Often in my reviews you will see me comment that, “the model fits the part.” By this I mean she has a look to me that says she fits the particular role / character she is portraying. But beyond this I find there is a more universal look of model that speak to me “yes, for sure, I could believe she’s a heroine.” Obviously this is a very subjective opinion but one I have also found is shared by many of the fans out there as well. The main things that lead me to see a model as a heroic fit consist of:
- Not overdone with make up, jewelry or tattoos - Looks fit, and - Oozes confidence.
I feel your average heroine would have a natural beauty about here. One that needs no painting over by excessive make up or limited but make up that contrats to much to her natural tone. It’s a bloody superheroine, yes I know its biased for me to say average, under averge or ugly betty types would never have superpowers if such thing exsisted but lets get real, we are here for fantasy! Just think about this for a moment! Superheroines have powers and in the past have rubbed shoulders with gods and goddesses, its only natural they would be naturally beautiful without any help. You also have to consider what these gals go through in the course of their duties and defeats. A real heroine should come out ofa battle with Darksied being dragged along the ground to her fate looking just as hot as she did before the battle. Not with mascara and lipstick smeared across her face like that chick you woke up next to who was only hot at 2am last night when you left the bar. While this is fantasy there is such thing as real fantasy. I think only sci-fi / fantasy geeks would understand how that works. Its akin to how a Trekkie can argue that unrealistic weapon Z could not possibly do what is does since unrealistic conditions WXY do not exist while the rest of the world sits around saying “Dude its all make belief anyway so who cares?” My point it I don’t think, at least in my mind, heroines would spend time making themselves up much so they can fly super speed to a rumble against a swarm of invading aliens. Cover up it ok of course if one needs to help hide the left over signs of her last battle.
Looking fit to me is essential to the look. The heroine should give the appearance of being able to handle herself well if she gets in trouble in the real world even without superpowers. Its nice to see them with some degree of tone and curves and not rail thin woman who look like they have trouble standing in a strong wind. In a choice between a bulemic runway model and a your average fitness instructor it’s a no brainer for me. Any true villain will tell you that its just a downer when the heroine you are in the process of defeating passes out from exaustion a few minutes into her defeat. We need our egos boosted so like the thought of our heroines possibly being a match for us at least. Its not just being able to have good stamina and a fit body but also the spin offs that often come with them, the nice assests! I really don’t know which I enjoy least, a petit heroine unable to get out what should be a form fitting outfit to hug her form or a petit heroine who can get the outfit to hug her form but only to look like genetics or her diet already defeated her in the asset department. I won’t give examples as my thoughts on which sites use the best models are in my reviews when I comment on the models. In case there is still any questions take a look at two examples of models I think would fit the Superheroine mold, http://tpowis.net/media/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=10&pos=155 http://tpowis.net/media/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=10&pos=1 . Some non descript jewelry is fine, such as studs and small hoop earrings. But gaudy large hoops looks just more than a bit silly. What is worse is its normally only the over make-upd ones who have these and it just makes them look less like they could be superheroines. Large in your face or oddly placed tattoos are also just lame while proper sized ones on the should blade, small of the back and ankle (places normally considered tasteful) are possible exceptions. Unless she’s playing superbiker girl, super punk, or super goth it’s just not heroic looking.
Confidence is a big seller for a heroic persona. Proper poses, stance and posture, and facial expression all paint a picture of how confident the heroine is. She may not be looking so confident once defeated but they should always start off like this. This re quires a good model as well as photographer. The model has to know how to get into the part and the photographer has to know how to handle the model and get her into the shoot. Admittedly the video actors and directors have the hardest part here as they need to move through seamless scenes and its even harder when any struggles of fights come into play. An added dimension to exuding confidence also them becomes how the model carries herself. She needs to walk with confidence, posture and pose, she needs to carry a commanding yet feminine tone when she speaks. I take all this into account when reviewing videos. I then rate them based on the average video production quality in the genre while the photo sets I am much more picky and hold higher standards since the genre is at this point in time that it should be.
The answer is “no” not all models, not matter how cute, can pass as a good, believable heroine for many fans. Most fans are split between liking their heroine to look strong and show that she is, win or lose, or look strong but even in all her glory is still brought down with ease. The key here is using the model who fits this fantasy!
-- Edited by Alex on Friday 20th of March 2009 10:34:58 AM
Naturally all opinions and articles are just that, one persons opinion. At Heroine Review we try to gauge the general feelings of the fans but are not closed minded to the fact there are other opinions or we totally misread the environment. If you agree with the articles please say so, if you don’t please likewise say so and share your thoughts about your opinions.
Ok.... Now I am writing this from a producers point of view ( I think) for those that dont know me my name is vesta and I own and run www.leagueofamazingwomen.com... While alot of what this article says I generally agree with, it is why I myself stopped modeling, I would like to offer a counter point here.
This is not an excuse or at least I dont mean it to be. When we opened up these sites alot of us did it coming from the fan side of things. For me I did it to me me an excuse to put on the costume and play... The site took off and it has grown alot. But I will be the first one to admit that many of my models dont fit the bill as a statuesque (did I spell that right?) model. Many of my girls are very average. When I hire a model/actor as I dont see what we do as modeling its acting. Anyway when I hire a girl I look at several things, how much will she cost, they work on an hourly scale with average being $100 an hour sometimes a new girl will do $75 if no nudity is ionvolevd and sometimes they go as high as $150 an hour. I also try and take appearance into account but I also look at her attitude towards the work. Im also governed by my location. I cannot afford to fly models in from other areas of the country so you have to try and catch them while traveling otherwise you make do with your local girls.
So when you make your reviews and such I think these factors are important. You will of course find sites with different models and such but cost and availability is huge. Tats are also getting to be an issue, more and more girls have them its getting harder to find girls without. Again this is a simply fact right now. Finding girls willing to do this type of work is no easy task. Plus I have seen girls really struggle with it as Ive learned the work is very hard for many. As you are paying by the hour it is very difficult to give a good crash course for the work. Often its hit or miss. You dont find out until its started . I have tried auditions and such and if I pay them the girls dont seem to have an issue with it but they wont read for a part free. They make there living doing this so there time is money.
I hope this doesnt come off as bitchy as I dont eman it to be. But as one of the smaller producers in the genres (SHiP has many sub genres itself) I felt like id offer up another food for thought....
Hi, I'm the DAWNSTAR PRODUCTIONS side of the League of Amazing Women website. My boss and I were both checking out this forum board and I also feel the need to politely mention that I know we sometimes use women who are not exactly 'stone-cold foxes', but I also feel that NONE of the women we use are undesirable. As a matter of fact, if you met some of them in real life you'd be amazed at how attractive and alluring they really are. Some are actually theatrically-trained and are fully capable of carrying a whole production on their own.
Part of the mitigating factor of this business is that you have to hit the right blend of 'feasibility' and 'affordability' in your productions. Since I am based in Richmond, VA., I am actually off of the main circuit for most professional fetish models, and I can only book pros when they pass through town on their way to someplace more exciting along the east coast. Because of that, I hire local theater people for the bulk of my work and have to make do with what I have. Because my local models are rated very affordably for me, it's all right for me to make only a modest profit from this work because my costs are kept reasonable and so expenditures are kept low. If I were to start hiring expensive top-name models and bought custom-made costumes, I could not turn a profit from my videos because at that point I'd be operating at a loss. My profits have to exceed my expenses or I cannot do this anymore as a job.
In the end, all the ShiP videos I've ever seen require one thing in order to make them viable, and that's a certain amount of acting ability on the part of the models. Other things like costumes and attractiveness and proper sets all can make a difference, but in the end, it's the model's ability to believably 'sell' a scene that makes it profitable. The other parts can help, but suspension of disbelief is the key factor to what we do. It's comics, after all, the only genre where you have to be able to believe that a pair of eyeglasses can completely fool even your closest friends.
I understand that certain models may not have the 'exact' look of what someone may want to see, but there are other factors as well, and in the end, all customers have their final say in being able to just say "no" to buying a video if it does not look appealing enough. I respect that. I honestly do. Some of the best models I have worked with have not been 'classically' sexy, but the emails I get from people raving about their performances leads me to believe that they understand and know the fetish in spite of only having an 'a' cup or not having flowing locks of blond hair. One of them is even a model who barely does any work in the fetish realm any more, but is constantly being requested by SHiP fans as soon as she puts on a wig and slips into her spandex.
I agree with Vesta that it is hard to get a lot of these models into the understandings and workings of the genre, so quality and mileage may vary. There's a whole artistic and story history that goes back almost seventy years with comics. I will say that a good deal of the models whom the fans 'think' are true comics fans are actually just poseurs who spend a little bit of time on wikipedia looking up the comic book basics and then fake their way through it. ShiP Producers (who spend more time with the models than fans do, and in closer proximity) can usually sniff out the fakers from the real deal with a few casually-picked questions that only actual comic fans would know. Like good salespeople though, they're not selling comic books as much as they are selling themselves. A delicate point that is not lost on most of us.
The main point is, we're all trying to work our way in business here, so we're doing the best we can, with what we have. Anyone who is an actual producer in any genre of SHiP knows that it is much easier to criticize from a distance than to do it themselves. The reason we say that is because anyone can win a fight against someone when they cannot be critiqued themselves. Personally, although I welcome friendly reviews of my work, done with tact, the main fact is that nobody has to spend a penny for anything I do...except me. And so in the end, the only person I have to answer to at the end of the day for ANY of my videos is myself.
Go ahead with your own life, and please leave mine alone. =)
First off I just want to be clear that articles here are as much opinion with the realization that certainly many have different ones, but its also about getting other opinions and discussions, which it seems to be doing, and that’s great. Don’t worry, I base my reviews on a lot of things and not having a picture perfect stereotypical model is not going to hurt the rating much at all on its own. Part of the reason I am not anal on that aspect when reviewing is I am not so sheltered that I think everyone must like what I like.
Not being bitchy, it’s the feedback I’m looking for, thanks.
Dawn
You mentioned “you have to hit the right blend of 'feasibility' and 'affordability' in your productions.” I certainly understand this. And this is why I have mentioned in the forum discussing reviews and ratings that I rate the sites based on the gerne average production quality. Its simply not fair to put it up against some big name sites in other more established an long term genres.
Naturally there is a cost benefit consideration in all business. What you say about balancing expenses to turn a profit is true for every industry. And you know what? If you are doing that and making some dime then it means you are doing something right! Ultimately the fans vote with their credit cards after all.
Ok what’s with the focus on ShiP so far? Trust me, I don’t rate other sites based on how they compare to ShiP. In fact ShiP is one site I have not been a member of.
Well my goal here is to do friendly reviews with tact. I have a few up so far to look over. I hope you will take part more on this site to help the fans get your side of things. However once someone produces a publically offered product that entity is open and, in fact for the benefit of consumer choice, should be compared against its peers and is open to review.
-- Edited by Alex on Monday 23rd of March 2009 10:09:37 PM
I refer to ShiP as the genre "Super Heroines in Peril" as opposed to any specific website/paysite. You might be thinking of Ken's SHiB site, where he has a forum board.
Vesta and I have differing ideas on the fellow luminaries we compete with for internet commerce. One of us believes that to stay competitive and to keep in step with where the consumers are leaning, we need to really watch which way the wind is blowing, and take the appropriate steps to make sure that we adapt right along with the market if there are any changes. The other one of us believes that we should concentrate primarily on putting out the best product that we possibly can, indifferent to what others are doing. Focusing on quality will help set us apart from many of our competitors, and in the end bring us out as one of the best. It does not really matter which person believes what, since Vesta is the boss and I learned a long time ago the importance of being a good employee is in implementation of policy once a final decision has been reached. Once the avalanche has started, it is way too late for the pebbles to cast their votes!
I have my own ideas which sites are the 'best', but I think my rating system rewards on a different set of principles than most people. Being an associate producer as well as a writer by vocation, I look for different criteria when evaluating sites. Set design is more important to me than actual models (by name) specifically hired. I appreciate an interesting story more than seeing nudity. I appreciate dialogue over suspense. Everybody is different in that regards, I think. Everyone has their own trigger.
From and organizational development standpoint, which is my vocation in the real world, you really are both right. To maintain or even grow ones market share they have to be continuously scanning their environment for changes and what the big interests are and adapt at least as fast as competitor, preferably faster, at the same time trying to put out the best product one can. Better yet is finding a niche in the market that is unfilled and cornering it while offering the best production one can put out. If you can find the niche and set a high standard it will make it harder for others to penetrate your market share.
This is a big task for producers in the genre who are doing this on top of their regular jobs, there is no doubt. This is why I don't hold up the sites and videos I review against professional productions, its just not fair and to be honest I am not sure most fans, or enough of them, are willing to pay what it would cost to be a member of a site that manages to pull off a top tier production site by industry standards, and by industry I mean professional film and modeling / photography industry in general. This is yet another part I am going to touch on in a future article since I have seen fans comment on productions based on an unfair standard of measurement on one hand and on the other seen them bitch about having to pay anything. Frankly I'm not sure which position is more frustrating, those who think things in life should be free or those who think these things should be up to George Lucas standards.
You opinions are great and welcome. As i have said I don't claim that I am the be all and end all of reviewing. This is why I offer an open forum for discussion after the reviews. Otherwise I could just put them on a website and not allow interaction.
I think what you should do Alex is just take a successful format like what they have at "Ain't It Cool News" and do reviews on your own, and recruit other people who do NOT have ties with any of the production companies, then invite those people to likewise review websites. If everyone else wants to chime in they can do so in a talkback format below, offering differences of opinion. If you get people with ties to various sites reviewing those same sites, you're going to get reviews like "A+++! Nothing wrong with this site! The others all suck! Go to this one instead!" and then your site is going to lose all credibility as 'impartial' because then it's just going to be a mouthpiece for every producer who has a new video coming out. You'll never get B's, C's, or D's from your reviewers. All the sites will either be A+ (if it's the producer reviewing his own site) or F's (if the same producer is reviewing his competition's websites.)
The main issue that I have with sites like these is that literary or film criticism requires a lot of analysis and subjective thought, something which I feel is lost on the majority of people who write reviews. There are whole classes in college on how to dissect a literary work from the point of content, of pacing, of characterization, of story, of plot. Most of the people who write reviews on this sort of content aren't offering impartial opinions, they're writing from 'the gut', which, while emotionally-charged, isn't going to be impartial and balanced.
One of my issues comes from the people who want to see non-consentual intercourse in my videos. I get requests for it all the time. I turn down those requests because I'm not really that type of producer. However, in most reviews, the people who ARE into that kind of content always give my videos failing grades because my work is 'boring' or 'lame' and doesn't have enough interesting content to keep their minds occupied. It's not REALLY that at all, but from the viewpoint of someone who wants extremely violent content, my videos hold little or no appeal to them. Whereas some people (people who actually take empirical classes on how to separate their personal opinion from professional review) can be objective and make a detached observation on the merits and failings of a subject, most people can't. They let their personal opinions get in the way. There's a long separation line between Pauline Kael and my roommate, who blogs and blogs constantly about movies. Both of them review, and only one of them is credible in my opinion. =)
Right now I that is what I am essentially trying to do here. People can chime in after Heroine Review's review. Morso feedback will be moderated, not to censor but to assure we get what we want, constructive reviews. As far as recruiting other reviewers I am starting that right now and in the Bulletin board section of this site I cover what I am looking for in a site supported reviewer. Its a pretty tight criteria and I actually suspect i won't get many offers because of that. This is fine if it means maintaining the integrity of our reviews. The review examples you gave would not even be allowed to remain up on the board never mind be HR supported reviewers.
I have a criteria and weighting when I do my reviews and I will expect my reviewers to use that. This will maintain consistency and the points system itself is such that a biased opinion could not effect more than at the most a one star rating and would be exposed pretty quickly.
Stick around and see what happens here. I'm aiming for quality reviews in which I can put aside my personal preferences to consider that of the site Auden. Check out the reviews that are done by this site, how we moderate it, and who we eventually get (if we do) to do site supported reviews. Give us your feedback after we become a bit more established. I have not even advertised the site to the fans yet
Just soyou know some of the points your brought up are good content for the producers section or Review / Rating section since they are veering a bit from the article topic and I'd like to keep this forum focused on the model issue. This is a private section only the producers and Moderators have access to. I am more than willing to address concerns in public but this forum provides a one stop place for producers as opposed to having concerns that interest them as well, addressed all over the board.
Both those forums can be found in the "Main" forums section.
-- Edited by Alex on Tuesday 24th of March 2009 09:57:58 AM
