Q&A with Jeremy Babcock: February 2026

Q&A With Jeremy Babcock: February 2026 – It’s our second Q&A!  I have to admit this is a lot of fun.  I love talking about smut as much as I like making it, and I am constantly amused by how many curiosities and misconceptions there are around all aspects of the industry.  

Once again, some really interesting and thoughtful questions this month!  I’m long-winded already, but please feel free to submit follow-up questions for me to respond to for future months.  This series will keep going as long as there are questions being submitted!

Enjoy!

February ASGmax Q&A

How do I get a job behind the camera ? – Jay

This is an oddly common question, but it’s pretty much the same way you’d get a job behind the camera for any type of video media.  Most videographers have studied film and video or have worked in a video profession before getting into porn.  Video and photography are technical art, so it’s not about loving porn, it’s about having skill capturing images of any kind.  If you do already happen to have experience and skill in this area, there are often needs for cameramen to join production teams in the cities where porn is shot.  Some also work with models directly to shoot fan site content as a way to gain experience.

Body art is very prevalent among those who perform in gay adult films. When casting, do you ever take into consideration both the type and amount of ink a particular performer has? What some studios may find acceptable, may not fit your demographics. Where do you place the bar? – F. MV

Like you said, body art is common.  If porn removed everyone with a tattoo, you’d be real short on models.  For initial casting, we do tend to avoid models who are VERY covered in ink, as we already know that will affect their popularity.  However, there are sometimes performers who have so much charm and other ‘assets’ worth showing off, so we’ll take a chance on them.   In terms of models we’ve already worked with, we do our best to discourage new ink, but… you can see how successful that is.  I’d say the only time we avoid a model with ink is when it’s offensive, commercial brands/characters, or if it’s covering somebody to a point of extreme distraction.   If we could specialize in tattoo-free models we certainly would, but that’s not a realistic goal.

Have you ever thought to bring back the tension (the one where the characters look at each other like saying is this ok or can I?) in scenes specifically in the “step” family ones? – Jackofalltrades2

I’d say more than anything, this is less about how a scene is produced, and more about how it’s directed, acted, and captured.  I usually put a lot of effort into scenes I direct to slow them down and find these moments, but it’s harder to TELL a crew to find these moments. 

I’m with you, though, I love silent storytelling (actions not words).  My recent Good Boy scene was very much an exercise in trying to find the sexual tension through hands and looks.  Some models are going to be MUCH better at that than others, btw. 

Homework assignment.  I’ll make this a priority for an upcoming Taboo run.

Could you elaborate on your shooting style? I realize that after subscribing to other sites like Corbin Fisher, Sean Cody, and Voyr, the video filtering and lighting seem different. How do you determine the video filtering? For example, I thought the scene with Vincent Grey and Miles Fallon had some of the best lighting or filtering I’ve seen on the site, which helped complete both their skin tones. I feel Corbin relies more on natural light, Voyr is dimmer, and Sean Cody doesn’t have the same production quality since some SC ppl migrated to ASG. – JustMy2Cents

A lot of it comes down to the brand/grade of the camera, the lighting, and the editor.  To geek out quickly… Overhead home lighting is often warm, fluorescent lighting will read green on camera, etc.  Using those lights or shifting natural light will usually get messy.  You really have to have lights that give you bright, even, neutral color temps.  If you shoot with enough light, and lights are set properly, you’ll get a neutral image that you can work magic on in post production.   Beyond lighting, I find that different brands of cameras capture colors really differently and have different specialties.  We used some Canon cameras years ago that were great at outdoor shooting and sports, but were annoying as hell with skin tones, always giving them a little yellow/green tint.  Our current main crew has cameras that deliver gorgeous images, and I agree they look really nice.

A third layer to this is in the skills of the editor.  We used to shoot more Raw/Log video, which gives the editor a ton of range for the color grade, but in unskilled hands can look flat/gray/muddy.  We currently shoot with a baked in look that gives the editors less ability to fix mistakes, but lets the look seen on set go through to the final edit – requiring less adjustment.  It’s a testament to the skills on set that it looks that great. 

How long does it take to film a scene and ship it to the site? Have there been films you scrapped, and what scenes, and why? Also, what is the quickest turnaround on a scene? Also, more Vincent Grey and Oliver Marks, please too. Any scenes you can tease for them coming up in the next few months? – Glen Cocoa

I’ll take this one piece at a time.  Our timeline can vary, but usually we plan a shoot and lock casting about 8 weeks in advance.  Each scene is shot in a single day.  The media is uploaded and is more or less ready to be processed by the Post team.  Edit time can vary, but let’s say maybe a week of work – but there’s also graphics and photos that are worked on in the same phase.  The goal is to get a scene in the upcoming queue about 4 weeks prior to its release.  

A scene is a massive undertaking, and a lot of money is spent before models walk on to the set.  Travel, lodging, location, and crew are all paid on shoot day.  Scrapping a piece of content is a wildly expensive loss, so it’s very rare.   The most common reason will be corrupted media.  Even with strict media management – shit happens.  Sometimes the card doesn’t backup from the camera and those few files are damaged and will never play.  If it’s a vital part of the scene, or a majority of the scene, we have had to toss it.  We hate to kill a scene after everyone worked that hard, and will sometimes release it with a disclaimer.

More interesting is when we don’t scrap it.  Some days a guy who came as a “Top only” can’t get hard.  He’s not going to bottom, but we have a crew and another model ready.  We’re wildly adept at having someone on standby or finding a way to get a tested model on set.  We’ve saved a lot of shoots with quick pivots.  The casting isn’t what we wanted, but in some rare cases the backup is an upgrade or a model gets a chance to prove himself and blows us away.  We will also NOT kill a scene if a model can’t cum.  Everyone watching loses their shit when a scene doesn’t have a cum shot, but – these are humans, and even the best professionals have a bad day.  We don’t throw the scene away.  It sucks, nobody is pleased, but there’s still plenty left to enjoy. 

Release timeline: We generally plan the content release calendar pretty far ahead in order to vary models on the site and work through old content, but we’ll occasionally rush a scene with a new model or two that we’re excited about.  Realistically… 8 weeks is kind of the minimum turnaround once it shoots.

Vincent is one of my favorite guys to work with, as is Oliver!  We actually have both planned for a run in February!  There are several releases from both guys coming up, with future shoots in motion!

When are we going to see some “Heated Rivalry” themed scenes? Everyone is swooning over Shane & Ilya. – Dave

I won’t go into my personal feelings on Heated Rivalry, but I can say we did take a certain swing at this a few years back.  We did 7 scenes in our “Rivals” series that were basically aimed at this same idea.  Competitive energy boiling over into lust.  Success was mixed.  It’s shockingly hard to keep anger masculine and it got catty really easily.  I love the idea, and it was very much our intention, but I wouldn’t say we nailed it at the time.  Much easier said than done!  

Will you make sport themed videos like guys having sports gear, including jerseys, shorts, solid black or white ankle/crew/tube socks and jockstraps and have solid black or white ankle/crew/tube socks and jockstrap on throughout the entire scene.  This can be a great opportunity to address some fantasies. – fantasy

Most of our members like the gear at the start of the scene, but less as it goes on – especially when it comes to socks and jocks.  I’d love to get more sports content mixed in – it’s some of my favorite, but we’ll probably opt to get the guys naked as it progresses.  The niche sock fetish crowd is a small, small group.

So, in the past, Next Door Raw was very hot, dirtier, raunchier I guess you could say, and some of the best scenes came from Raw. I notice most of the newer Raw Scenes are basically pretty Vanilla compared to the way they were. I loved those hot nasty scenes and miss them. Every once in a long while I’ll see one, not necessarily on the Raw Channel, but for instance What was it called… Wild Game.. That’s kind of what I am talking about. Dakota Payne was a pro in these type scenes. I can’t remember all the performers, but Derek Kage, has done a few, etc. I would love to see more of that. The Rougher stuff. Not S&M or Bondage, I think you know what I mean. –  Rampage22

You’re quite right, and you mentioned one of the two big reasons that content was produced at the time.  Payne was one of the first truly piggy models we had.  He could flip a switch and be filthy, and brought the best out of his scene partners.  At the same time, we had Walden Woods directing the Raw content.  Walden loved that dark room seedy content.  He and I worked together to build what we called the “Raw Room” at our old studio.  That space could bring out the animal in some guys, it was kind of awesome. 

So what changed?  Well… sadly, you were one of the few who liked when we pushed things that far.  Most of our members wanted a more vanilla product and those consistently bombed to a point we phased them out.  We still like the Raw brand to feel more intense, passionate, sexual, etc, but in most ways that comes down to the performers and the directors.  The stars have to align in some ways, and everyone has to be into it.  Rare with most of the currently popular performers.     Great question!

How are scripts or concepts pitched? I’m a writer and passionate about writing such storylines. – Warner

Answered this in the January Q&A, but basically we’re mostly catering concepts to fit locations and casting, so we don’t have much need for pitched scripts or concepts.  We use the Member Fantasy series as a way to let members inspire the scene ideas, but we don’t have paid writing positions at the moment.

One of my favorite scenarios in many of the amateur porn scenes is when the cameraman or the director gets invited into the action (or chooses to “insert himself” as it were). Does this sort of thing ever happen on the professional sets? How common might that be? – Thom

We’ve put a lot of effort in over the last five years to remove some of the more toxic behavior from our corner of the industry.  We’re really big on consent and compliance, and the “horny director” trope is one of the big reasons why.  It might be hot in theory, but it’s not at all appropriate for a director to engage with a performer. 

I think there was likely a lot of this behavior around in the past – especially as many studios were often started by creators/models, and those lines have been blurred from the start.  Fan Sites have further blurred those lines, but studios like ours have been at the forefront of trying to keep the experience positive for the models we work with.

Hi Jeremy!!! big fan.  I guess want to know, for your studios, do you guys have a specific body type for men? Because I barely see hairy men, bears. – Kj

Casting is very much supply and demand, and combining our sites to ASGmax has been an interesting experiment in finding overlapping tastes between existing audiences.  My goal with casting is always to try to test the edges, and see how broad we can open up our casting types – whether that’s age, race, body type, body hair, tattoos, etc. 

Ironically, the network has closed off our casting options in many ways.  The overlapping audiences tend to get more protective of what they like, and downvote or comment negatively on what they don’t.  I thought a network would open doors, but it’s closed them in more cases.  In all of the testing and trials I’ve done, I’ve found hairy guys and bears to be one of the toughest sells for our audience. 

The real limitation here is a trap we’ve created for ourselves.  In elevating the quality of most of our content, it puts unfair limitations on our ability to produce lower cost content – content with less downside that lets us be more experimental with casting.  If I produce hairy/bear content that’s not well received, the members are critical (sometimes to the point of attacking models), and the content fails in a way that it can’t justify its price tag.  If I try to make lower cost content to introduce new models, we’ll be attacked for lower production values.  (Take the current International series as an example of this.  New faces, but the production value causes it to be poorly received.)

All of that is a very long way to say – I try to open up the casting whenever I can (note the Auditions series), but when we go too far from jock types, the backlash can be extreme and I don’t like to see models (of any type) getting attacked for their appearance.

Which film have you been surprised, and which have you been disappointed with the reception viewers have given it? – Jackofalltrades2

This is SUCH a loaded question! haha!  I’d have to say that I’m probably pretty accurate 95% of the time once I see an edit, in terms of how it’ll be received.  Sometimes the best laid plans just don’t click – and other times it’s the opposite – uninspired casting with a simple story can be overcome by insane model chemistry.

Okay, for ‘disappointed’ I’ll toss out a few.  I think the theme you’ll see across almost all of these is that they are departures from our usual casting, styles, or themes.  In no particular order…

I was genuinely sad how poorly Sodomy Squad was received.  My dream for animation was to be able to do things we couldn’t do with real models.  I thought it was creative and fun – I still do!  Sadly, it wasn’t sexy.  I underestimated how much less entertainment matters than sex appeal.  Also, I don’t think it’s bad to fail, but it sure hurts when people direct that much hate toward a project that’s a miss for them.

This one has a more of a redemption story, but the first Goldenrod Resort feature.  That was our first release under ASGmax Films, and for whatever reason it just came out of the gate flat.  Not sure if the brand was that much of a factor, or if telling the story of a place was a miss instead of focusing more on the people.  I was SO proud of that project.  I’m stubborn and wanted to see if I could fix my own misstep – and the sequel was me trying to play the greatest hits and nail the human connection more.  Part 2 did great, and actually GRR 1 has been a really solid grower over time.  

This one is current, but I actually have been unpleasantly surprised by the reception of our MenAtPlay collab.  A project like this is such an awesome chance for us to work with a new team and aside from the fun of collaboration, it’s just such a great learning experience to see how other teams make content.  It was truly a collaboration, but I wanted to defer to their normal sensibilities in terms of style, sex, and suits.  I had my concerns over the lack of nudity, but I’m sad it didn’t appeal to more of our audience.  I LOVED that project in terms of the collab, the combinations of models, and the sexy suits, but learned a lot of lessons about how little our particular audience is open to other styles of content.

Now for some pleasant surprises!   This is much more fun. haha

“I Can Show You” is such a wild example of all the pieces coming together.  Jack and Liam had done well on the site in the past, but together it did SO well.  It’s pretty rare for a scene where neither model is an Exclusive to go that crazy.

“ASG Free Use: House Boy” somehow broke the Free Use curse and did SO WELL.  In many ways it just meant shifting more toward story and less toward some of the classic Free Use tropes, but I was happy to finally see one work.

“Step-son Sauna Sneak” is another one with no Exclusive models that just combined two models together in a way that turned heads.  LOVE to see our new Pride content shining in the members area, and this one was one of the biggest well-received surprises.

After reading your responses to member’s questions, I want to thank you for your openness and for taking us behind the camera to see what goes into the making of a scene. It’s nice knowing how concept, cast, crew, costs, and constraints all influence the end result. You, and everyone else, put in a hard day’s work, and your Q&A helps us understand that. – F. MV

You’re very welcome!  Glad you enjoyed it!

If you didn’t see your questions answered this month, stay tuned! I’ll pick up the rest in upcoming posts.  Please use the submission form instead of the comment section, as I’ll be more inclined to see and respond to them in future posts. Or directly fill out the form below!