#exit interviews

[Day Thirty Six, Interview Room One 13:30]

Posted May 2 2025. Original video here. (link)

previous | next (links)

transcript below

=

Answering another one of these separately because my brain had a little brain-thought. Noggin-whispers. Skull-wiggles.

Exit Interviews! Like today's! Are similar! To Inanimate Answers! Mayhaps't've??

For some background, for Blueberry's I arranged the questions in order and had Barry improvise answers. Then I used those responses to write transitional phrases for our interviewer, Yellow, whose dialogue was mostly scripted. Then with Fan's, I arranged the questions again, but then Brian and our interviewer, Absolute Legend Mickel™, completely improvised their interview on the spot. Then maybe Adam did some light improv for Lifering? OJ's was very scripted, but in a fairly straightforward question-answer way.

Aaaaand, to get the present, Since Box's bizarre Exit interview, Brian and I have been writing them out together, with occasional guest writers, such as Dee helping a lot for Clover's. And here the goal of each of them is to not only find fun answers to the viewer's questions, but to also either find a real core to a contestant's story and help them re-ground themselves post-show, like for Tea Kettle and Cabby, or to shed some more light on a character by having them have an affect on an interviewer who needs to learn a lesson, like for Lifering (in the Box Exit), Clover, and Goo.

And this was always the mentality of Inanimate Answers! Just in a new form. Sometimes Apple needs to learn a lesson from Justin+Santa, sometimes Justin needs to learn a lesson from Balloon. And, in both shows, zaniness ensues. I'm still laying out viewer questions, and getting to use them to craft a little story that explores character not only through those questions, but also a culmination of what those questions mean to the character. It's fun!

One plus for the Exit Interviews is that I get to craft an interviewer who works as a strong foil for the contestant. Dr. Fizz is the perfect target to be driven crazy by Lifering, Bryan as an Interviewer was written to have insecurities that only Clover could help with, and now with today's Goo Exit, I knew for a long long time I wanted to create an interviewer for Goo who would be entirely opposed to Goo's silly existence.

On the flip-side, getting to write the very very bizarre character of Inanimate Answers Justin is veryyyy fun. I do think he fits best when placed next to Knife, whom Justin was created to bounce off of. Not to say that Justin doesn't work next to the other contestants on Inanimate Answers, but I remember when I decided I wanted to do Balloon next that I realized that the core couldn't just be the comedy of Balloon being annoyed by Justin's zaniness, because Balloon natural wouldn't react as strongly as Knife. So, that's when we started exploring different types of cores of an episode, such as showing Justin in the wrong and needing Balloon to help show him the light. Or Justin and Bow who get along surprisingly well, and it becomes about their chemistry. Or Justin being able to easily spot the underlying insecurities Apple has and having a deep dive into the root of those.

Aaaaand after writing all that, I'm missing Inanimate Answers more haha.

But! Exit Interviews are always a delight, as well. And I very much hope that y'all have a fun time as I and the team play around with different fun ideas to play with the question-answering, whilst've still trying to make mainline eps as frequently as possible. Wish us luuuuuck.

A shoot is not complete and performers not paid until the exit interview, in which performers confirm the acts were consensual. Often, the director who just filmed the scene will interview the performer, asking questions like, “Did you have a good time?” and “Were you raped or abused?” and “Would you shoot with us again?” A performer’s paycheck is held hostage unless they answer “correctly.”

This seems like a great way to ensure all performers are happy and videos are consensual, but it’s common for performers to lie in these interviews. Why? Think about it.

If a performer is honest about the abuse they endured on set, they will not be paid for the day’s work—many live paycheck to paycheck, so this isn’t an option—and the entire day’s shoot will be rendered wasted and unusable. This costs the production companies serious money, which in turn means they won’t hire these performers in the future, and will essentially mark them as difficult to work with.

Just read this response to Raven and Nixon from a fellow porn performer