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Filmmaker Says Women Were Hustled in Porn Scheme

A filmmaker who shot over 100 videos for subscription-based porn website GirlsDoPorn testified Thursday he was directed to tell women appearing in the videos they would not be posted online, even though he knew videos had been uploaded online and had received a complaint from a woman who claimed she was lied to.

SAN DIEGO (CN) – A filmmaker who shot over 100 videos for subscription-based porn website GirlsDoPorn testified Thursday he was directed to tell women appearing in the videos they would not be posted online, even though he knew videos had been uploaded online and had received a complaint from a woman who claimed she was lied to.

Theodore “Teddy” Gyi – a veteran videographer with over 20 years in the film and media industry – worked shooting and editing pornographic videos for GirlsDoPorn between 2015 and 2017.

Twenty-two Jane Does sued GirlsDoPorn in 2016 on claims the San Diego-based porn company engaged in a bait-and-switch scheme to get them to agree to shoot pornography after responding to job listings for clothed modeling gigs on Craigslist.

The women claim they agreed to film porn after they were told the videos would never be published online, but instead were for a private collector in Australia or would be sold in DVD stores overseas.

But the videos were posted to the GirlsDoPorn website, with highlight reel clips posted on free websites such as PornHub to drive traffic and subscriptions to GirlsDoPorn.

Gyi was also tasked with having models fill out contracts including a nondisclosure agreement and model release form and contract which said the videos may be used “for any purpose.”

When questioned Thursday by the women’s attorney Ed Chapin, Gyi said he was directed at the beginning of his employment with GirlsDoPorn to tell women who asked questions about the distribution of the videos that they would not be posted online.

Later, he was told to tell the women who had questions about where the videos would be distributed to direct their questions to whoever recruited them to film the porn videos.

“Some women were very concerned about their names,” Gyi said.

Gyi confirmed he witnessed porn actor Andre Garcia also tell inquiring women the porn videos would never be posted online, but said he never asked the actor if that was accurate.

“I didn’t know where any of the videos would end up ultimately,” Gyi said.

Gyi said he would present the models with the documents they had to sign prior to hitting the record button. He said he gave them the “gist” of what the documents stated and checked that their identification showed they were over 18, but he never actually read the documents or knew the contents.

“I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a contract interpreter. I always made that clear: I’m not an attorney, this is just paperwork that’s required,” Gyi said.

While Gyi said Thursday he did not know what would happen to the videos, he was aware they were posted online and testified a woman whose video he shot complained to him that the video was posted online contrary to what she’d been told.

Gyi told GirlsDoPorn owner Michael Pratt about the complaint but said he didn’t know what came of it.

When questioned on cross-examination by GirlsDoPorn attorney Daniel Kaplan about how the porn shoots were conducted, Gyi said 90% of the videos he shot were “formulaic.”

The videos started with a three- to four-minute conversation with the woman model, and then cut to a scene of her undressing before there was a scene of oral sex followed by four consecutive scenes involving different sex positions before ending with an additional oral sex scene.

Gyi said some shoots took hours because the women were “encouraged” to take multiple breaks, but he said the actual sex acts would not take place for hours on end.

He said if a woman said she was experiencing pain during the sex scenes and didn’t want to continue they would “call it a day” and cancel the shoot.

Kaplan asked Gyi what he would have done if he’d known GirlsDoPorn tricked women to get them to agree to be in the porn videos.

“I would have quit,” Gyi said.

The trial was expected to continue for several weeks.

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