear story.
The performer enters the room wearing a certain outfit, something happens, she moves somewhere else, picks up an object, returns, changes clothes and so on.
But for practical reasons, we may need to film those scenes in a completely different order.
Perhaps every scene in one room is shot together.
Then we change sets.
Later we return to a scene that, in the story, took place twenty minutes earlier.
Now we need to remember how the hair looked, where a particular object was placed, which part of the outfit had already been removed, how the lighting was set and countless other little details.
The more sets, outfits and props we introduce, the more maintaining perfect continuity becomes genuine work.
Once again, it looks simple on screen precisely because somebody worked to make it look simple.
One good reference can explain more than ten emails
Another common difficulty is simply understanding exactly what the customer is imagining.
Sometimes we receive very detailed descriptions that can still be interpreted in two or three different ways.
In those situations we often ask for a photograph or video reference.
“Show us roughly what you mean.”
A good reference can solve in thirty seconds what might otherwise take ten emails.
But even here, strange things happen.
We ask for a picture to clarify a position and receive something that creates even more questions than we had before.
Or the reference shows the final result but gives absolutely no indication of how the performers are supposed to get into that position.
A reference is useful when it makes an idea clearer.
If it needs a three-page explanation to tell us what we’re supposed to notice in the picture, it probably isn’t doing its job very well.
More information doesn’t always mean more clarity
Then there is the opposite extreme.
Huge scripts.
Some customers send thirty pages of instructions containing dozens or even hundreds of photographs.
In theory, this should be the safest possible way to avoid misunderstandings.
In practice, it can sometimes achieve exactly the opposite.
When every second has an instruction, every movement has three references and every detail is explained five times in slightly different ways, it becomes harder to understand which elements actually matter.
Useful information gets buried underneath information.
A good script doesn’t necessarily have to be short.
A complicated fantasy may genuinely require a complicated explanation.
But there should always be some hierarchy:
This is essential.
This is important.
This would be nice.
This is only a suggestion.
If everything is presented as absolutely essential, eventually nothing really is.
“Just one small extra”
And then there is a phrase anyone working with customs eventually learns very well:
“While we’re at it…”
While we’re at it, let’s add another outfit.
While we’re at it, let’s shoot a short scene outside.
While we’re at it, let’s add a little special effect.
While we’re at it, let’s add subtitles.
While we’re at it, let’s get another camera angle.
Individually, every one of these things can sound minor.
The problem is when there are ten of them.
Ten “five-minute extras” can completely transform a production.
In production, ten small extras are no longer small.
That’s why sometimes a quote changes while we’re discussing the details.
Not because we’ve suddenly decided to charge more for the same video.
Because little by little, we’re no longer talking about the same video.
Tell us what you want to achieve, not only how you think it should be achieved
I think this is one of the most useful rules when ordering a custom.
Tell us clearly what you want to see, and especially what makes that fantasy exciting to you.
Then we can discuss the best way to achieve it.
Perhaps the original idea involves three locations, but we can obtain almost the same result by dressing one location in three different ways.
Perhaps a complicated special effect can be replaced by a clever camera angle.
Perhaps an impossible position can be adjusted by a few centimetres and suddenly works perfectly.
This is exactly where a custom becomes a collaboration.
Money expands the possibilities. It doesn’t remove reality.
There is one final distinction worth making.
A larger budget allows us to do much more.
It allows more production time, more specific props, different locations, more people and more attention in post-production.
But it cannot make absolutely anything possible.
It cannot make a physically impossible position comfortable.
It cannot place a camera somewhere where there is no room for a camera.
It cannot remove a performer’s personal boundaries.
So complexity certainly has a price.
But price doesn’t remove the limits of reality.
So how much does your fantasy cost?
Almost every request starts with one question:
“Can it be done?”
Very often, the answer is:
Yes.
But immediately afterwards comes another question that matters just as much:
How much are you willing to invest in doing it properly?
Because there is a major difference between a fantasy and a production.
In your imagination, you can change location instantly. You can have any costume. You can add any effect. You can place the camera somewhere that doesn’t physically exist.
In reality, every decision requires time, space, people and work.
That doesn’t mean giving up on ambitious fantasies.
It simply means understanding that complexity has a price.
And when the budget is limited, our job isn’t to pretend that limitation doesn’t exist.
It’s to find the best possible way to use that budget while preserving the part of the fantasy that actually matters.
Because there is little point having thirty scenes, five outfits and four locations if somewhere along the way we lose the very thing that excited you in the first place.
Steve Footjobs / DafneFetish