Porn Valley – Dave Pounder – www.davepounder.com – was on the Sports Swami show Friday. Pounder has just started his own production company. “Being successful in this business isn’t really in the volume of the scenes that you do,” said Pounder explaining his reasons for becoming his own man and working for himself.
Pounder: “If you look at people like Traci Lords and Jenna Jameson, these people are huge names in the adult business but they haven’t really done all that many scenes. Most of that has been marketing that has been done by the companies. Jenna is who she is because of Joy King who was the p.r. person over at Wicked who had promoted her and got her on Howard Stern and other appearances. Jenna has done less that 200 movies and is a multi-millionaire because she’s marketed herself and making money in product endorsements. There’s a lot more ways to make money in this business aside from doing scenes.”
As a male performer, Pounder said he might make $400 doing a gonzo and $600 for a feature. “That’s kind of standard for people that are established in this business. The girls rates are higher.” Pounder noted that if you did a scene for a company live VCA, they might sell a few thousand pieces besides comps but you won’t make any more money. “It’s not like you have some kind of an equity cut like these mainstream actors do,” he said. “The money in adult is getting product endorsements and getting a percentage of what’s made.”
Pounder also noted that more and more people with professional business backgrounds are getting into the adult business. “Effectively that’s going to drive away all of the people who really don’t know what they’re doing.” Pounder doesn’t see one type of performer having advantage over another. “Everybody has a marketable niche. If you’re an older girl you’re pretty much limited to the MILF niche and nothing else but the MILF niche is getting bigger. I think there’s a market for everything. It’s just you need to market yourself well and try to establish relationships with producers to make it that big.” Pounder said Kurt Lockwood- kurtlockwood.com- is also very good at marketing himself. “It’s developing relationships and following up on relationships in a professional capacity.”
Pounder said he got into the adult business via the swingers world. “I was doing this one girl in this room and there was a bunch of people watching me. A buddy, Adam Wood who is a production manager for Wildlife, said hey, you should do porno. I said why should I do porno. He was, like, because you can maintain an erection with all these people around. He got me a scene with Wildlife and I networked on set and kept following up. I got established that way. You got to keep plugging away and never give up and just keep punching no matter what happens.”
Asked how much the Internet was contributing to his success, Pounder said he was using his website as his mainstream/porn marketing resume. “I get back to the Jenna-thing. She blew up because of the p.r. in the mainstream.” Pounder says from his observations that other girls who enjoyed that kind of success did so because they were under contract and had a lot of marketing power behind them.
“No one’s contracting these guys under an exclusive basis but they’re starting to. T.T. Boy’s company just signed three guys to one year exclusive contracts but that’s more for performance. They’re not actually going to market them and try to give them some kind of personality in the mainstream. I think a reason for that is a lot of guys in the business do lack charisma.” For his part, Pounder says he plays an angle that he’s the having-fun, educated porn guy and communicating it in a non-threatening manner.
“If you can build a personality around a guy that’s funny, what happens is the porn viewer builds an affiliation with that guy,” Pounder goes on to say. “That guy becomes their friend and they go to the store to buy that guy’s movies because they want to see their buddy hook up with these girls.”
Pounder said when he was watching porn in college he’d go to the store and ask for Randy West movies. “Randy West always had hot chicks but I rented it because Randy West is hilarious and makes funny comments. I was buying the movies for Randy knowing that the hot chicks were going to be in there.” Pounder’s belief is that Internet sites which are doing well are developed around a character. “MILF Hunter is developed around this guy who’s this personality who hooks up with girls. People go to the site to see him. Otherwise there’s no competitive difference in porn. Everyone’s shooting hot girls. Everyone’s shooting the same girls that aren’t under contract,” he says.
“Everybody’s interested in adult content and the porn industry but they don’t want to be offended,” Pounder believes. “There’s so much money to be made if you present it effectively and that’s where I think I come in.” It’s also Pounder’s opinion that extreme hardcore [ass-to-mouth, double-anal] is only appealing to a small sub-section of the hardcore porn population. Whereas, Pounder says he’s shooting non-threatening material. “As the population of the U.S. is warming up to porn more and more each day, that’s the stuff that’s going to sell. And that’s really where the money is.”
Pounder’s also of the belief that gay guys watch straight porn for the guys. “On another note they’ve also done research that has shown that when girls are watching adult content they want to see a storyline, but the guys don’t care about the storyline. Guys just want the hardcore sex.”
To meet needs somewhere in the middle, Pounder says he’s been shooting what he calls a pro-am feature that combines storyline with a reality edge. “Like Randy West or Ed Powers with a storyline. The storylines are comical and quick.”
Obviously no shrinking violet, Pounder says he’s gone to porn parties where regular girls would come up to him and say, “If I knew you were in porn I would rent porn. They’re using these all these ugly nasty guys- a lot of guys are- but a lot of producers are using these guys because they know they can get a good performance out of them. If you can find a good looking guy with a personality that can perform, then you’re in.”
Swami was quick to point out that Pounder was going to aggravate a lot of people with comments like those. Swami also wanted to know if it hurts Pounder in the jobs dept. when influential guys like Wankus or Scott Fayner make digs about the fact he can’t get wood. “The amount of jobs that you do is irrelevant,” Pounder said on his behalf.
“Look at the big Internet sites that have done very well like Bangbus or MILF Hunters. Those guys aren’t working for anybody else. They’re doing scenes for their own company. It’s a business. Those guys are Miami. They don’t know anybody in L.A. If anybody wants to talk bad things about me I’m completely oblivious. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I don’t have any problem with Wankus. Wankus is a cool guy. If he wants to say I couldn’t get hard, on his show I couldn’t. But the thing with that show was the studio was freezing. They’re sitting their cracking jokes while I was doing it. In reality if you have guy that really can’t get hard, he’s not going to get work, period. I’ve worked for several producers over and over again. If you couldn’t get hard, those producers aren’t going to hire you again.”
Pounder re-stressed his theory that it isn’t about all the jobs you get. “If I did a gonzo scene every day at a $400 rate and I worked seven days a week, that’s $2800 bucks a week. The most I could make working every single day would be just under $125,000 a year. Max. If I do one scene a week for my own company and don’t work for anybody else, and I market that stuff effectively, I could make millions of dollars in my sleep. The angle is not approaching it from a workhouse standpoint. Don’t work harder, work smarter. That’s how you end up making money in this business.”