Your limits first: the Yes-No-Maybe list before the first shoot

There is a difference between “I would not do that” and a list that sits on the table before shooting starts and that everyone has read. The difference decides whether your limit holds in doubt. Setting limits before a porn shoot does not mean remembering a few red lines, but writing them so that a foreign production management understands them without a follow-up question. That is exactly what the Yes-No-Maybe list does: it turns a feeling into a working document. How you build it, how concrete it has to be, how it is used on set and how you change it later stands here.

Why oral is not enough

On set it is loud, people improvise, people arrive who were not in the pre-talk. What you told direction in the morning the camera operator does not know in the afternoon. A written list solves that problem, because it exists independently of who is listening at the moment.

The second reason is the more important: saying no is harder in the situation than beforehand. Anyone who stands in a room full of people who are waiting for them, while the technique is running and the day is short, says yes more readily than at the kitchen table. The list moves the decision to the kitchen table — to a place at which nobody is waiting and nothing is standing still.

There is also an effect many do not expect: an application with clear limits is easier to cast than one that leaves everything open. Productions plan with facts, not with guesses. Anyone who writes down what does not happen does not receive fewer enquiries, but more matching ones.

The three columns

Yes — you do that, without having to be asked. It stands on the list so the production can plan. This column is not a self-commitment for all time, but information about the current state.

Maybe — comes into question, but only after a check-in, with the right people, under certain conditions. This column is the most important, because here stands what has to be discussed instead of being assumed. Write the condition with it: “only with X”, “only if discussed beforehand”, “only without face”. A Maybe without a condition is worthless on set, because it is read there as “it will be fine”.

No — does not happen. Without a reason, without a discussion. A No in this column is not renegotiated on set, and it is not moved against a supplement. If someone adds money for an excluded act, that is not a better offer, but a warning sign.

What belongs in it

Think in categories, not in individual cases. This structure has proved itself:

• Acts: what happens, what does not. As concrete as possible — “nothing rough” is not a usable fact.
• People: with whom you shoot, with whom you do not. Gender, number, concrete names.
• Visibility: face yes or no, tattoos and moles visible or not, recognisable surroundings.
• Body: areas that are not touched or shown. Apparently small things belong here as well.
• Language: what may be said and what may not. Certain addresses are a clear No for some people — that is a legitimate limit.
• Exploitation: which channels, which period, which territory. That belongs in the contract, but here as well, because it is the same decision. What is regulated there in detail is in the article on usage rights.

How concrete is concrete enough

The test is simple: can a person who does not know you derive from your fact what they may do and what they may not? “No choking” is concrete. “Nothing that hurts” is not, because your idea of that and mine diverge. Wherever pain, restraint or humiliation is touched, it is worth naming the individual case instead of forming a collective category.

The reverse direction is just as helpful. A short list of what expressly does not happen — in the industry called a No-List — often helps the cast more than three pages of Yes. It prevents you being proposed for an enquiry that does not fit from the start.

How it is used on set

Before shooting starts production management goes through the list with you — aloud, in front of everyone involved. It is fixed who your contact is if something does not fit. And a word is agreed that stops the shoot at once.

A Safeword is not a drama. It is a tool, like “cut” as well. Anyone who uses it does not have to explain why. What happens afterwards, who starts the shoot again and how the lost time is handled is described in the article on stopping on set.

With us the list is part of the contract. It therefore does not have the status of a request, but of an agreement: what is excluded there is not demanded. Which rules apply beside that for every shoot — condom rule, test deadlines, at least three people at the casting — is on the page on safety on the film set.

Consent does not apply for the whole day

Consent is not something you give once in the morning and that then carries until wrap. It is situational and withdrawable at any time, even in the middle of a scene, even if the same act was in order two hours earlier.

In practice that means: the list is the lower bound of your freedom to decide, not the upper bound. It fixes what no longer has to be talked about at all. It does not take from you the right to say no on this day anyway — and a Yes on the list is not an argument against a No on set.

If a limit was crossed after all, the list is the document against which the incident can be proved. How it continues after that, which reporting routes there are and what that means for the production is in the article on the path afterwards.

The list may change

In both directions. After the third shoot you know better what suits you — then things wander from “Maybe” to “Yes”. Just as something can wander from “Yes” to “No”, because it felt different from what was thought. That is normal and needs no reason.

It is changed between shoots, not during a shoot. An informal mail to us is enough; the new version applies from the next enquiry. For a running contract what was present at the conclusion remains decisive — that is why it is worth reading the list once before every acceptance, instead of filling it in once and then forgetting it.

What does not happen: that someone on set tries to move a limit because the scene allegedly otherwise does not work. A production that sees that differently is one we do not place with.

Template

After the application we send you a template with around 60 pre-worded points to tick. You fill it in at home in peace, not in the conversation. Points on which you do not yet know you may leave open — open is a more honest answer than a cautious Yes you do not want to keep on set.

It goes to nobody except the production you actually shoot with. Not into a file, not to other agencies, not as a viewing copy to interested parties. If you leave, it is deleted with your remaining data.