Porn Videography Innovations: Butthole-Tracking Software
When it comes to technological innovation, porn often leads the way. The VCR, virtual reality and even the internet itself all owe a debt to the adult industry, as detailed by AE blogger Staci in a post last month. As widely useful as some of these breakthroughs have been, certain technological creations have purposes that seem strictly linked to porn. For instance, who could have imagined that porn would one day lead to the creation of something called “butthole-tracking software”?
One porn videographer concocted just such a thing! They explained its purpose in Buzzfeed’s “16 Confessions From People Who Work In Porn That Might Surprise You“: “I made a butthole-tracking software to make my work more efficient. Basically video consists of a sequence of images. To modify or colour-correct part of a moving image, you cannot do it frame by frame because it would take an eternity! So you need a ‘tracking device’, which is something that will automatically isolate part of the image for you, like a butthole. That means that even if the butthole is moving onscreen, it will be tracked. Once isolated, you can then start to colour-correct it. Usually, I make it lighter and a bit pinker. You can track almost everything, from a mouth and eyes to a nipple or a mole.” Confessions that “might surprise” us? Achievement unlocked, Buzzfeed.
The butthole-tracker is an alternative to the popular trend of anal bleaching and helps elevate anal scenes to the level of fantasy perfection fans have come to expect. Buttholes are the color-correction nemesis of porn videographers, according to the anonymous behind-the-scenes player quoted by Buzzfeed. “It’s one of the parts that needs most color correction, along with vaginas and faces,” the camera-person said. There’s no specific explanation of how exactly butthole-tracking software works, but we’ll assume it operates on the same principles as the face-recognition programs in your phone or on Facebook. Just as that software occasionally mistakes other body parts for a face, we’re wondering if the butthole-tracker sometimes makes the same error? So many questions!
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