I was involved in the porn industry, by a weird combination of life forces. Basically, my mom's boyfriend thought we could make some money. He was an Israeli immigrant, and desperately wanted to get out of landscaping.
I felt his pain. I was recovering from a nervous breakdown, and needed a job that wouldn't physically wreck me.
We decided to sell video tapes. I'm not proud of it, but it happened. We flew down to Los Angeles, and went to the trade show. Every vendor was more slithery/slimey than the next.
I was trying to find one person I could trust, and it seemed like they were just all untrustworthy. I tried to keep an open mind.
We went to his childhood's friends house, who was supposedly a big deal in the porn video, now living big in LA. He offered us a business opportunity. It was basically give me 50 grand, and I'll set you up on the porn business. We stayed down there a week, and went to all the cd/video factories. We went to the print shops. We talked to the Photoshopers that made up the covers. We went to a few shoots.
What I learned, after I took a long shower. Yea, all the stereotypes were so true. I really went into it with an open mind. So what did I learn.
No one followed any Laws.
The shoots were Not permitted in any capacity.
Crew, even back then, the crew was small. A camera guy, and maybe an assistant. There's no such thing as Fluffers. I asked a Vice President from one of the bigger porn producers, and she said that's a myth. I will never forget her painting her nails with White-out. Really. And her final parting eloquent words, "I never pay retail!"
These are not cinematic masterpieces. You could shoot in a house, and it appeared as if no one was home.
They shot the new movies in rented houses. I don't think the owner had a clue what was going on. I hope they were rented.
I felt like we were all trespassing some days.
In terms of movies. Well basically everyone stole from everyone else. They would seal footage, mix it around, and present it as original material. They would slap a slick cover on the video/dvd and sell it a new movie. They just didn't care about copyrights. They didn't care about anything besides making money. Their was a sence of gloom everywhere. It was not remotely sexy.
To make a long story short, my mom's boyfriend took the bait.
His best friend sold him a buch of beat up commercial vcrs. They literally had thousands of hours on them. Only about half of the machines worked. He supposedly bought the copyrights to 200 titles. Every on was out of copyright , or stolen. (I did warn my friend. I said we have been to three video facilities, and all the masters are the same? If the masters are so valuable why are they literally thrown around the facilities. Why arn't they in a safe?)
He tried to make it work, but he was scammed from the beginning. I did learn one lesson. When it comes to money, don't even trust your childhood best friend.
I helped him get the duplicating business started. I put in the electrical. All those lousy dublicating vcrs drew so many amps--the only thing we lucked out on was the building was wired for 480 volts. Twenty, twenty amp outlets, running #10 copper wire got the machine going. (I still can't figure out why the equipment shelfs were reading 90 volts. I made sure there was no metal to metal contact. I just couldn't figure it out. I had a guy with a EE degree from Berkley out and he couldn't fix the problem. We had 70 vcrs running. To this day I still don't know where that stray voltage came from. Maybe it was God saying no? That did run through my mind.)
Well he lost everything. Thank god most of it was credit card money, and he got an easy chapter 7 bankruptcy.
I will never forget the look on my mom's face when she asked me to photoshop a cover for Big Black Momma's house. She handed me the cd, and put her hands over her face. I told her, "Mom--he's not hurting anyone. I know it's embarrassing. Yes--your still a Christian."
She never told him, but was glad it ended, and he didn't become a porn mogal.
As to the original topic, if you are going to rent your home, it might be used in a porn film. Good luck getting anything out of these people--even if you did have a contract, and received a judgement.
To be honest, if a person rents out a house, they should able to do whatever they want in said house, as long as it's legal. If a person shoots a film in your rented house--oh, well? Get over it. You opened your home to strangers. As to morals--don't worry about other people. Worry about what you have the nerve to charge?