Since joining UMD, I've noticed now and again producers releasing deep cuts from the "vault" or releasing "new" content that was actually shot quite awhile ago that they've sat on for whatever reason. Some producers even vault and re-release existing content like Disney before the days of Disney+, I guess to create artificial scarcity? And every now and again I see a producer put a ton of work into a product/store and tease a bunch of content only to never deliver on that final product.

So, no judgment here, just curiosity about how the sausage gets made: what leads to scenes going unreleased? I imagine there are lots of different answers that depend on the scene and the producer, so I'm interested in all the stories, I guess. Where do different producers land on why some clips don't see the light of day and why some stores/scenes/what-have-you never cross the finish line despite being filmed and in some stage of post-production?

The main reason I have set aside some scenes is poor quality of one sort or another. The main idea behind producing watchable scenes is to not shoot crap. Crap is usually avoided, but sometimes it just finds you.

"Well, she's travelling with me. She can stay at the hotel, but gee, don't you think you could work her in somehow?"

There are other ways it happens. In any case, you really have to have quality standards. And those standards have to mean something.

Regarding the eventual edit/release of old, unreleased material, I have done that. There are few examples, but the main thing is that I realized that a showstopping factor for me isn't necessarily a scene killer for others.

I imagine that other possible reasons could be misplaced media/data or some sort of baggage that was eventually papered over.

So whilst only about 25% of the content I ever shot for my short lived clip store I ever released (due to it being rapidly obvious the market for that particular content was worth less than the further time required to finishing them and so was better to cut losses and move to other projects) rather than pretend to much of a WAM producer I'm just going to drop a few truisms I've learnt from a number of years of experience working with low budget TV/video production organisations and from assisting in editing videos for the likes of YouTube.

Post-production is pretty much always the longest phase during the video/film production process. For example between 2006-16 Hollywood movies averaged 146 days in pre-production, 106 days in principle photography/shooting and 301 days in post-production. Now granted Hollywood movies also come with a bunch of special effects but they also have massive teams of editors and VFX artists working on them.

My experience of working in situations where budgets are low and there's a regular update schedule to hit is that post-production often becomes bottlenecked as content is shot faster than it can be edited as there isn't the money to spare on more editors if any at all and it isn't the producer themselves editing on some cheap software.

Many such operations often try to reduce such bottlenecking by livestreaming occasionally but this is not practical for most WAM producers and may require equipment they may not have like a vision mixer to do a multi-cam on-the-fly edit during a livestream. Best that can often be hoped for when it comes to producing WAM content is to minimise the amount of stuff that needs to "be fixed in post" such as colour correcting footage from a camera that either auto-balanced badly or lights positioned badly or to try recovered the sound from a microphone badly affected by background noise or gusts of wind if outdoors.

Now some footage may be recoverable where something has gone badly but may not be recovered for a bunch of reasons such as:

1. Knowledge and/or software gap. So whilst I can now fix a bunch of issues like colour balance, lighting and sound issues in post-production that was after years of experience in certain software programs that aren't cheap. Some producers editing their own stuff may either not have the software or know how if they mainly stick to just cutting together different camera angles. For instance they may have learnt how to use Premiere Pro to edit a video together but to get the best results recovering bad audio they'll also need to learn Audition a separate program.

2. Time. The bigger the issue that needs fixing the longer it will take to fix it in post-production. This either takes time away from the producer working on future shoots OR will cost more to pay someone else to edit and fix if they are paying an editor it may be cheaper to have them spend the same time editing 2 videos with few problems than fix 1 with a particular issue.

3. Costs. Whilst somethings may be recoverable it may not be recoverable to the level of quality you're hoping to put out. In which case you may have to decided between either releasing it anyway at a lower price or not releasing it at all. Either way if paying someone else to edit it the costs to recover it may increase whilst your returns may decrease or have a chance of being none at all. Making it a risk to try recover and thus may be better written off as sunk costs.

As such stuff that may be too much of a problem is often best tossed on a pile of "maybe if we ever get time" to deal with to avoid creating a bottleneck that slows down releasing more videos. Now some producers may have gone back to a few of them during the likes of Covid lockdowns when they couldn't produce new content and have slowly sprinkled it in between other content.

But as I say I'm mainly extrapolating my experiences from various low-budget video production organisations as I've not worked for more than a couple months producing commercial WAM material (made plenty of other WAM videos with people for personal consumption but that's a different matter) but I suspect many of the issues will also be present here especially if people are choosing to edit them themselves as for many post-production is likely their least favourite activity but a necessary evil to do the filming part they prefer it just may be that some videos aren't worth their time to recover in the end especially if they're not willing to hire anyone else to recover them and would take time away from setting up the next set of videos to batch produce.

I can't speak too much for why certain producers choose to re-release/re-master certain content that has already been released beyond speculating perhaps they've since learnt how to improve their editing techniques and decided to pull a George Lucas and wanted to re-edit something that has previously bothered them OR they figured out how to select a more appropriate bitrate for their frame size and rate when exporting so have re-exported from the original footage with different settings. But as I say these last ones are just speculations and for some it may be as simple as rebranding the content from an old website.

Like others have said, for me it's mostly about quality.

I'm pleased to say, at least in my opinion, the quality of my content has been improving with my later scenes, but sometimes there's something that just doesn't work out or cannot be recovered.

In a lot of cases, it's because I've tried something new and it just didn't have that genuine flow and felt very staged, in some cases shit just happens such as technical problems, and then there's one of the big stoppers which is that I've pushed myself outside my comfort zone for what I'm happy to show the world.

I keep the files, sometimes fully edited and ready to go, and may release it in the future but probably not.

Something I'm currently doing is slowly re-shooting the generally themes from my old scenes and then releasing them and taking down the first version, creating V2.0 if you like.

I haven't seen that happen (although I might have missed it). However, there are cases where producer X goes out of business and sells their back catalogue to producer Y. E.g. Rev Slymsford is re-releasing content that was originally produced by Messie Jessie.

Sometimes a new model comes along and a producer films with her, then a load of other producers think "Oh, she's nice", and they all film with her too, and before you know it there's a glut of material with the same model and some of it needs to be held back until a time with greater sales potential. The best bit is when no one films with the model for a number of years but then one producer does, and everyone copies again... and we're back to square one!

I've never held anything back because of quality (maybe I SHOULD have?!?)..... But that's mostly because I've found the audience often doesn't care as much as I do. I had one great customer who bought a LOT of stuff, and one day I was complaining to him, "Yeah, I set the exposure too high on this scene and kinda blew out the whites. That's a shame." And he went, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Same with models. Occasionally I'll have a shoot where I think, "Well that was a disaster. I'm never working with HER again." And then, of course, people love that one. (Still don't work with her again tho.)

SO. Most of the time, scenes sit in the "SlapstickStuff Vault" because I'm trying to provide variety. Like, for a while I had a backlog of Breana scenes, so I unrolled them slowly, rather than all at once. ANd now I'll space out the Scarlet scenes so there's not 6 new ones in a row. Stuff like that. Don't oversaturate the market. Basic Marketing 101.

There's only a handful of scenes that have NEVER come out, and that honestly might change at some point. I definitely sat on some Shelly footage because 1) it was gonna take a long time to edit, and 2) Shelly stuff never sells well, so not worth the effort. But now I'm old and shooting less and I have more free time, so.... That's why you got SS265 recently, AKA Vault Shelly!
And.... That 1st scene sold... OK! Or at least enough to make it worth the effort. (That other one? I was right the first time. Sigh.)
But I can definitely see myself editing down the last remaining Shelly vault clips at some point. Probably depends on when/if I exhaust my backlog!

How much did you have in the vault when the mass quarantine hit in 2020?

My video-making life went from 2004 to 2012. I was pretty scrupulous about keeping my word, so if I put up clips or pictures, I didn't say they'd be released as a full video. When I actually got the video done was when it was released.

There were quite a few things I shot that I never released as a video.

The reason why is because they sucked. The sound crapped out, or got overrun with wind noise. I was a tripod-using performer, and that means that now and then, the camera that I thought was aimed at me wasn't.

A couple times, I actually didn't have the camera properly turned on at all. I thought I hit the button but I guess not.

It was all stuff like that.

Nessie

The main reason I shot hundreds of scenes from 1991 to 2001 that went unedited and unreleased for up to 10 years was a very simple one. In the 1990's I did not know how to edit video and in the 1990's there was no such thing a consumer grade editing software we could use. In order to edit video in the 1990's you had to have a dedicated Avid Workstation costing up to $80,000, or maybe you could get one used for 25K. I did not have editing software nor editing hardware at my disposal. The only producers I know who had proper Avid editing hardware was David Wilkey and some of the UK producers like WSM and Rob Blaine had all the gear in his home based in Austin, Texas.

All editing was non-linear and not digital in the 1990's and you had to have a lot of training to learn it. Rob Blaine was skilled in this area, however he used to pontificate for weeks and months deciding what shots to use and he told me he used to spend 80-200 man hours of editing time just to produce one of his one hour VHS releases.

I was in a huge backlog situation because I had hundreds of scenes on raw camera tapes, but no skill or hardware to edit, so I was 100% reliant on my business partner who did all the editing for me. He was also backlogged with editing jobs to do, so even with the main series of videos we made (the SSS series) he would take 1-3 YEARS to get around to editing those scenes. By 2001 we had edited and released around 30% of the 1500 x 1990's scenes we made, but 70% were gathering dust and not released.

I was finally able to start catching up in 2001 when digital editing software came out. My partner bought me the software and when I asked him to teach me how to use it he literally threw the user manual at me and "RBM" (Read the Bloody Manual).....so I had to teach myself, so I edited all our unreleased scenes over the next 5 years.

Lenny had a similar problem with his backlogs of unreleased pie scenes as well because Lenny was like me and clueless about how to edit media, so Lenny had 2-3 partners where he used to send all his camera tapes and then he had to wait and wait and wait for 1-3 years to get his partners to edit media for him. Some of his partners let him down badly by holding onto his masters and refusing to do the edits on time and he fought with them for years to try and get his master tapes back.

Both Lenny and I were caught up in "the editing trap" and by the time we final caught up the whole ballgame had changed and HD video was now the new trend, and so now we were getting complaints about our old media not being at the HD standard.

You youngsters don't know who easy you have it these days....with your iPhones and Go Pros with ready made easy to use editing software included. Editing was not easy in the 1990's and only the pro producers had all the gear needed (costing 50K or more) to get the job done.

Oof, that hit a little close to home.

In our case, we've always run with a huge release queue of unreleased material, originally because I was always paranoid that, having a membership site with promised regular updates, if we ever missed an update we'd get sued for breach of contract. I now realise that was possibly over-worrying but it meant I always wanted to be sure that when someone signed up we'd have at least as much content as the site promised already "in the can", just in case all the models got abducted by aliens or the government banned video cameras or whatever.

But then I always had enthusiastic and willing models available, and it seemed daft not to shoot with them when they were raring to go, so we just kept piling up the stockpile. I did used to wonder if I was over-doing it with a stockpile that is now measured in years - but then of course the pandemic hit and some sites ran out of content within weeks, while we just kept on rolling with every release dead on time.

I've never wanted to step it up to a much higher frequency release schedule with three new scenes a week or whatever, because while that would use up the stockpile, I suspect it'd very rapidly stop being fun and I never want to be someone who churns out content just as a job, I'm a wammer first and foremost and want to always keep it fun and sexy, for me, for our people, and for our audience. Hence why it's always been a side hustle and not my main job, keeps the fun aspect.

This is one of the things that puts me off running a subscription site or using things like OF; life is just too hectic and I couldn't necessarily commit to regular content.


100% this, to make enjoyable and fun content to watch you must also enjoy making it. If someone's having an off day it can really show in the end result.

A.... substantial amount?
Certainly enough not to risk the health and safety of prospective models by asking them to come in and shoot when everything was locked down.
I kinda got lucky, in the first 10 weeks of 2020 I was on a tear: Scarlet's first couple shoots, multiple Samantha scenes, blonde Taylor, the return of Lyndsay, and the final appearance of the MILP! (Which was shot over that weekend when everything was closing. I asked her if she wanted to cancel and she said, "I booked the hotel already and I want the money!")
And then I didn't shoot again until September.

But it didn't affect me at all, cuz I'd basically shot 16 separate scenes in Jan/Feb, plus I still had footage in the vault from Natalia, Breana, Lucy, Taylor, and Candi. If anything, the pandemic was a blessing in disguise.... as I FINALLY made a real dent in my backlog.
The Vault is currently much smaller now, and everything is less than a year old. Meaning a lot of new scenes are legitimately NEW! (*cough*Kristina*cough*)

I have to say that this really surprises me to hear that the Shelly videos didn't sell well. I always thought she was incredibly hot and seemed like she was so much fun. I always wanted to buy all of her videos but unfortunately, my financial situation prevents me from doing that so I left with watching the teaser videos you provide.For me, Shelly is my favorite model you have worked with so my opinion might be a biased! LOL!!!

Really interesting thread. Makes me think of the GirlsGetGunged Sasha Cane gunge bath scene that only ever yielded a pic set. My favorite all time model and a little part of me will always wish that there was video of that scene.

I've always thought that for some the bigger producers there must be a 10-30% failure rate on scenes. From tech failures to concept failures and of course model issues. Ever since I saw the MessyMayhem bonus video introducing the concept to new models I've wondered how many get to a shoot and are unprepared. I've personally gotten really overwhelmed getting messy before and cut a session short and its my kink. Or a model who has no real chemistry with a messy shoot or don't consent to releasing the finished video. Maybe that's more of a risk for producers who make the majority of their content by purchasing customs elsewhere.

From a business standpoint totally understand why things wouldn't be released too. Even a bad video could get someone off but pay what you want/ cheaper pricing would take away from the other content.

To an extent that depends on how well things are described. Whenever we do mud shoots, we also do a hose-down hair-wash back at the dungeon, with the girls in the somewhat damp outfits they travelled back in, usually tracksuits or boilersuits. We give these scenes away as bonus extra sets on our membership sites when there are 5 weeks in a month, and then sell them cheaply on the download store, on the assumption they're mainly of interest to people who like shampoo hairwashing. But we state clearly in the description what they are, as opposed to our mainline standard scenes.

For a short while (about a year) I was a producer on here under a different name. We had to shut things down due to harassment/stalking. But I also shot many a scene with problems that prevented it from being released.

1. Wind Noise. We shot outdoors in an open area with lots of mud, and the wind was ALWAYS a problem, even when I purchased a special wind screen for the microphone.

2. Focus. The camera's auto-focus would sometimes find a distant tree and focus beautifully on it, leaving the foreground a blurry mess. Eventually I found a different way to shoot so this was no longer an issue.

3. Water or mud on the lens. We'd get up-close and personal while shooting, and often mud would splatter or water would splash and I wouldn't see it while shooting. When editing though, I'd see a major distorted blob throughout much of the scene, resulting in it needing to be scrapped.

We had a couple of scenes done when the trouble began, and we quickly decided we had to take everything down and shut up shop. One model lost her job over a letter written to her employer over the fact that she was on a 'porn' website. I even had the police at the door. It still saddens me how one 'do-gooder' can kill a source of innocent fun and a few bucks of income. When we shut things down, he backed off before contacting my customers and family members. But that is what led to some of our scenes going unreleased.

"Hey, I've got an idea!"

Films idea

Edits idea. Hates it. Gets put on a shelf and forgotten about

There was a Human Garbage Disposal style custom so extreme they decided not to release it to the producer felt it wasn't in line with their brand. Won't say which producer.

even aside from quality

if you do another shoot before you've listed everything from the previous shoot, pushing out new stuff pushes back unreleased content

then all of a sudden, a few shoots in, you've got content from different eras.

I did a shoot earlier this year which I loved, but, some of the scenes don't fit my brand. I will release them, but possibly when they do fit in with other stuff, or, if I have enough content for a second brand.

Sometimes, you might do a shoot and then find there is a dispute over release or content which slows you up.
Or you could come to do admin and find a form is missing, or ID has expired, or some such and have to chase it up.

Someone I know ran into problems that one of the co-performers IDs had expired and he had no immediate intention of either shooting, or renewing ID, so she couldn't use the content until he renewed something and got it through.

Sometimes someone does not want the content to go out, so an agreement is made to not put it out. I pulled a load of stuff as the lady left the industry and we came to an agreement for me to pull it - this did include scenes which weren't out.

Sometimes a scene gets done and something falls foul of clip site rules also. I had one of my clips banned on a platform because we'd left a can of premix cocktail in the clip. Alcohol is a no/no.
Mind, another site did permit it - providing there were no shots of it being drank from.

I have a lot of scenes sitting around that I did on my own. In my shower. My own messes. No camera man so just one angle and some kind of mess I concocted that day I decided to get messy in and it's not typical quality of my bigger productions. I mean, I'm amateur..: but these are like literally me and a tripod. So I haven't released a lot of them bc I want to put them together as a series.

But mainly? Scenes I haven't released yet are either a. Hardcore sex scenes that I'm like "hmm what If this person I MAY have a relationship with will get mad?"
Which is far fetched.
But mostly? It's because the scenes are either the gal didn't want them released in the store (I have like three of those of Dixie she did before retiring)
Or because it contains sensitive material included in the scene not okay for umd rules.
I have one giant bondage and mess one? I have to run it by messmaster bc it seems like I am angry and mad at my situation but I'm not. If I can find the "after" video of me in the shower talking about my experience? I think maybe I can release it since it shows I was, indeed, into it.
It's just like any other humiliation video.
But I don't wanna break any rules at all. Ya know? Trying to stay on mom's good side!

To add to this: there is also: TIME.
When you release one wetlook and one messy vid a week typically?
You gotta have a release ready. Sometimes you don't have time to edit and do all of that stuff but find time later.
I know that has been an issue for me before. Needing to have something up for sale that week but didn't have time to edit all the behind the scenes. And also?
Now I use my OF for most my behind the scenes stuff bc some people don't care about it. So I put it there
If that helps any!