Czech Weekly Business wrote:X-rated paradise running out of steamBy: Bryn Bailer, 12. 11. 2007,
Not long ago, adult industry players from around the world were referring to the Czech Republic as the new “porn central.” A surplus of willing participants and cheap production facilities particularly gave soft-core and hard-core movie makers the drive they were looking for. But interest in the country’s advantages seems to be waning.
Porn star Neeo was not having a good day. He had just taken the stage—accompanied by music from Karl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and two blondes in matching baby-blue pinafores—for a scheduled live sex show at Prague Erotica Sex 2007, an adult-oriented trade fair. But the Czech actor was not up to the job.
After several unproductive minutes, the blond actor, still simply attired in an open, white bathrobe, finally called it a night, and exited from the stage. His unclothed female companions were left alone under the harsh lights to collect their undergarments so they could also slink away.
The impaired performance at the show, now in its 13th year, was ironically appropriate. When it comes to the adult-entertainment segment of Prague’s film making industry, some suggest the genre has unmistakably lost its appeal. “Like anything in the adult film world, anything good gets imitated until it’s beaten to death and there’s nothing left,” said Paul Fishbein, president of Adult Video News (AVN), a pornographic film industry trade journal. “That is what has happened to the Czech Republic.”
Overexposure
The fall of communism saw American pornographic film producers pour in to take advantage of the so-far unexploited filmmaking territory and talent, Fishbein noted. But location overexposure, as well as business costs rising in line with the expanding economy, has made it less attractive to filmmakers of all stripes.
“All those former communist countries, as they became emerging countries, became grounds for free enterprise,” Fishbein said. “Pornography is part of that. [But] so much product came into the United States that what was special at the beginning—these new beautiful girls from Eastern Europe—is now just another location. That happens.”
Adult entertainment—including pornographic videos, DVDs and magazines; soft-core erotic films and literature; pay-per-view, satellite and cable television programming; paid Internet sex sites; adult-oriented video games and toys; phone sex services; and increasingly, adult mobile phone content—is global in nature, but at least here, it is typically local in production. Despite the lack of accurate data and a virtually untraceable money trail, various organizations try to put numbers to the hazy business. AVN, which has faced some criticism for wildly overestimating its figures, has said that in the U.S. alone, the adult-entertainment industry generates annual sales revenue in excess of $13 billion (Kč 238.2 billion/€ 8.9 billion). It does not try to estimate the international take.
Similarly, no one can really know the worth of the Czech adult market. But industry insiders say that Prague—already losing mainstream film making business to lower-cost studios in Eastern Europe—is no longer the pornography paradise it once was. “It’s not like 10 years ago,” said Tarra White, a 19-year-old Czech porn actress who signed autographs at the trade fair at Výstaviště in Prague 7–Holešovice. “Before, it was maybe a few girls ... now there are a lot, and to be a porn star is really difficult. But still it is a really good business. The money you make in this business, you will never make in normal work. Never,” she said.
By 2005, Prague-based Bohem Production was producing an average of 12 adult-oriented movies each year, with most destined for export to the U.S. and Europe. This year, according to company director Ivana Mattei, the company produced only three.
Worst times ever
The porn industry “is going through the worst crisis ever,” noted a Prague-based industry observer who used to work for U.S.-based pornography producer Intropics Video. “When we started, it was the easiest thing to make money. ... You could make something for $5, and sell it for $30. Now I’m lucky to make $4.”
The salad days for porn in Prague essentially ran from 2000 to 2004, said Oldřich Widman, owner of Prague-based adult-oriented talent agency Dream Entertainment. In the prime times, when the first Czech porn stars were establishing themselves, he was a manager for such notable starlets as Silvia Saint, Daniella Rush and Monica Sweetheart. “The market is changing very quickly,” Widman said, adding that he produced 15 adult films over the last five years, but only two this year and last. “We are surviving, not dying, but it has changed a lot in the last few years.”
Not surprisingly, while backers of the mainstream film industry sound the alarm bell over loss of cinema and commercial productions to Hungary and locations eastward, few can muster up much sympathy for pornographic films. “It doesn’t have any artistic content, and is not part of the film industry for us,” said Ludmila Claussová, director of the Czech Film Commission (CFC), a Prague-based nongovernmental information clearinghouse for filmmakers considering shooting productions here. “No film commission anywhere deals with it,” she added. “I really don’t know how it works—three people with a camera and lights? That’s not a film industry.”
Sex toy tills not ringing
The Erotica Sex trade fair featured around 50 vendors from throughout Europe, in addition to stage entertainment ranging from pole dancing strippers to live sex. It attracted some 10,000 attendees, who each paid Kč 299 to gain entry. The attendance figure was roughly the same as last year’s number, the organizers said.
Some vendors complained that visitors were not exactly snapping up the array of vibrators, dildos, faux-fur-lined handcuffs, inflatable love dolls, specialized videos, edible underwear, breast- and penis-shaped bedroom slippers, erotic tattoos, lotions and various sadomasochistic accoutrements the way they expected.
At least one business that was once a co-sponsor declined to participate. City Realex, which runs the 80-store chain of Erotic City shops nationwide and is planning to enter the Slovak market in December, took a pass on attending. “We [had] a completely different opinion on what the erotica [fair] should be about,” company representative Petr Novotný said in a statement. “We disagreed with the pornographic program. ... There is no need for the general public to watch a live show on the stage.”
The fair this year “was kind of a nightmare because people didn’t spend that much money,” said Widman, who rented space for a promotional booth in the exhibition hall. “Of course, they spent [money] for admission, but it was nothing special.”
Attendees mostly seemed to be middle-age to older men in sweaters and mustaches and slightly greasy hair. Toward the end of the week, the attendees got younger. Some brought girlfriends, whose reactions ranged from mild curiosity to outright irritation at the whole display. Crowds of men queued quietly to get autographs from a bevy of porn actresses stationed at the back of the hall. A black-hooded man, meanwhile, slowly led a topless woman—her body painted in tiger stripes—down the aisles on a leash.
Little corporate action
While corporations have carved up generous slices of the adult-entertainment industry in most parts of the world—resulting in couplings that join sex-show broadcast companies and porn magazines with conventional corporations such as U.S.-based telecom firm AT&T and hotel operator Marriott International—the Czech Republic has not seen much in the way of cross-business pairings yet.
With adult-themed film productions moving eastward to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia, the Czech Republic still could be called the entertainment “gateway to Eastern Europe,” but that is of little comfort to those who welcomed the hiring of local talent, rental of private properties and use of local hotels and restaurants. As before, there are no concrete numbers on that, and because small porn crews can wrap production of a film in a matter of days or weeks—shooting a single sex scene can be completed in as few as four hours—most assume there is not a big economic impact to begin with. But no one knows for sure.
The amount of money it takes to make adult films also varies widely. While a mainstream Hollywood feature film takes months to produce and costs millions, a very basic low-budget porn video can be made for $10,000 or less. When international players like Chicago-based Playboy Enterprises or Los Angeles-based Vivid Entertainment Group spend $100,000 on a single production, it is considered bacchanalian by comparison.
One thing that can be quantified is the money that actors and actresses earn when films crews do come to town. Some operations come from France, Spain and Germany, but the most coveted companies come from the U.S.
When they are here, they are often pleased to find the Czech market offers well-qualified actors, actresses and film crews, said Jana Jurásková, owner of United Modeling, based in the Prague suburb of Roztoky.
“Many big productions are American productions,” Jurásková said. Her talent agency specializes in supplying performers for adult-oriented films. “The Americans like Slavic faces, and Russia, it is a good market too, but only for productions that want to come and shoot new faces. But this other stuff—organizing, lights, good locations—is not possible there.”
A new actress can start out earning, on average, € 400 for vaginal sex. Anal action increases this to € 500, while “D.P.,” or double penetration, secures € 600, Jurásková said. More experienced actresses can command higher prices, into the € 800 range and upwards.
Dream Entertainment’s Widman suggested demands for higher paychecks—and payment in euros, not crowns—has bruised the local pornographic filmmaking industry. Male actors, he said, now earn an average € 500 to € 700 per straight or gay scene.
Some international, adult-themed companies do still see the Czech Republic, especially with its central location and well-established business infrastructure, as a promising market, and not just on the film side. “Penthouse is in the process of setting up a variety of broadcast relationships within the marketplace,” said James Sullivan, chief operating officer for New York-based Penthouse Media Group, which produces and distributes adult videos, and publishes magazines and online projects. “We are also looking to re-establish a relationship on the publishing and licensing front with qualified partners. ... We do in fact see it as a place we should be,” he said.
“It is not a particularly lucrative market at the moment, though in the past we did good business there,” added Gustavo Giner, an international account manager for Private Media Group, a Barcelona, Spain-based company that makes and licenses hardcore pornographic productions to cable operators in Europe, Latin America and the U.S. “Primarily the Czech Republic is interesting for the adult industry because they have a very professional infrastructure in terms of modeling agencies, locations and girls.”
Some local companies also maintain business relationships that were formed during the most active porn production era. Bohem Production, for example, continues to work with Italy-based pornography studios Rocco Siffredi Produzioni, Pink’o Enterprise, and ATV Entertainment.
But strong international corporate relationships are not yet the rule. And it is unclear whether big-name partners will necessarily want to pair up with the Czech Republic’s smaller businesses.
That unpredictability is of real concern to those who make their living entertaining adults in a graphic manner. They are not ready to give it up just yet, though. “We have to believe that it is going to work out,” Widman said. “The market is not as good as it used to be, but we can still pay the bills. Sex will always sell—just like alcohol and cigarettes will.”
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:17 pm
. Interesting read.