This is one of many articles I’ll post for those of you interested in producing your own content. My focus will be more on working with the models and equipment, than dealing with the legal (2257) stuff.

When shooting stills or video, don’t forget the promotional stuff. A short video of the model saying, “hi I’m Johnny Hotstuff and you can see me jack off on domainname.com,” is worth its weight in gold on a site tour. When shooting stills, it’s important to get those shots useful in a site tour or for banners. If you don’t think about this in advance, it will be a lot harder to come up with good tour and promotional photos.

Another thing I like to do is shoot the model holding various sizes, and colors, of stiff poster board. Later I take them into Photoshop and ad text over the poster. Things like, “You can see me naked at…” or, “come see my videos.” This sort of thing ads huge credibility for your site when claiming it has exclusives. Photos like this validate your claim of exclusivity. HM Boys was a pioneer in this strategy.

With a popular model it might be a good idea to schedule a shoot for the sole purpose of producing promotional materials. You can also bring in several models for some censored group shots. Keeping it censored allows you to pay each model less. You might make it a social gathering (party) so the models don’t feel like its work.

Most amateur producers don’t think to do these things, and it’s a huge mistake.