By Peter Berton
LOS ANGELES – What do adult industry workers do when filming comes to a screeching halt, as it does when the Free Speech Coalition calls for a production moratorium to prevent the spread of disease?
Forbes contributor Susannah Breslin polled some adult industry insiders to find out.
Chanel Preston relies on feature dancing at strip clubs and live webcamming to stay afloat financially. Even so, her budget suffers.
“The amount of money made from webcamming is not always comparable to what you would make from shooting scenes, and feature dancing is generally only available to girls with more familiar names,” Preston told Breslin.
When she’s not filming, Jodi Taylor earns her living as a production assistant in mainstream films. Despite the mainstream job, however, moratoriums have a significant impact on her income.
“It’s thousands of dollars I don’t get, and rebooking shoots can be difficult,” she said.
Asian-American porn performer Keni Styles copes by working on other industry projects, including his webcam site, a YouTube channel and a members-only site he’s developing.
“There’s always something for me to work on,” Styles told Forbes.
Studios suffer, too, according to Burning Angel founder Joanna Angel.
“With a bunch of shoots cancelled, we had to change things around and update with some scenes that weren’t ideal for our schedule at the moment,” she told Breslin, adding that she didn’t expect consumers would notice.
Angel’s advice to performers and producers alike? Save for a rainy day.
“I don’t live paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “I honestly never have — even when I worked at Applebee’s making $80 a shift.”
