RedShoe

They say you should learn from your mistakes. I feel the industry is being split by the way of the tube sites.

I'll hopefully open your eyes a little by comparing our industry to my old industry.

As I'm sure everyone here knows by now, I did Special Effects in 'Hollywood' for 10 years. How did I end up as an adult webmaster? Let me take you back to the 1920's.

In the 1920's Lon Chaney Sr, a character actor, created a few methods of applying make-up to himself to alter his appearance for films. His new found talent suddenly put him at the top of his game. Before long he would be dubbed "The man of a thousand faces" and he set the wheels in motion for an entire industry.

Jump ahead to the 1950's when horror and sci-fi hit it's first peak. Creature films were all the rage. They wanted bigger and scarier creatures but didn't know how to build them. Some makeup department guys combined their knowledge of makeup and their ability to create art and thus a 'special effects' division was born. In time, Special effects would be divided into 'physical effects' and 'makeup effects.'

The makeup effects guys, now known as "FX men" started to incorporate bigger effects and became better creature builders. Their shops went from small rooms needed to apply fake noses to full blown warehouses filled with industrial drill presses, milling machines, and had large walk-in ovens.

Jump ahead to the 1990's and FX men had reached celebrity status. Names like Stan Winston and Rick Baker were being used as marketing tools in movies. Some directed movies, and were given stars on the hollywood walk of fame.


And within 10 years, the whole thing will collapse.


Computers were introduced to special effects in the 1970's. Serious CGI came 10 years later in 1982 in the movie Tron. At first, CGI was crude and not very practical. 9 years later Terminator 2 uses CGI to create a liquid metal man.

Instead of incorporating CGI into the shops like it had incorporated everything else for the past 70 years, it rejected it. Egos were too big to learn how CGI worked. Instead of embracing the art form, they would say "Computers are taking our jobs."

Some incorporated computers, but most did not. I watched shop after shop, shut down. Most of my FX friends moved back to their hometowns. Some sold used cars, some went to work for their parents local hardware stores. Lensman, spammed me an ad for GFY, and now, I work in the adult industry.

What took 70 years to build was all but gone in less that 10 years.

Take this into consideration when thinking of tube sites. For years, webmasters complained that TGP's were giving everything away for free. At first, no one offered content to promote their programs. They offered TEXT LINKS only. Then a picture or two that had to be downloaded to your own server. DO NOT HOT LINK. For years webmasters complained that TGPS's were giving everything away for free. Now programs offer full blown hosted video galleries.

Will tube sites destroy everything you've built up? Or will you incorporate and evolve?

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