What is wrong with Catharsis videos?

[Peter]

Ok, so they are not 'all bad'. I like the fact that they are explicit, virtually all of them do not leave much to the imagination. But what is so lame about them is that as explicit as they are, there is never any sex, not even when it would be obvious that there should be! I mean there are whole series of videos where a naked girl is 'riding' a guy, obviously it's meant to imply that it's during sex, and the guy is wearing shorts! I mean what's up with that? How lame can you get?

And what is with that same floor and black curtains in video after video. I mean yes, it's nice to look at pretty naked girls getting killed, but they are always on that same hardwood floor in front of the same black curtains. Once or twice is fine maybe, but 'all the time'?

Some of the videos are too dark. A lot of the videos are too quiet. And there is never any music. Other producers put in music, why can't you?

And yes, I like to look at pretty naked girls as much as the next guy, but in Catharsis videos they almost always start out naked right at the start and we have to wonder, "why is she naked"? Can't you dress up your girls a bit, create a bit of a lead in so as to set the context for the scene, have a bit of dialog to set up the character, etc.?

All your videos are simply; look at pretty naked girl, see her get killed, watch her squirm, get a few shots of her laying there dead, end of scene. Can't you spice that up a bit? Create some variety?

What are your thoughts people? What is wrong with Catharsis videos? Maybe we can get that lackard, Peter, to explain himself if we give him enough grief.

[Max5s]

Peter,

I'm not sure what you are really driving at here. You have explained why you do all of those things mentioned above several times over the years, so unless you plan on changing your technique, sets, etc. I'm not really sure what to say.

All I can really say at this point is I hope you stay away from porn and keep the sexual content in the Rated R range, if the scene calls for intimacy. Story telling and plots seem to fade into insignificance as soon as explicit sex enters the picture.

[Dalila di Capri]

Actually I think Peter is trying to say that perhaps we could all stand to be a bit more self critical about our work, instead of strutting around like we are all a bunch of Cecil B DeMilles making grand masterpices.

I just asked Peter for a candid private review of one of my films.

He made some very astute observations that I am taking to heart.

I will try to make improvements and do better on some elements of making this kind of film than I did last time.

That is what a mature producer should do.

The "I'm always great no matter what" attitude we see from some around here is inappropriate considering that we are all super low budget producers.

Sometimes I make poor films. I don't set out to do that, but sometimes it happens.

I think that Peter's tongue in cheek self critical review is a breath of fresh air.

Baci

(Edited to fix typos)

[Nyghtfall]

All I can say is continue sticking to your principles. Believe it or not, your fans appreciate it; and while I'm not one of them, I applaud you for your efforts.

As of last December, I've supported EWP for a solid year with a recurring monthly membership, giving them over $400 of my hard-earned money because they refuse to cater to popular demand by adding porn to their content. Every week, it's the same routine:

Masked villain (my favorite kind) strangles, hangs or suffocates a beautiful woman clad in skirt, heels, and hose. She usually starts off fully clothed, and if she's not completely naked by the end, she's at least disheveled.

I love that.

[Dalila di Capri]

That is an interesting point Matthew,

I have a customer from the Middle East who has very specific tastes:

Belly only material:
Guttings whenever possible
No sex because he wants to imagine himself as my lover, not the guy in the film
Clothed is better than nude

Last fall he bought my entire archive of clothed films, so just as you did he supported his favorite producer on his own terms.

It's good for a producer to not get stuck in a rut, but sometimes we can try to please too many tastes at once.

baci

[kevin67]

Gee ,that is quite a harsh self evaluation. I always thought that variety is the spice of life, but change for the sake of change is no good either.

Hollywood has been making formula movies for years. Consider the typical 1940's musical. The small town girl comes to the big city, and somehow lands a small part in a show. Somewhere along the way she falls in love with the producer or some other male. Then all of a sudden the star of the show leaves the show two days before the opening. The star is replaced by the small town girl and the show is not only saved, but is a smash hit.

Even today, the romantic story or the romantic comedy stories look like they have been pressed out of cookie dough.Boy meets girl , boy and girl fall in love. Then, they have some kind of argument and separate, only to realize that they cannot do without each other.

My point is that people , including myself, still pay to see these movies because they like them. If your videos and pictures are successful and still selling, why change it?

[Tkiller]

Peter...
your videos may all have the same back drop, a lot of the same action, or actresses, but they are different than what others are making and I think that is alright. I have purchased quite a few of your videos and enjoy them as they are. I like most of your actresses a lot. You can spice them up a bit, but don't lose that style.

[denis]

I was a member of catharsis and I is not to renew my subscription because it nor has no change. Always the same parquet the same curtain. I do not say which are bad. But quant you saw it one videos you saw it .toujours 150 the same subject. It is necessary to like
denis

[Peter]

There, you see? Someone agrees with me. It doesn't matter if it's an amazon sword fight, a rope strangle from the rear, a cat fight that ends with a face to face throttle, a human sacrifice scene, a gunfight with lots of bullets, it all happens on a hardwood floor and with a black curtain in the background, so it's all the same!

(And as absurd as it may seem, this fellow voted with his pocket book and did not resubscribe, because to him it 'was' all the same.)

And to respond to the OP...

I don't pay my ladies enough for hardcore, and my kind of scenes would be illegal where I live if I included hardcore. Plus, the extra pay might well require me to charge more.

The black curtained stage was the result of needing to produce quickly and inexpensively. At my peak I was producing 15 scenes a week. Doing that with major set changes would have been impossible. And again, the ease of sets has kept my prices down.

Dark and quiet are legit gripes for much of my earlier work, as I have had a long learning curve. The lack of music is that you really have to know what you are doing for music to work in a scene. Dalila knows what she is doing and it works for her. Most producers don't and it detracts from their quality in my opinion. I would rather not include it if I can't do it well.

The 'all nude, all the time' while not strictly true, is again largely the result of time and budget pressures. I pay my ladies by the hour. Having them play dress up uses a lot of time. (Have you never waited for a woman to get dressed?) Then it takes extra time to shoot as one tries to work in a reason to get 'flashes', and then more time (and cost) to do cleanup. Keeping them nude significantly speeds up production, allowing me to produce a lot more for less, again translating into lower prices.

Dialog, lead in to create context and all is very nice. And very expensive. It can take a 'lot' of shooting time to get all those extra shots, and most viewers will simply fast forward through it anyway to get to the 'good parts'. I would rather just shoot the good parts. It is faster to shoot, faster to edit, and that means again, lower prices.

Every producer has different situations they have to work with, different pressures, different resources, different talents. The result is that everyone is better at some things and perhaps weaker in others. Their weaknesses do not necessarily make them bad, nor does some other producer's inability to replicate another producer's strength necessarily make them bad either. I expect any producer that has been in this business for many years is fully committed to doing as good a job as they can with their resources. Sometimes the results they get are not sufficient to meet the desires of certain audiences. But they all find their audiences, or they wouldn't have been in the business for years.

[slasherdude9999]

If it ain't broke don't fix it :P I've never had any problem with any of your videos, Peter.

[bellystabs]

And your "Bellytabs" movie is still the only custom I have ever had produced. Guess what I watched again last night, and will watch again tonight, and many more times in the future?

But now I have a complaint: I saw a tub scene for sale on Nicheclips. How dare you deprive me of the black curtain and the wooden floor!

[Peter]

"It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease."

I take my fans, the ones who actually 'like' my work, for granted.

[Peter]

* Kidding of course.*