Surprisingly, for many years we had successfully distributed our videos without sound! Here's the way we saw it: Most of our videos are conceived as 'skits', a set-up, a premise for their actions, with the models 'pretending' the story. Our models are professionals in the sense that they're paid for their time, but they are NOT trained actors, and to try to make them ACT, and remember scripts along with their other activities, is a pretty tall order. "Pretending" and acting are very different things—especially when it comes to dialogue.
We view our productions as "documentaries", that is, we are documenting a more or less real life episode, albeit a contrived one, and it is shot serially, as it happens, with no "one" shots and "two" shots, etc. as if it were a Hollywood movie. Although, our technique of frequently changing camera angles and positions does make you wonder if it's a three-camera shoot! Our innovative camera work makes it far from boring.
I remember watching so many "Hollywood"-style movies, where there's the stock "head" shot, showing from just below the shoulders to just above the top of the head, just like they were taught in film school. That's o.k. for real films, but we're talking erotica here! I want to see a torso shot, where if there's a translucent blouse, I've gotta be able to see the outline of a lacy bra strap, or if there's a gap, the bra itself, or if her legs are crossed, a flash of panty or a froth of lace from a slip!
I've had customers write in to mention that they were watching the video and noticed something that they'd like to have seen a bit closer, or from a slightly different vantage point, and just as they were thinking that—that's just what I did! "It's like you could get into my mind," they said. If she leans forward, and you notice a gap with a hint of a lacy bra and would like to see more—it's likely that you'll get it!
But, it's ten times harder to shoot quality video with good sound than it is to shoot video alone, and since quality is the thing we wanted most to provide you with, we were reluctant to send you the boring (we thought) "natural" sound—the director telling the models what he wants, the sometimes embarassing small talk between them, and the annoying ordinary sounds associated with everyday life (phones ringing, dogs barking, the stereo playing in the background, traffic noise, etc.) We had felt that no sound at all was better than including what we felt to be a noisy mess with your video.
Well, we were wrong! Many customers have asked for sound, so we're now including it on all our Videos (most of the camera-masters do have sound on them. There are a few where we just screwed up, and failed to get sound on the master at all. In some cases we've inserted background music). If sound is a big issue with you, we can tell you whether a particular Video in which you're interested does have sound. If you don't want sound at all, turn it off.