I’m Lew Thomas, accidental adult filmmaker since 2001. Also one of the creators of FakeTaxi. AMA.

Did you ever read that TIFU story about a guy who tried to tell his sister and her friend to check out Cash Cab, but accidentally said Fake Taxi instead?

No I didn't but that's a good TIFU :)

Have you accidentally picked up the wrong person?

I think John would still make it work without even realising. He's truly a one-off.

Why is Prague so popular for making porn?

Prague has a lot of very beautiful girls and is a very beautiful city!

It’s been 8 years since we started our company, but how many years have you aged in this time?

Hi JT, I would estimate I've aged about 20 years haha!

What does your family think of your career? Do they know about it? Any funny stories of their reactions?

They know yes, they never had an issue. I'm 37 now though. At the time I think my Dad was just happy to get me out of the house.

Taxis are cool and all, but have you ever thought about fakemetrobus? Or maybe fakehorsedrawnbuggy?

We want to do a Game Of Thrones era FakeTaxi (Medieval FakeTaxi) on a horse drawn carriage for FAKEhub Originals!

In your faktaxi scenes why is the male's face blurred but not the female's? I'm talking about the "drivers" not the "customers"

Hi BelgianBoris, it started out with us thinking that no one really wants to see his face, and now it's become kind of an iconic part of the brand.

Can you do the same with his Bhole too? Please.

Something like this?

https://cdn.thisiswhyimbroke.com/images/doggy-butthole-cover-640x533.jpg

*Surprisingly safe for work, despite the URL and the thread.

HAHA! Great idea I'll look into this.

What was your reaction when newspapers and sites, like the Sutton Guardian and the Metro, started running stories about how it was wrong that you were filming in local public spaces?

I think John started packing a bag to leave the country haha, just joking. We were very surprised.

What are the most useful techniques and tricks that you still use regularly from film school in your porn?

I like crash zooms and zooming in on something while moving backwards :)

There are more things they don't teach you in film school and that you learn on the job, like how to master tapes to broadcast standard, and that you should wear a splash guard if the girl is a squirter.

What are some of the funniest/most memorable reaction(s) from passersby who realized what was going on?

Hey whoratio-sanz, we've had a few people call out “FAKE TAXI” while they've been driving around, Ava Austen was stuck at a red light during a FemaleFakeTaxi shoot and people recognized her and started taking pictures. We've had some pretty bad weather recently in the UK and only last week a local farmer had to help John get the taxi out of the mud when he got stuck. There have been countless funny moments over the years.

How does working in porn effect your sex life? Is it more active, or have you come to view sex as business/casual rather than a love connection between two people?

I've been married for 11 years so I no longer have sex.

/r/deadbedroom

I'm a mod there.

Has there been any instances where you finished filming and it just didn't go well and was a total waste? If so, what happened?

Every FakeTaxi ride is an exciting one! Today we just released our 500th ride!

.....link?

It's live right now on FAKEhub.com.

Do you get the car valeted after a shoot?

John's pretty tight so every 3rd or 4th ride he gives it a once over with the hoover.

On some FT scenes, only the guy's ass can be seen humping the girl. Is this intentional or nah?

The hairy-bobbing-man-arse is one of my favourite shots, is that not massively popular?!

Are you ever going to get the rips in the seats repaired?

I think he taped them up recently but he doesn't know how to sew.

The still photos you use on twitter as promos for the rides are great, do you make them available anywhere for folks who like porn pics?

Those pictures are only available on twitter, but if there was big enough demand for them I think it would be discussed internally how we'd go about making them more readily available.

Ever tempted to be in front of the camera instead of behind it?

No because I am hung like a baby carrot and a couple of petite pois.

Has the Taxi ever broken down en-route?

Yes. We don't like that taxi, it's broken down many times, including after and before shoots. There's also an old taxi in my garage that was delivered back to us on a low loading lorry which was a nightmare situation! I still wake up in cold sweats over that one.

What was your original plan for life (with your film production degree) and are you happy of the way it turned out?

Originally I wanted to make my own films, like most other Film graduates, which I am kind of doing albeit they have to have sex in them. Realistically I was hoping to be involved in making nature documentaries, either camerawork or editing.I didn't plan on this career but I am happy with how it's turned out so far yes!

Lew, what country do you film most of your videos in?

Hi eastriverdriveII, we film most of our scenes in Prague (Czech Republic), but John shoots his FakeTaxi scenes in the UK.

How do you find the girls for the scenes?

Hi halifax2345678, often the girls find us through social media, FakeTaxi has a pretty significant presence on twitter. In Europe we work exclusively with a great model agency who are always on the lookout for new girls.

Wait, so those aren't real taxi customers...!?

Of course they are! :D

We have a number of other sites that are very different to FakeTaxi under our SEXYhub Network.

Was it a joke idea at first, or did you take it very seriously?

FakeTaxi was never a joke idea. About 2 years after JT and I formed the production company, we’d already launched 6 websites and we had ideas for a bunch more. During this period we would constantly be bouncing ideas around, making plans for the next few years and writing down what brands we’d like to create or niches we’d like to explore.

I remember he called me one evening and said “Fake Taxi!” And that was it, we took it from there. At the time we were in the midst of making MassageRooms so I was shooting and editing for that site and also working with a new editor and new crew to take that on so I could start the next project. It was some time after that before we actually started shooting content for FakeTaxi. It was just a name at that stage and there were a number of different people we were talking to about potentially taking on the role as the driver.

We also shot some test scenes for PublicAgent where he’d pretend to be a private taxi for hire to get a feel for things. Eventually we decided the best choice was a guy I’d known since 2001, he was really perfect for the part except he wasn’t particularly technical and wasn’t thrilled about having to set up cameras etc.

So he drove to my house in this black cab and we spent the afternoon going over everything, I showed him how everything worked and what he needed to do. We wanted to keep it as simple as possible anyway. Then we set up the cameras in the cab and he drove around the block and picked me up and I pretended to be a passenger. Then he went home and the next week started sending me footage to start editing. And the rest is history!

I pretended to be a passenger

So you had some hands on research? I admire your dedication.

We burried this footage.

I'm a big fan of Massage Rooms, so props to you guys on that series. ✊🏾

Thanks indeed00!

Do you have Angel Long or Ava Austen's phone number? Asking for a friend....

No, but maybe your buddy could tweet them!

Thanks for all your questions everyone! I really enjoyed this. If you have further questions you can hit us up on twitter where you can keep up to date with all the latest news and announcements, and any suggestions for things you want to see please make comments in our members area!

It's time to call it a day, I have editing to finish for our FAKEhub Originals series. Thank you to everyone who supports FakeTaxi and our other sites with a membership!

I've seen quite a few people around me (North West) with Fake Taxi stickers on their car, what do you think of this? Personally it seems a bit weird having a porn series sticker on your car.

Also got any jobs going? (on the production side not acting)

A lot of people send us pictures! We've sold a lot of stickers at the FakeTaxiStore.com so it doesn't surprise me. It's one of those things: if you know you know.

I swear to god I parked up next to the Fake Taxi in Wallington, south London. Can you confirm or deny this could have been the case?

I can neither confirm nor deny this was the case. Yes you did. No not really. Yes.

Will you ever post the bloopers online? As I have never seen any bloopers

We've posted more bloopers and outtakes more recently, for FakeTaxi (did you see the bonnet jump?) and also for FAKEhub Originals and FakeHostel. I love the outtakes.

How did you accidentally get into the business?

I grew up being obsessed with movies, and when I turned 11 or 12 my Dad bought a VHS-C camcorder for family holidays. I used it so I could start to make films myself, mostly just copying comedy sketches, but that developed into fight scenes (the Black Knight scene from Monty Python And The Holy Grail, where we'd put buckets on our heads and use homemade wooden long-swords) and that evolved into buying fake blood and plastic guns, we'd steal our Dads suits and recreate Reservoir Dogs in my garage and I'd edit the shots together using a VHS cassette recorder with a dubbing feature to add gun noises and sound effects. Then we got a PC for the family one Christmas and I learned how to use Premiere which changed everything for me, now I could make things look almost professional!

I was lucky enough to go to University on a grant and part-funded by my parents (my Dad was a welder and my mum a health worker for the NHS). I met new likeminded friends and we shot tons of comedy films and silly movies together. When I graduated I wanted to make movies, but having no real experience and armed only with a degree in Film in an incredibly competitive industry, I found it very difficult to find paid work, and I was about to move to London, my parents couldn't afford to support me and I had to find a proper job.

One day I was packing a box of VHS tapes (I had a fantastic collection, around 500 VHS tapes) and I found a softcore porn film I'd bought starring top-shelf magazine models from UK and Europe. I put it on (purely for research purposes) and while I was watching it, it dawned on me how badly it was made, the editing was awful, the framing of the shots was amateur, the styling, the repetitive music, I just thought to myself that I could do better if I was given the chance. I'd never once thought about making a porn film until this point. So in my unemployed frustration, and by now pretty desperate for a job with my old man putting the pressure on me to move out of the house and start working, I wrote them a letter telling them how badly produced their movie was, and I offered my services to take things up a level. This was 2001, letters were the norm. A few days later I'd practically forgotten all about it and was ready to take any job I could get when the phone rang. It was the boss of this company and he told me he'd read my letter, and asked me if I was serious or not (I was 100% serious). He told me to come to London for an interview the next day.

This was all before the availability of free internet porn, picture-sets for top-shelf magazines was still big thing, print was a very popular medium for porn. They had one guy in their video department who was making softcore scenes for VHS distribution, and for broadcast on Playboy UK cable channel. R18 (Restriced18 certificate - hardcore) was only just being introduced in the UK.

It really all just escalated very quickly from there. I had access to expensive cameras and lighting equipment, sets, I had complete control over what I was doing. I was editing and doing design work, flying around Europe and filming in luxuries villas with beautiful girls! And I was only 21 so it was all pretty wild. The movies became popular, Playboy TV commissioned most of my ideas for series/films and I was also learning new things, like how to master to BETA SP tape to broadcast standard (something they'd never taught us at Uni). I really had no reason to try and do something else, it was exciting and fun and I felt like I was creating, even if the films we were making all had to have sex in them!

How was it working with Ella Hughes ?

I love Ella, she's amazing.

How do you tell other people your profession? And what are their reaction?

I tell people that don't know me that I write the descriptions on the back of shampoo bottles.

You hiring?

FakeTaxiJobs.com!

Always wanted to know;

Are you and the other film staff str8 up hard when you're filming?

Very common question I am asked. No, because I'm thinking about the lighting, and the angles, and the editing! And trying to avoid getting bodily fluids on my face.

Is it a tradition in london cabs to show your boobs while driving your first taxi?

Yes it's the longest standing tradition in London, over 100 years :)

Is the fake taxi car I see in Farnborough one of yours or just a massive fanboy?

Probably one's of John's many disciples.

Is the taxi you use the same one that you originally started out with or has it been switched out with another? if so how many miles does it have on it?

The original FakeTaxi we started with (which is actually an all time classic model) is now in Prague. We've been through a few of different taxi's over the years. The current one has about 300,000 miles on it (but I am convinced it's been around the clock once already).

Hi guy! Just gotta say your production style is amazing. Hard to find porn that covers the bases I like but your team pulls it off pretty exceptionally. (Blurred male face are a big +, nothing against people who like it but I prefer no cut-always to a strained and veiny male orgasm expression)

Big question is how do you intend to expand your market? Not looking for trade secrets but your popularity is going up pretty fast and I was curious what viewers could expect in the future?

Also, sort of a 2 part question, but what's it like working in that kind of "passing-through" business where most female stars are in and out? Do you keep in contact with them to schedule additional shoots/long term buisness deals or is it mostly a strangers in passing in the wind sort of deal where they fall off your radar after their scene?

(Adult entertainment is an awesome market to me, as a kid rather than wanting to be an astronaut I wanted to be a pimp (like, the cool kind) so this kind of stuff is really interesting).

Hi bystander007, thanks for the positive comment! We have so many FAKE sites we'd like to make in the future, JT and I made an incredibly long list of ideas years ago and haven't got close to making everything we had in mind.

FakeHostel is our newest project, it's a little different to a lot of the other “Fake” brands in that it's not a reality genre site (it's more along the lines of our FAKEhub Originals series). It's a comedy site, but it's slightly warped and creepy in a comical and quirky way. It's sort of like a web-series with a new episode every week, a few recurring characters like the Landlord and the Landlady. We release all the trailers on the @FakeHostel twitter for people to check out.

Not all girls are looking to make a career out of modelling, but everyone that comes in to work for us we treat like part of our team and part of our family, so there's a deeper relationship than just someone 'passing through.' Our members give us good feedback and we often re-cast girls based on that.

Pimp like Drexl Spivey from True Romance, or Will Ferrell in The Other Guys?

The UK is uptight about porn at the best of times and currently getting worse. The girls are obviously great, but is it tempting to just film elsewhere?

We do actually film some FakeTaxi in Prague also.

do you guys feel the huge presence of all the tube sites is bringing down your revenue? how do you keep the money rolling for you guys when there's so much free out there for you? how big is porn really, like how much are some of these companies making out here?

JT, the owner of our company was one of the founding members of YouPorn, one of the first and biggest free tube sites out there. He had a vision that money could be made from the free tube sites and created a business model around this. Which we implimented from day one.

Are you also the creator of Female Fake Taxi?

If so, how does filming Female Fake Taxi differ from filming the original Fake Taxi?

Yes we also created FemaleFakeTaxi. We simply turned the tables and had a female driver! Same like we did for our casting site FakeAgent, when we created FemaleAgent.

Do you have any major projects coming up, or anything in general youre excited to do? :)

FakeHostel is the newest baby of ours in the FAKE Universe and we're really enjoying seeing it develop. I can't really say much about what we have coming up next but keep tabs on our twitter accounts! :)

@FakeTaxi @FAKEhubOfficial

What is your BMI?

Too high.

Would you be afraid of going into outer space with a gay astronaut?

No I'd just be excited about going into outer space!