My question for Producers:

It seems that multigirl pie fights gain most of the attention and sales with thr pie fans out there. What are some of the challenges you face when shooting a multi girl pie fight which prevents from you shooting them more often?

When you say 'multi-girl' I presume you mean numbers in the range of 9-12 participating in a highly choreographed manner?

They're most appealing BECAUSE they're rare. Smaller scale pie fight scenes in fact do happen very regularly.

These extravaganzas are understandably rare because they involve someone putting up a lot of time and money to make them happen against what is a high risk of comparatively low returns. So when they do happen they're exhibition pieces or customs. Attention and notoriety doesn't always translate directly into sales as numerous producer posts attest. Pie fans are also as particular and differing in their tastes as they are numerous.

The last couple of years has also seen a few *slight* obstacles in assembling large groups of models in one place, too.

Wind direction.

Having models show up.

Flaking is a real issue that can cost producers and other models time and money. The more girls you add, the more chances of it going sideways.

And in my experience, they don't sell that much better and they cost twice, three or four times as much.

I love a good pie fight, but it makes total sense to me why all the bigger established producers are rocking so many single girl scenes, and why when you'll see alot of the same girls over and over.

Good help is hard to find.

Never assume a lot of attention means a lot of sales, they two don't always link up.

There will be a few reasons why you don't see many multi-girl pie fights:

a) Cost. Model fees and covering model transport costs make up the biggest cost element in shooting pie scenes, more models means more spending.

b) Practicality. Unless you have lots of spare rooms handy, bringing in more people is going to mean putting them up somewhere, which again ramps the cost.

c) Coreography. If you just put half a dozen models in a room and tell them to let rip on each other, you're going to get a load of footage that's basically junk. People will get pied facing away from the camera, pies will miss and be entirely wasted, good hits will happen when you're focuseed in a different direction. To properly film a multi-girl pie scene you need models who are good at remembering and following directions, even when being pied, and ideally at least one camera and operator per model, so each model basically has her own set of footage with every hit she takes, and you can then edit all of them together into the finished scene - which will be a huge editing job and take ages.

And then you do all that and the result doesn't sell any more copies than your standard two-girl tit-for-tat pie scenes do.

All of the above. Especially C.

When we shot "Pie Club", I was lucky that all 3 models grasped the concept which was equally their idea anyway. But it was all done in front of only two stationary cameras.

I have had an idea for years that I haven't shared with with many, but if I ever shot it, the entire thing would be blocked out in detail with a full storyboard.

Agreeing with all of the above.

You have to do WAY more setup and prep.... Blocking is harder, choreography is harder.... You have to hope and pray that BOTH models actually do the pie hits correctly. (To everyone who says, "Just coach them beforehand." I always do. It's still a crapshoot if they follow through, and it honestly boils down to the girl's attitude more than any pre-coaching or instruction.)

And, as mentioned, the scene is ALWAYS gonna cost twice as much but probably won't sell twice as well.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a well-executed two girl pie scene. I've been lucky enough to shoot a few over the years (and even a couple 3-girl ones!) and all of those did VERY well. Because you could tell that the girls were 100% committed and having fun. But the risk factor of the scene going sideways is way higher with 2 girls vs. 1.

One more point that's overlooked: Negative energy. If you bring in a 2nd girl with the wrong vibe it can KILL the whole scene. There's a model I love shooting solo, but every time I do a 2-girl scene with her (at the request of customers), the girl she brings in who's "perfect" turns out to be a wet blanket. Not blaming her necessarily, but she's done this twice and both shoots made me wish I'd simply brought her in solo instead.

Yep, Rich just covered it exceptionaly well.