If history repeats itself in the porn business and it generally does, the Wanna Be a Porn Star shoot will carry predictable drama. If for nothing else, the fact that one of its producers owes tons of money to performers for Sex Survivor.
Dave Cummings posts: Reference your recent posting on www.adultfyi.com concerning “Sex Survivor” shenanigans. Director Toni English, a true visionary and super-sharp and nice person, did a fabulous job as Director of “Sex Survivor”–she and Sharon Mitchell, as well as Robert Lombard and others, were an on-location refuge of wisdom/advice/caring for us actors and actresses.
I understand the Toni and many crew members took significant monetary hits, and it’s upsetting to us talent members to know that! Until your posting today about Michele Raven, I (mistakenly) thought that all talent received their $7,000 fees OK–like all of us, Michele worked hard and contractually and morally deserves her entire fee. The last 15 remaining talent members of the original 30+ requested and received a document signed by the Michael Caruso authoring us 15 “contestants” to equally split the $1 Million in prize money, instead of having only a first/second/third place prize.
The remaining 15 of us covered by that contractual commitment are still owed $66,667 EACH by the entity that produced the event and signed our contracts — I’d love to see someone (e.g., a pro-bono attorney, a fan, law enforcement official, etc) lead the charge to get us our prize money and/or arrange for criminal charges to be filed against appropriate officials of the event. Besides us talent folks, I pray that crew members will also receive their owings.
Be it a criminal or civil matter, someone or some entity needs to take action to make everyone whole here! Incidentally, at the talent meeting on the morning of the 6th day of the 7-day competition, I recommended that the 15 of us agree to EACH donate $1,000 of our $66,667 to AIM if/when we were paid; agreeable comments and shakes of heads seemed to include almost everyone in the idea–so, because of the lack of payments, AIM was deprived of contributions which could have enhanced talent health matters (if we eventually get paid, I still plan to make my $1,000 contribution, and I imagine others will, too!).
Dave Cummings, www.davecummings.com
