What would I think of all this?
I would find it extremely funny. I would enjoy the dark irony.
Rachel, don’t be afriad.
Hugh, be good (and I don’t mean: behave.)
Casten, It was… fun.
Lori, My love.
Ethan and Gareld, shut that fucking preacher up and throw hinm out.
rmassey @ January 6, 2012
This month has been weird.
One of our YouTube alternate cuts garnered some interesting attention.
This one:
“BackPage deleted scene Megan interview “
It seems that it somehow became a recommended video related to this other YouTube clip:
“Trying To Buy A Hooker On Backpage.com “
So, over the last month, they rocketed to 61k views and we piggybacked on their momentum with 26k views.
A nice chunk of that traffic sought out our website, and watched other clips and even the movie.
It was a heady ride, until it all cratered two days ago.
I don’t know what internet gods they pissed off, whatever expired meme they belong to, but traffic came to a screeching halt. We’re not even a recommended clip anymore. Oh well.
I searched you tube looking for similar videos of prank calling escorts. I found dozens of them. I’ll have to reach out and let them know that we made a movie about them.
Oh, and our cost per click on our monetized YouTube clicks has risen to $.70! I have to assume a corollary causation.
I’ve previously mentioned how much the site benefits from searches for BackPage escorts. It’s a coincidence that the characters in the film have the same name as several popular BackPage escorts. A cursory search for whoever Megan might be in real life yielded these results:
http://detroit.backpage.com/TherapeuticMassage/angel-megan-full-body-massage-60/6576410
http://losangeles.backpage.com/TherapeuticMassage/queen-spa-grand-opening-49-for-1hr/17759304
http://louisville.backpage.com/BodyRubs/megan-in-tuesday-12-7-502-403-6452-36/2830535
That last one has a lot of pictures you can find on Google.
So, what else? Not much until the next fad.
P.S. The website showed a small increase in traffic but the weird thing is that newsfeeds exploded. That in and of itself is weird enough, but it didn’t generate a traffic increase. Odd.
rmassey @ November 29, 2011
I found this correspondence in my inbox last week:
> I was watching your film and I was just wondering why you did’t get real
> girls off of backpage. I use to be apart of the industry and I think if
> you were open and honest with the girls that you wanted to interview them
> I think you would have had better luck. That is if you really were trying
> to make a true documentary. Well that’s my two cents.
>
>
> Brittany
>
>
So, today I finally got around to replying to her:
Brittany,
Thanks for reaching out. Sorry for the lateness of my reply.
I’m glad you enjoyed our film.
You’re right, having real working professionals in BackPage was a very real possibility. And I seriously considered it.
But, I simply wasn’t willing to occupy their time without proper reimbursement. Since all of our budget was already eaten up by limousines, helicopters, and beer, I just couldn’t afford to do that.
Furthermore, it just didn’t seem to fit the tone of the film I was trying to make. I wanted to make fun of filmmakers and academia. Making fun of hard working women… ? Well, the film’s already chauvinistic enough as it is without adding that layer. There’s a point in the film where the character of Bill’s misogyny stops being funny and becomes pathetically tragic. (Other than that moment when he as a filmmaker literally fucks his subject.) Having real escorts in the film would have seemed really exploitative, no matter how respectfully we would have handled it. Also, as I would have been delicate in that situation, Bill would not.
Finally, it would have seemed too real. (Your two cents are correct, we weren’t trying to make a true documentary.) I’ve been told by experts in the field that none of the actresses in the film are convincing as sex vendors. The way they speak, the way they do business, none of it is convincing. And there’s a reason for that: that portion of the film is a fantasy. Like Pretty Woman, we needed to ignore certain darker aspects of the sex trade in order to tell our story.
Being honest about the world of purchased companionship, that’s another film altogether. The genesis of this project grew from a grad school assignment I had proposed. But, that summer of ’98, my partner and I decided, or rather stumbled into to producing this film instead:
http://www.richardmassey.tv/media/personal/partywmv.wmv
Even today, I’m still curious about the subject of escorts. I’m not averse to finding out how this industry thrives in plain sight. What would you recommend?
Richard
So, do you think we have a new project germinating?
rmassey @ October 31, 2011
We’re not full partners yet, but we were invited to Google AdSense our YouTube videos. So we only get paid per ad click, not views. But, if you’d like to contribute to Angela’s recovery:
http://www.backpagemovie.com/2011/angela-gant-look-into-your-heart-wont-you-help-a-lesbian-fight-cancer-by-buying-her-dvd/
Just incase you haven’t seen the film about her attack:
Here’s an easy way to do so without having to actually donate anything. All you have to do is watch our film on YouTube, and be sure to click on the pop-up ad or ad that plays before the film (actually, the 10 second mark):
I’m contractually not allowed to reveal what our clicks are worth, but let’s just say that if the 120k visitors to the site and viewers of the film thus far had clicked on that ad, we’d be a long way toward paying for Angela’s reconstructive rhinoplasty.
It’s just that simple.
rmassey @ October 25, 2011
Love Documentaries.com has listed us on their site:
http://lovedocumentaries.com/best/backpage-the-movie-hd
51 views, one vote: 9 stars.
No reviews yet.
We’re filed under a category they call “z section (news)”, herp derp?
rmassey @ October 19, 2011