Expert: Charles Taylor - 4/25/2007

Question
Dear Charles,

Congratulations on your work with allexperts.com - I found it today and you are probably the only person in the world who is willing and able to answer the inevitable and yet almost universally ignored queries that are asked about the adult film industry.
I am from New Zealand but i have been in the UK for 22 years and I worked for the BBC on wildlife documentaries before turning freelance.  
Nowadays I have my own stock footage library and still shoot mostly on film but must make the move to HD soon, I think.
Like many of the people whose questions you have answered, I have made several attempts at working in the porn industry, as a cameraman or director, and like so many others, have found it a closed shop.  I sent my CV and a showreel to Private, a big European porn producer - and received no reply.  
I tried to contact Ben Dover, one of Britains best known porn film makers and on his website there is not even an email address, let alone a phone no. or street address.
Any enquiries to the USA via email are completely ignored, even though I have a credible CV and my enquiries are lucid and serious.
I guess the problem is oversupply but I, unlike most of the other people, am not wanting to be a 'porn star', just to be a part of the production process.
I feel that people like me who have not inconsiderable skills in film making could be useful to a production company - do you remember those UltimatePictures/Cameron Grant masterpieces like Erotic visions and The Dinner Party?  These films were made by highly skilled professionals and boy, does it show!
I wonder if you may know of someone in a production company to whom I could write directly in the USA and possibly send my showreel and resume.  Surely there are some people who want to actively recruit serious, talented production staff?
I hope you'll carry on your valuable work at allexperts.
Yours sincerely

Answer
I may have fielded this on before but I think I can go over it again...So yes and no...the adult industry is a "mysterious" one indeed.....unless you are a 18-23 year old hottie wanting to get fucked on camera....then somehow instantaneously all doors will be open immediately. But then again that’s what sells...its just product. But back to the real question at hand. From my vast resources out in LA LA land they tell me that most of the more professional crews (AKA, Vivid or Wicked) come from the legit side of cinema...yes ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX as far as networks and studios such as Sony, Paramount, Sony, MGM, Time/Warner, Etc...what happens is that they aren’t working enough over at X "legit" studio that much and they get a side job a Y "porn" production company to pay the bills...sorta like the various stories of the multitudes of women coming out to LA to become the next Meryl Streep and end up becoming another Jenna Jameson clone...not cause they actually wanted to do porn....it was only what was available to pay that fucking landlord who kept coming around insisting that he get paid this rent thing. So you now have two avenues to go...check out the "legit" studios...with an impressive resume that you have you will get work fairly easily and then move over into the adult side or just move to LA, go to AVN and either ask who is hiring or buy the big book of industry contacts and start kicking down doors looking for that dream job.]

Big book link-

http://www.avnid.com