Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 126 with Karl Edwards of XXX Edit

Speaker 1 (0s): This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where every week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry, and we discuss what's going on in our business. Plus we give you a tip on buying and selling websites this week. This week we'll be speaking with Karl Edwards of Stiff Media.

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Check out ASB-Cash-dot-com for more details and to sign up. Now let's feature our property the week that's for sale at Adult Site Broker. We're proud to present a one of a kind, unique and legendary site. It's a pro amateur ethnic reality site. Founded in 2005, members never know what to expect With a variety of different performers. From brand new amateur talents to famous porn stars, the site continues to grow and expand with no major competitors in this niche.

What makes it unique is their 100% original content that has uncensored and unscripted scenes. They're video trailers or short web episodes that engage the viewers and are immensely popular online. Almost all the traffic is organic with some affiliate traffic. The site gets about 20 joins and 40 rebuilds a day. This iconic site is available for only $1.4 million. Now time for this week's interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker talk is Carl Edwards of Stiff Media.

Carl, thanks for being back with us today on Adult Site Broker talk.

Speaker 2 (2m 27s): It's my pleasure, Bruce.

Speaker 1 (2m 28s): It's a pleasure to have you Now, Carl is one.

Speaker 2 (2m 30s): Yes, it is. Thank you for noticing.

Speaker 1 (2m 33s): Carl is one of the true pioneers of the gay adult internet market from his early days as the owner and operator of bedfellow.com to you love jack.com and foot woody.com and his most recent venture xxx edit.com. He's been on the forefront of technology and real brand marketing. He shoots and edits his own content, manages his own affiliate programs and codes and designs each of his sites from scratch. This hands on approach keeps him in direct touch with his market and helps him stay one step ahead of the competition.

Recently he was vice president of L G B T Q I A plus products at Doppler. The company behind Live Jasmine now, he started Stiff Media, the first video editing and post production company designed exclusively for the adult entertainment industry. So, Carl, besides my brief description, what is Stiff Media?

Speaker 2 (3m 27s): Well, first of all, I've done a lot. I should hire me qualifications.

Speaker 1 (3m 33s): I would definitely recommend you Carl.

Speaker 2 (3m 36s): Well, listen, Stiff Media, this is an extension of Triple X edit, but it's more of a full service bureau. So basically we're video editing and post production service for the adult industry in particular. My clients range in size anywhere from huge studios like Falcon and Raging Stallion to individual content producers who might have their own fan sites. Basically anything that happens after they turn off the camera and before the content is presented to their members, that's where I

Speaker 1 (4m 2s): Step in. I would imagine in this day and age, post-production requires a pretty good amount of software.

Speaker 2 (4m 9s): Yeah. Oh God. Well it's not a, you know, it's funny, it's become simplified really. Yeah, there, there's basically, there's like the big three packages that people might use. It depends what you're doing, right? There's, there's your Adobe Suite, you've got your Premier Pro and your After Effects, which is sort of an industry standard, but there's a whole fringe group now like me that are using DaVinci Resolve. There's options out there. So the, the real big thing is just staying on top of the hardware and the software and keeping it all balanced so that you never have any downtime.

You can't have an update come in and shut you down for a week while, you know, some software company works out their problems cuz they had to roll out an update to you.

Speaker 1 (4m 49s): Yeah. And what's the advantage in your mind of DaVinci

Speaker 2 (4m 53s): DaVinci right off the bat? It's free. So if you think that's a good advantage. Yeah, but it's, well there's two versions. There's a free version, which is the full suite, not limited in any way. And then the, the full product that you pay, I think a couple hundred bucks for that adds a few extra special effects and a few extra codex. But you anyone could just download the, the software and be editing video in no time flat. Sure. So, you know, the, the fact that you don't have to pay a monthly fee is great, especially for smaller studios that don't have the ability to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month for software and the, the quality is banging on.

It's pretty much what all the Hollywood studios are using for all their work now.

Speaker 1 (5m 33s): Interesting. I I would imagine then it's more of an identity issue with them that people don't know them as opposed to the quality of it. Cuz it sounds like, I mean, I know how expensive Adobe products are, although I've never priced that particular one. I would imagine that people should be using this.

Speaker 2 (5m 53s): Yeah, well, you know what it was is Resolve and, and DaVinci used to be only for color correction and it became the industry standard for all Hollywood productions or anyone who's doing color grading or color production. So, you know, when you see like a Transformer movie and it looks orange and teal, they create that effect in Vinci Resolve. And what's happened is Black Magic Design, the company who bought the software has slowly been building it out into a full-fledged editing suite that has its own special effects program and has its own audio editing program, everything in one package.

And they've honed the product. It's at version 18 now. They've honed it to the point where there's really no reason to use anything else. It's good enough and even beyond good enough. It's so good that it's my first choice.

Speaker 1 (6m 38s): Yeah, I noticed you didn't mention Final Cut Pro.

Speaker 2 (6m 41s): Well that's because you're just gonna get in trouble if you mention Final Cut Pro, you can't win, right? What do you mean? Well, Apple changed Final Cut Pro when they went to version 10, they changed the entire paradigm and basically what Apple said was, listen editors, like traditional film editors aren't our market anymore. Our market is content creators. Interesting. So they, they redesigned the entire paradigm of the editing experience within Final Cup Pro to appeal to people who don't have traditional film editing experience.

Interesting. And the entire editor market just basically said, forget it. And then there was, it was buggy and there was all kinds of problems and it took four or five years for them to catch up and now it's actually working so well that a lot of people really use it. But you're paying the Apple tax for all the hardware. Yeah. And you know, you're paying like 1.60 yeah. 1.6, 1.7 times as much Yeah. To get the same kind of performance. So, you know, it's, I, I'm Agnos, I'm I'm platform agnostic. I'm bi computer. I can, I can work in anything that you put in front of me.

Sure. But my preference is to work on a PC and my, and, and my preference is to work and resolve cuz it's just so stable.

Speaker 1 (7m 50s): That's interesting. A lot of people prefer, in fact, I think most people who do that kind of work, don't they prefer Max?

Speaker 2 (7m 57s): You know, I think, so I started out my career on a Mac up until five years ago. I was Macintosh everything. And I, I still have iPhones and everything. You can't really get away from those. But once it became clear that all of my clients, you know, five years ago, all my clients wanted me to be on Premier Pro and not Final Cut and final cut. Oddly little, little side note here, it's like 20% faster to edit and final cut than from year or resolve. But nobody wants to use it because it's got such a bad reputation.

So I have to go with what my clients want. So once I realized that I didn't have to be locked into the Mac platform, then I was free to sort of build a super editing station and just work on the whatever software was needed for whatever job I was working on.

Speaker 1 (8m 41s): Yeah. But for their purposes, I'm sure going to creators is probably gonna make them a lot more money.

Speaker 2 (8m 47s): It's really worked out great for them. Like basically all the people on YouTube that are just making these 10 minute videos, they're all on Final Cut and it's, and there's a whole community that's built up around it. Again, it's just a different beast though.

Speaker 1 (9m 0s): Yeah. Well, Apple didn't become the largest company in the world by being stupid. Now, did they?

Speaker 2 (9m 6s): Well, you know what, I guess, I guess you really can't argue with that.

Speaker 1 (9m 14s): So you said, although they're very frustrating at times, being someone who's locked into the Apple ecosystem, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple tv. I got it all baby.

Speaker 2 (9m 26s): But the, everyone complains about Apple and they say, Oh, you're just, you're locked into their system. You have to do everything their way if you're on a Mac. Yeah. Have you used a Windows PC lately? It's exactly the same way. Sure. Try and get rid of Microsoft OneDrive. You just can't. It's built into everything. There's no way to, like, everyone does that and Mac gets an unfair wrap. Yeah, I agree. Because they have this, this luxury brand identity, which I don't think they deserve that, You know, if you're, if you're building stuff like, you know, Mac Pros that are 50, $60,000, but you look at the components, it's expensive, but it's not overpriced.

It's just what that stuff costs. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10m 3s): Yeah. Absolutely. So now you said that Stiff Media is a video editing and post production service that specializes in the adult industry. Now I know what editing is, but editing, I should've said editing instead of a, it's early in the morning here, but what's post production exactly. Give me some, you know, gimme the details

Speaker 2 (10m 28s): There. Yeah. Well, but it's pretty easy. Post production is, is really anything that needs to be done to video content after the cameras are turned off and they, and it actually includes editing, but I separate the term out editing. Cause I don't know if everyone, if my audience knows what post production means. So video editing people know, but, you know, if you wanna gang it all together, it would be color correction, resizing reframing for social media, special effects, compositing, anything that you do to put the finishing touches on a video. It basically, post production means when the production is stopped and you have to prep the, the video content for display.

That's where I step in.

Speaker 1 (11m 6s): Hmm. How long does it usually take to do post production on a scene?

Speaker 2 (11m 10s): Oh, you know, I can only tell you, this is like an interview question, right. I'm interviewing for a job and they're like, What makes you the right candidate? I need more information. Like every scene is different. Yeah. And every producer is different, but typically it takes me about three times as long as the amount of footage that I'm given. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11m 31s): So if somebody shoots, it kind of reminds me, it kind of reminds me of editing this interview. This is gonna take me two or three times the amount of time that we did the interview.

Speaker 2 (11m 42s): Cause you have to do it in real time. Yes. And if somebody gives me three hours of footage and there's two cameras that's six hours of footage. Yep. It starts adding up. So by the time you synchronize everything and, and get all the, get all the cameras switching back and forth, you know, it takes, it takes a few hours to pull it together. But I have an advantage that I've been doing this a long time, so I'm fast. Like I, I don't waste any time. So it's not, it's not like I'm, I'm sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for stuff to render. But realistically, you know, if you're, if you're coming for, if you're coming to do a video job with me and you've got two hours of footage you can count on the edit taking about six hours to complete.

Speaker 1 (12m 17s): Wow. That's a long time. And are you doing mainstream as well?

Speaker 2 (12m 22s): Yes, I am. But not through the Stiff Media brand. Sure. There's another brand, Kes Media, which is basically, you know, the non-adult version of Stiff Media. Kess, of course, standing for Carl Edwards a superstar. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (12m 36s): Oh yeah, I, I would've assumed that. So you mentioned, what the hell's he talking about? So I was thinking

Speaker 2 (12m 45s): About that. You know, it's a funny story cuz when I got, I, I studied photography in university and when I got her to school, I went to the business office here in Toronto to get my, to set up a company. And the lady behind the counter said, Well, you'll need a name. And I'm like, why did I did, I wasn't prepared, What should I do? And she said, It should be your name separated by a comma with what you do. So on the spot I came up with Carl Edwards comma a superstar. I love it. I thought I was so smart. And then I would go to art directors with my portfolio and give them the card. This says Karl Superstar.

And they would tear up my business card and slip it back in the portfolio and hand it back to me on like, without looking at it. I was like, Oh, Jesus. So I had to shorten it to Kees just to soften the blow of my own.

Speaker 1 (13m 29s): That's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (13m 30s): Lunacy. Yeah. I know. It's just so stupid. That's what you get when you're 20 years old, right?

Speaker 1 (13m 34s): Oh yes. We all make our mistakes. We all make our mistakes. So now you mentioned special effects. What exactly does that involve and how does it relate to adult?

Speaker 2 (13m 45s): To be honest, I've done productions that require explosions and laser beams. That's part of it. Yeah. But, you know, practical terms, special effects could simply mean motion tracking and blurring someone's face or taking a tattoo or, or pixelating a tattoo. It could be replacing a phone or computer screen to match the story that's being presented in the video. Sure. Maybe removing the shadow of a drone on a long establishing shot or turning day to day. There's a ton of things that fall under special effects. It's more than just blowing fun things up. But I'll, I'll put explosions in anything you want.

Don't you worry.

Speaker 1 (14m 18s): Well, you can put an explosion in this podcast.

Speaker 2 (14m 22s): Well, you know what, we'll have to talk, we'll have to talk about my rates.

Speaker 1 (14m 29s): So how many people do what you do exclusive to the adult industry? I, I mean, I've come across other editors, but I don't get the impression there's a lot.

Speaker 2 (14m 41s): No. And I've come across other editors too. And, and a lot of studios have their in-house editors. You know, if you're knocking on doors being like, Hey, I'm from Stiff Media, I do editing, blah, blah, blah. The first thing anyone's ever gonna say is, Oh, we already have an editor. Yep. Like, like, you know it, like you're trying to come up with the next great idea for a gadget to sell on tv. And someone's like, Oh, it's called a fork. I already have one. You the what you, But you know, they're out there. But in terms of full service bureaus, like Stiff Media, I believe I'm the only one.

Wow. That's actually marketing my services on a wide scale to the adult industry. I've come across a couple of individuals that are sort of freelancing, but in terms of like the full kit and caboodle that I'm doing with the top to bottom post production services, I think Stiff Media is it right now. Good.

Speaker 1 (15m 31s): Okay. So how long have you been an editor and how would you rate your talent as one from when you got started to today?

Speaker 2 (15m 40s): Oh, well I've been doing this, I mean, I used to edit all my own content back in the bedfellow days when, you know, when it was impossible to even capture digital video. So I, I've been doing editing myself for 30 years, my own mainstream products. I I've been doing it for 20 plus years. Right. And you know, I think being an editor is a funny thing, Bruce. It's not like, it's not knowing how to use a program. Anyone could learn how to use a program. Sure. But there's skills involved in editing that involve the control of timing and pace and, and creating a sense of energy and, and helping a story be portrayed in the, in the right way that is difficult to learn.

And I've kind of had the knack of that for well over 10 years now. Yeah. So I would say, I would say in terms of editing, I'm at the top of my game. Whatever anyone gives gives me, I can actually, you know, editing is funny. It's, it's a problem solving game. It, it's basically, you never have the footage that you need to tell the story correctly. Yeah. So it's all about reasoning your way through the stuff that you do have and making it look like you had everything that you were supposed to have from the start. And it could be super frustrating, but when it actually works out, it's like doing the hard Sudoku and on the New York Times, you're like, Oh wow, I actually did that.

That's a, I feel really good about myself.

Speaker 1 (16m 59s): Yeah. I would imagine the, there's a discrepancy between quality of shooting between different clients.

Speaker 2 (17m 9s): Oh yeah. It's funny, I always say that, that no one should be allowed to shoot anything until they've edited content for at least two years. That's a good point because you, there's a saying in the industry of shooting for the edit and it's giving your editor enough tools so that he can hide the mistakes, number one. But number two, actually convey the story in the way that you want it to. And I think a lot of producers get hung up in not understanding how the editing process works and then they try to shoot everything at once.

Yeah. So, you know, they might be doing a closeup of whatever glistening insertion happens to be going on and then think, Oh, I'm going to, I'm gonna pan my camera up and get a picture of their face now. And then halfway up to the face, something happens in the down there area so they whip the camera back and it's just this whole frenetic thing where, you know, you could just have two cameras running and not really have to worry about that. And if you understood the editing process, you'd know that your editor can actually cover your movement and if something important happens, you'll still have it. Yeah. That there's no need to panic that you can just relax and let the story be told, let the actual action speak for itself rather than some overt camera movement that you think adds a stylish flare.

Yeah. It usually just gets in the way. So I, I think that that's just, you know, that's me as an editor, if you talk to any editor in the world, they'll all have the exact same complaint. No one shoots the right way, no one gives me the right footage. All I have to do is fix mistakes. Right.

Speaker 1 (18m 37s): Well, yeah, I mean, you're there to cover their mistakes.

Speaker 2 (18m 41s): Yeah, absolutely. And not get credit for it.

Speaker 1 (18m 44s): Of course.

Speaker 2 (18m 45s): That's the funny part. If I do my job properly, the producers will never know that I did my job properly. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's why you have to have an ego like, I have to get through

Speaker 1 (18m 57s): This. Exactly. Well it's like a, it's like a, an umpire or a referee in a, a sporting event. Yeah. If you don't notice them, they're probably doing their job well.

Speaker 2 (19m 8s): Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's funny cuz you see, you know, you see the Oscars in the best editing category and it's kind of like, I I'm sure every g every editor in the world just laughs at that because if, if you do your job properly, no one should notice it. Sure. It should be nothing to get an award for. Right.

Speaker 1 (19m 27s): Oh, you make a point. Definitely make a point. So you've run websites and shot your own content for the past 20 years or so. What is it about editing that interests you?

Speaker 2 (19m 39s): You know, it's, Do you want the joke answer or the, the real answer? Yeah,

Speaker 1 (19m 44s): Both would be, both would be great. Cuz I love your joke. Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (19m 47s): Well, the, the joke answer is, you know, with editing I get to sit in the dark and nobody bugs me. Just sit here. You,

Speaker 1 (19m 53s): You know, you said something like that off mic.

Speaker 2 (19m 56s): It's true. I did. Well, you know, you know, I'm really telling you. So

Speaker 1 (19m 59s): Maybe, so maybe it's not a joke.

Speaker 2 (20m 1s): It's not a joke. It's not a joke. I, I make decisions that affect other people's lives. Right. I just think it's all fine alone

Speaker 1 (20m 7s): And in the dark

Speaker 2 (20m 9s): Alone. And in the dark. And I'm not touching anything, including myself. There you go. But the reality is there, it, it's, you know, there's, there's creative potential in problem solving. And, and i, I I, I ca I have to keep harping harkening back to that. It's re you really get a charge out of fixing a scene and getting a scene together properly and having it be complete and good. There's a sense of satisfaction that's really hard to describe. I, I'm working with computers, I'm working in a creative visual field.

Right. I'm also interfacing with a lot of, you know, smaller producers now. Yes. And helping them with their production process and consulting with them and helping them make the scenes even better. And, you know, it, it feels like I'm, it's weird cause I'm doing porn, I'm editing porn. Right. But it feels like I'm contributing to society in some way. Like I'm actually helping the world come together in some very, very small way. So

Speaker 1 (21m 2s): Becomes, just smelled differently.

Speaker 2 (21m 4s): Well you didn't do that, did you?

Speaker 1 (21m 7s): I did. You

Speaker 2 (21m 7s): Did. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 (21m 10s): Had to go there.

Speaker 2 (21m 11s): What are we gonna do

Speaker 1 (21m 12s): With you? I don't know. I've been, I've been corrupted in this industry for way too long. Carl. You wouldn't be both right. You

Speaker 2 (21m 20s): Would be both. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (21m 23s): So who's your target audience? Studios or independent? I can say independent producers and why? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21m 31s): Well, you know, it's a mix. I've got studio clients with big budgets and huge productions, but I'm seeing more and more individual producers as time goes on. I, I love the ability, I love the stability that a studio can bring. Like a, if a studio wants to send me four or five scenes a month and have me just do everything that's great. More than happy to do that. But the individual producers, there's more interesting things happening in that landscape. Mm. As everyone is sort of creatively expanding their own possibilities at the same time and they're doing really progressive things and pushing the boundaries of the media and they're people that you can work with.

Right. So, Sure. A big part of what I do, I've said this before, I do consulting on productions as well and, and letting these folks, letting these producers know all the little tricks that make all the difference that can really make, really make a scene shine, you know? That's awesome. Yeah. So I, I really enjoy working with individual producers, but I'm not gonna ever turn down a studio job. Oh sure. Cuz you know, if you, it's just a whole different ball of wax. So Sure. I'll do it all. I'll do it. Oh,

Speaker 1 (22m 39s): So I, you know, so I would think actually that that consulting can be very, very valuable to a company because it's going to help them shoot so people like yourself can do a good job of editing.

Speaker 2 (22m 54s): Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's funny, like even little things like the 180 degree rule, right? In, in filmmaking there's a rule that the camera shouldn't cross the 180 degree line of your subjects. So if you have a, a subject on the left and a subject on the right, the subject on the left should always be on the left of the screen and the subject on the right should always be on the right. That's also

Speaker 1 (23m 16s): Many times that's also called reversing the vector. Right.

Speaker 2 (23m 19s): Reversing the vector. But it's how many times you'll see I went

Speaker 1 (23m 21s): To, I went to broadcasting school, Right.

Speaker 2 (23m 23s): You'll see producers come around the opposite side with their, with their B cam and suddenly the person on the left's on the right and it's like, well there's nothing I can do with that. So I end up flipping the screen, but then sometimes text is backwards and it's just like the, like little things like that and, you know, you try and tell that to a larger studio, they're like, Oh no, how to shoot. And I'm like, you're right. Whatever you, however you wanna do it is fine. But if you say that to a smaller, smaller producer, like, Oh wait, I didn't know that. That's really great, Tell me more. And you can sort of create a dialogue with them and work with them to make the products better.

Like, I don't think that I, I can't take credit for what these people are doing cuz they're on the front lines with their fingers in the mud. Figuratively. But, you know, I can give them my perspective as an editor and be like, Hey, here's, you know, you're, you're doing a three cam shoot, but all three cameras are within six inches of each other and from the same angle, if you spread those out, then you'll have a little bit more of an interesting thing. And they're like, Oh wow, that's interesting. Okay. And they come back and then the next scene is even better. And it's just like, you know, there's, it, it really feels great to, to collaborate with people on that level to help just make everything look better.

Speaker 1 (24m 31s): I would What, what percentage of your time are you spending consulting and what percentage are you spending on post production?

Speaker 2 (24m 38s): You know, it's very, it's very small. It depends on the clients. Right. I, I'm finding that the, the individual producers, like the independent producers, the fan site operators are very interested in hearing tips and things. But you know, it only takes me two seconds to say, Hey, spread your cameras out and do one medium, one wide and one close. It's true. And I will edit them together. You don't have to worry about every shot and that takes five seconds as opposed to the six hours it's gonna take me to actually edit the footage. So it's part, it's just sort of an undercurrent to everything I do is, is giving feedback and talking to producers and understanding if they want my input or not.

Right. Sometimes guys

Speaker 1 (25m 16s): Yeah, of course

Speaker 2 (25m 17s): I say guys, people want to do it the way they're doing it. So you have to respect that. Of course.

Speaker 1 (25m 23s): Yeah. And you gotta be careful because their egos are involved.

Speaker 2 (25m 26s): Yeah. Well wait till they get a load on me. Right.

Speaker 1 (25m 32s): So you just mentioned fan sites, that's obviously the new reality in adult. How can you help content creators that run their own fan site?

Speaker 2 (25m 40s): Oh, well I'll tell you number one, having a good at it and this fan site or, or even big students, but having a good editor frees the creators to do the important stuff, which is Right. Creating their content. Sure. And you know, I'm not a one and done kind of shop. I'm actually interested in working with these people and helping them make the best content they can. So Sure, there's all of that as well. But you've this, it's this whole thing about shooting for the edit. Just give your editor the right tools, get the job done. And that, that's just a communication that you can have with the creators.

Right. But you know, it's the collaborative input that I can offer. I wanna give them what they want. They have a vision of what they wanna see, but you know, they might not have the kind of visual vocabulary that I have as an editor Sure. To say, Hey, if you just tweak this this little way, this would look so good. Here's an example of what I mean. And then suddenly they're like, Oh yeah, actually now I do see what you mean. Do it that way. Right. Or they're like, No, I hate you. Shut up and just do what I said. But either way. But you know, for me it's, it's the, the idea that there could be collaboration to make, make something bigger than either of us could have made on our own is, is the exciting part of working with those folks.

Speaker 1 (26m 48s): Sure. So why would someone outsource their video editing instead of just hiring someone to edit in house?

Speaker 2 (26m 56s): Are you talking about outsourcing video editing to just anyone or stiff media? Cause I mean, Well

Speaker 1 (27m 3s): I would, well I would hope you

Speaker 2 (27m 5s): Yeah, me too. Right. But I, I think it makes a sense on a lot of different levels. And number one just, and I said this before, just cuz someone knows how to use Premiere Pro or Da Vinci Resolve or Final Cut doesn't make them a good editor. Correct. And I think people get hung up by, by putting someone in front of a computer in front of an editing program and saying, Hey, we've got an editor with Stiff Media, we are filled with very good editors and I'm at the top of that heap. I'm the person in charge of it all Right. So you've got award-winning editors working on your content and that says a lot. Sure.

But beyond just the talent of the people who are cutting the scenes, you know, it just doesn't always make sense for studios or even in individual producers to maintain an editing suite in house. You know, there's, there's software and technology and you don't wanna pay someone to be sitting in front of a computer while a scene renders. Right. We do all the heavy lifting so producers can just worry about the content and that's kind of liberating on a lot of fronts. Right.

Speaker 1 (28m 1s): Yeah. I kinda liken it to what I do and brokering websites and also, you know, our marketing company, I've had companies tell me, Oh yeah, we have a marketing guy or we have a marketing gal. Yep. Okay. And if you dig deeper, you find out they just got outta college, they had a mar they have a marketing degree.

Speaker 2 (28m 21s): It's funny cuz I get that same thing with, Oh, we already have an editor. Yeah. Right. The automatic response for any time you try to tell somebody about the service that you're offering is to say, you, you're not innovating because whatever you have, we already have it. Yeah. And I think that that's just a knee jerk reaction that people have to protect themselves so that they don't feel like they're missing something by not already having the thing that you're selling them. Right. Yeah. And you know, even for me, even if you have an in-house editor, like there's still plenty of ways that I can help.

There's, there's production consultation, there's all the special effects and the color grading stuff that I do that most editors don't have any foggiest idea how to approach most in-house editors. Some do, there's lots of people out there that do a great job at that. But you know, there's a good chance that there's lots that we can do anyways. And even if it's, you know, there's overflow, there's times when a single editor in house can't handle the volume of work that's being produced. So it always helps to have a backup plan. And I'll, I'll take the backup role. I don't care.

Speaker 1 (29m 22s): Yeah. That's their money's green. So let's say

Speaker 2 (29m 27s): He says, he says looking at his, his Gavyn award,

Speaker 1 (29m 32s): So

Speaker 2 (29m 32s): I won an award. It's like, it's like the Oscars for gay porn.

Speaker 1 (29m 36s): Nice. You won that?

Speaker 2 (29m 38s): Yeah. Well, not really. I mean it's a bit of a misnomer. One of the videos that I, I wanna grab a couple years ago for one of the videos I worked on, but one of the videos I worked on really closely Shehe UX was the director and I worked really closely with the, the guys who were shooting it and she, she to, we had to go in afterwards and film extra stuff and I felt really closely attached to it and it won best all sex feature. That's great. Just before the pandemic. And it's funny because I was at the, at the AVN slash Gian show while all this was going on and it was February of 2020 just before the pandemic.

Right. And we were all hearing about the pandemic and we're walking around going, ah, it's probably nothing. And then all of a sudden one of the guys, one of the camera guys on our team got sick and had to go home and we're all like, Should we be getting Purell and wiping down everything?

Speaker 1 (30m 31s): Yes.

Speaker 2 (30m 31s): Suddenly we were like, well, and who knew? Like we'd all be on lockdown for three years,

Speaker 1 (30m 35s): Wipe down the world.

Speaker 2 (30m 37s): Oh my God. Remember, remember when that was going on? And and they, they convinced us that we just had to wash our hands and we'd be fine.

Speaker 1 (30m 44s): Yeah. That was a really scary time. I mean, I remember being in March in Tempe and I'm always down there or somewhere in Arizona, I don't remember March.

Speaker 2 (30m 55s): Was that the last Phoenix Forum

Speaker 1 (30m 56s): Or No, that was the year after the last Phoenix Forum was 2019. So those

Speaker 2 (31m 1s): Are good times.

Speaker 1 (31m 2s): Yeah. God, I missed that show. So I think it's where you're needed

Speaker 2 (31m 6s): It while it was going on, Right? What's that? It was not enjoyable at all while it's going on. But now that it's not around anywhere, I'm like, Oh, those are good times.

Speaker 1 (31m 13s): Yeah, no, I always loved the show. I always had a great time with the show too. I, Yeah. And, and it was as far as the gay space that was the show.

Speaker 2 (31m 22s): Oh yeah. Back then, the gay side of the industry, we had, we had some cache if we showed up at something, it seemed like the rest of the industry paid attention that we were going there. And I don't know how that happened, but it was, you know, there was Morgan and I and a group of us that became really close friends. Yeah. And sort of that friendship I think created the sense in the rest of the industry of importance whenever we showed up. Yeah. Cause we always just stuck together and it was, you know, it was, it was the Velvet Mafia, but it was very funny.

Speaker 1 (31m 51s): Yeah. That's where, that's where I no doubt, met Morgan and Tim and, you know, all the, the core group in the, in the gay space and Yeah. You know, it's, I miss those parties, man. I miss those, those, those were some great times, some really great

Speaker 2 (32m 7s): Times. It was really fun. And, you know, good business going on too. Yes. Yes. And it just felt like, it felt like the wild West in a lot of ways. But it wasn't, this was, I I, I can remember back to when these events were people like you and me talking to each other and then eventually at some point people like you and me started sending our sales people to talk to people like you and me.

Speaker 1 (32m 27s): Sure.

Speaker 2 (32m 28s): I was like, what am I, what am I talking to a salesperson for? Like what is happening? So, Exactly. It's funny, the industry changed in a heartbeat and the way that people did business change in the heartbeat and then Exactly. Man, wind ruined it all.

Speaker 1 (32m 42s): Yeah. That definitely was not a good thing. So, Oh, so I was saying that it's March, 2020 and I was down there. I was actually down there. I used to go every year for baseball and then right after baseball would be the Phoenix Forum. I spend a month down there watching my Giants. Well

Speaker 2 (32m 58s): That's right. The, the grapefruit league, not the Grapefru League, but spring training goes on down there.

Speaker 1 (33m 2s): Yeah. Cactus league. Cactus League Grape Grapefruits, Florida. I've never seen a grapefruit in Arizona. Probably never will. The supermarket. Supermarket.

Speaker 2 (33m 10s): I think I got confused cuz one year the Blue Jays had to be in Arizona. Really? Something was going on in Florida. I forget what it was, but, so I, my brain plus I'm an old lady so I can't keep any facts straight.

Speaker 1 (33m 22s): You're so funny. I remember that we're watching CNN when I used to watch CNN and I watch, I used to watch any news which I tried to avoid these days. It depresses me ever since January 6th.

Speaker 2 (33m 35s): That's just

Speaker 1 (33m 36s): Infuriating. 2021. It, it just depresses me. So we here San Francisco Bay area has just been locked down. I looked at my wife and I'm like, these exact words were fucking outta here. They had just stopped spring training and I have a t-shirt, by the way, a Giants t-shirt that says, just getting started.

Speaker 2 (33m 59s): Not really now

Speaker 1 (34m 0s): I love that shirt. I just love that shirt. And so at that point, spring training was over. So we had over the weekend, gone out to Grand Canyon in Sedona over a couple days and come back and it was a Tuesday and on Friday we flew to LA and we, we were on a a j A L flight from LA to Tokyo to Bangkok. And we got outta there and I'm amazed that we got a flight. But anyway, it was really weird time.

An extremely weird time. So back to the questions, sir. Let's say I'm looking, cause you and I can be us all day. Let's say I'm looking for an editor. We're both good at it. What should I look for? So teach me to be the expert in hiring one.

Speaker 2 (34m 50s): Oh, it's easy. Step one, hire stiff media. Okay, Step two. There is no step two,

Speaker 1 (34m 56s): Step two, repeat, Step one,

Speaker 2 (34m 58s): Wash, rinse, repeat. But I mean, sir, you know what I would say look for an editor that's gonna ask questions and be interested in the story that you're trying to tell. And it's hard to think that there's stories important. Like, I don't mean like, you know, there's somebody order a pizza that's plot, This is a story, it's something very different. And a story could just be, you know, the, the way that someone goes from fully clothed to glistening insertion, like Right. There's a craft to that. But a good editor is gonna ask you questions and any editor that quotes you a flat rate without knowing the job or what's involved has to cut corners.

It's a fact of life. So if you've got someone, someone, I'll

Speaker 1 (35m 38s): Do it. Run, don't run and hide. Right.

Speaker 2 (35m 39s): Well yeah. Or run and hide or run to your computer and go directly to stiff media.com and contact me.

Speaker 1 (35m 45s): Yes. Do not

Speaker 2 (35m 46s): Pass shameless self promotion com.

Speaker 1 (35m 48s): Do not pass, do not collect $200.

Speaker 2 (35m 51s): Yeah. I mean listen, you gotta have a relationship with your editor and it's not always fun cuz they're always under the stress of not having the, the con or the, the footage that they need in order to say what they feel they wanna say. And, but you know, your editor needs to understand what you want so they can give it to you quickly and effectively. Anyone who says offers you a flat rate, Oh a hundred bucks a scene. Like, just go on fiber, then throw, throw your footage in the air and wherever it lands, that's your edit cuz that's about what you're gonna get. And again, if all else fails, just hire stiff media.

Speaker 1 (36m 24s): Where have I heard, where have I heard that before? God sounds familiar. Sounds really familiar. So what's what's the number one thing you tell new clients before you're editing their content?

Speaker 2 (36m 36s): Oh, that's a good question. Which is something someone said.

Speaker 1 (36m 40s): I know because I asked it

Speaker 2 (36m 40s): When they don't have an answer ready for the

Speaker 1 (36m 42s): Question. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (36m 44s): But there's not, you know, it's not like one thing. It's really, it's a conversation. So if I'm talking to a new client, my first job is always to understand what, where they're coming from, what they need. You know, I need to know what kind of cameras they shot on the frame rates, the picture profiles. Are they using second system audio? What are they, what is their output? Where, what certain intended audience? Is it going on the web? Is it going to dvd? Are they going to broadcast? Cuz everything is a little bit different and how you're gonna color grade it is different if it's going on TV versus the internet.

So it, it's really, it's not about the number one. You know what, I guess the one thing I tell new clients is I can't quote you anything until I find out more about what you're doing. Yeah. And it's weird because some people appreciate that and other people just have no time for it. They're just like, I just wanna know what you're doing. Like here I've got 500 previews I need you to do. Here's, here's 30 DVDs. I need 500 previews from it. And I'm like, Okay, I can do that, but I can't quote you until I know all this other stuff.

Like, yes, I want to give people the right, the right finished product. I don't wanna just do the job and get the, the check. I've been in this industry way too long and you know, it's, it's not, I don't, I don't need to do this to pay my rent anymore. I'm doing this because it's, it's something that's enjoyable and I really feel that I can contribute to the process. So I really approach it from that point of view.

Speaker 1 (38m 5s): And you know what asking questions is what any professional should do. You see an attorney, they ask you lots of questions about the case. You see a doctor, they ask you where it hurts, how long does it hurt? Okay. Right. So if you're in, in my case, a website broker, I ask to see financials. I ask for a history of the website. I ask why you're selling in my marketing work, I'm asking people a whole bank of questions so I can actually see where they're at and where they're going.

So if you're a professional, you should be asking questions, lots of questions. And if you don't ask questions, then that person isn't a professional. That's my fear.

Speaker 2 (38m 48s): Yeah. I mean, you wanna get to the point with your customers or I want to get to the point with my customers where, you know, I just know them well enough and I know what each individual is looking for, that they can just send me their stuff and I can decipher what the plot is based on what I know about them. But that doesn't, that doesn't come, you know, out of thin air. Right. Like it takes, it takes a long time to build that relationship and build the trust and build the understanding. And you know, that's, that's the constant process that you're always involved in with your customers, especially on the editing side of the business.

Speaker 1 (39m 17s): Absolutely. Are, Do you think plots are dead in adult videos?

Speaker 2 (39m 22s): Well, I, we touched on this earlier. I don't, I don't think, I mean, plots are boring, right? But story is everything. So plots are the, did somebody order a pizza or plots are, or trying to sell plot. But instead we're in Florida and now we're having gang bang in the hotel room. That is not story. That's just plot. Yes. But story can unfold in any situation. And story involves conflict in characters and change. And it's the thing that is really engaging. And I think the people that are really excelling right now understand that whether it's a cocky boys or it's a disruptive films or, you know, a Noel Alejandro, the people that are really sort of standing out for the quality of their content all understand that that story is separate from plot and the context of what you're doing doesn't matter what you're doing and what the people on the screen are doing is the thing that's engaging the customers, engaging the viewers.

Right. So, sure. I don't, I don't think plot is dead, although I think it should be

Speaker 1 (40m 24s): Kill it. Kill it.

Speaker 2 (40m 26s): But you know, in my defense as well, a good edit can make or break any story. Sure. So whether, whether you have a story or, or a crappy plot. If you got a crappy edit, it's gonna look crappy no matter what

Speaker 1 (40m 39s): Crap equals crap.

Speaker 2 (40m 40s): Wow. There's that. Right.

Speaker 1 (40m 42s): So as an editor you see all the behind the scenes footage on every production. What's the most interesting thing you've ever seen when editing a video?

Speaker 2 (40m 51s): Now? Was there air quotes around the word interesting there, Bruce? Interesting. I mean,

Speaker 1 (40m 59s): Interesting.

Speaker 2 (40m 59s): There's been so many and I, you know, I can't really, I can't talk about the funny stuff because that would be betraying the confidence of my customers. But there's all kinds of funny stuff. I think for me, you know, it's not one incident so much as it's just seeing the process behind the scenes. Seeing what she, she larou is like when she's not directing, when you catch the glimpses of her without being on as a character, seeing what the porn stars are like when they're not on, when they're not, you know, engaged in fornication when they're just hanging around.

Like seeing the real people, setting up the scenes in the background. That process I find infinitely fascinating. And it's a look, it's something that so few people get to ever see. So it feels almost perverted, but not in a dirty way almost.

Speaker 1 (41m 51s): So for not perverted in a dirty way, it's perverted in not in a dirty way. That's interesting. Good clean

Speaker 2 (41m 58s): Perversion. You

Speaker 1 (41m 59s): Understand? Oh yeah. Little good, little good clean perversion. I like that. That's a Carl, I come up with a new vocabulary every time I talk to you.

Speaker 2 (42m 8s): That's what I'm here for.

Speaker 1 (42m 10s): You said you can't talk about the funny stuff because you'll violate confidence, but you don't have to identify who it is. Tell me one story.

Speaker 2 (42m 19s): No, I can't. It's

Speaker 1 (42m 21s): Too, too heroin.

Speaker 2 (42m 22s): Something funny. No, but, but I will tell you this much. Okay. You don't, you don't even get your official badge of being a, a pornographer, especially a gay pornographer until someone shits on your face. This is part rule.

Speaker 1 (42m 38s): Ok. Yes.

Speaker 2 (42m 39s): It was like, it's like, oh, you shoot porn. Yeah. Did somebody shit on your face yet? No. Then you don't shoot porn.

Speaker 1 (42m 46s): That's all I'm saying. Yeah. You know, I'm getting the visual and it's not a good one.

Speaker 2 (42m 51s): Yeah. I mean, you know, one of my funny taglines for this, for this business is editing is more than taking out the farts and giggles, but it's most definitely involves taking out the farts and giggles.

Speaker 1 (43m 4s): Nice. So you have obviously a lot of experience in the gay space, maybe more than anybody. So do you anticipate most of your business coming from the gay market or from straight as well?

Speaker 2 (43m 18s): You know, it's funny. Most of my business comes from the gay side of the industry. Sure. But I think that's just happenstance.

Speaker 1 (43m 24s): Well, that's your, that's contacts.

Speaker 2 (43m 26s): It's my contacts. It's, it's who I've known and you know, I've got a few clients that produce straight content and they're super happy with the job that I do. But most of the stuff that comes through stiff media is gay. Yeah. Would I personally rather look at dick's or pussy? Well, you know, I'd rather just watch TV and go to bed to be honest. But, Or, or order a pizza. Well,

Speaker 1 (43m 49s): It's do, do you anticipate more straight business coming?

Speaker 2 (43m 54s): You know, I, I honestly don't judge customers in that way. Like any new customer that's coming to me that wants to get editing, we have that conversation. We figure out what people want. Sure. Most of the time the straight customers that are coming through it, it's weird, but they're the customers that have ready made content that they want Tube clips for or they want 32nd previews for, or they want me to chop up scenes and create other things for it. It's not like the same thing where we're creating a production, which is what most of the customers that are producing gay content do for me.

And I think it's just all happenstance. I'm not replacing a judgment on the, the straight side of the industry, but it's weird. It's more of a fast and in and out. Oh, here we go. It's an in and out industry. They're like, Yeah, whatever. Tits, Tits, click, click give me, gimme previews, Right? Tits

Speaker 1 (44m 45s): Cock pussy, goodbye

Speaker 2 (44m 47s): Tits cock pussy. Goodbye. Did somebody order a pizza?

Speaker 1 (44m 52s): It's funny that whenever the pool guy's here, I say he's the world's most famous porn star.

Speaker 2 (44m 58s): Who's your, who's your is Jeff Striker Cleaning pools. Now what?

Speaker 1 (45m 6s): You're so funny. You're so I'm the worst by the way. You've mentioned a team. How many editors do you have working for

Speaker 2 (45m 12s): You? There's three people that I bounce between, including myself, but I also have other people that I rely on for motion graphics. And if there's a really tough color grading, I've got a a per a really great colorist. So it's, it's sort of a virtual company at this point. Cause that's just, Yeah, that's the way the world works now. But you know, it's, it fluctuates anywhere between three and half a dozen people depending on the jobs that are that required. And I could expand that as much as necessary. But the important thing, if I'm gonna talk about expanding, everyone has to understand that I'm the final say on any edit on the, on any project.

Sure. That comes through our door. So if somebody does all the grunt work, I go through and do the finishing touches on it to make sure that it's exactly up to the quality

Speaker 1 (45m 55s): Control freak, huh?

Speaker 2 (45m 57s): Yeah. But most of the time, most of the time, to be honest, I'm doing most of it myself cuz I kind of like it.

Speaker 1 (46m 3s): So Sure you do. I know it's obvious. I can hear the passion. I can hear the passion for what you do and I think anything you do. What's

Speaker 2 (46m 11s): That? That's my emphysema.

Speaker 1 (46m 13s): Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I get confused. Well, Carl, it was a pleasure having it back on. Adult site broker talk again,

Speaker 2 (46m 23s): Always a pleasure. It's like, it's like we're just having a phone conversation. It doesn't feel like we're actually doing a real podcast except for all the mentions of stick media.com. Yeah, Stick media.com, stiff media.com.

Speaker 1 (46m 36s): Anyway, I hope we'll get a chance and do this again soon. My broker tip today is part two of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later. Last week we talked about converting traffic and improving user experience. Make a good offer. If you're selling something and the offer isn't good, you won't make money. It's plain and simple as that. And if your offer is to contact you or to get more information, then make the offer attractive and easy to understand. If you're selling something, make buying easy.

Show them an easy way to buy and then leave. Help them by making suggestions on what to buy. amazon.com is the best at this. They always have suggestions on what to buy based on your buying and browsing history. They use AI to do this. There are AI engines available these days at a modest cost. Look into this if you can. Don't clutter up your site with unnecessary items, buttons and images, keep it as simple as possible. The best and most successful sites are the simple ones.

The ones that lead you to take the action you'd like them to take. It's not that hard. Just remember, when you're putting together any site, try to think through the buying process like a human being. Whatever you do, don't turn over that process to your designer. Don't just say, build me a website. What you'll get out the other end will not give you what it is you're looking for. Give them as much direction as possible and make it easy for them to build a site for you that makes your business succeed. We'll talk about this subject more next week and next week we'll be speaking with Steph Sia of Stripped by Sia.

And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest Karl Edwards of Stiff Media. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.