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June 2007: PAUL'S PIECE - Production - How Hard Can It Be? Part II
Since I wrote about my ideas for an adult film in the February '07 issue of ETO, things have moved quickly. I started by posting the article on the promotions forum at BGAFD.co.uk. The British Girl Adult Film Database has proven a very useful resource for making contacts and discussing my project. However, it's fair to say there was some initial scepticism about my plans; producers would be more impressed if I was putting my own money into the film. I guess they'd noticed my request for additional funding and missed the bit where I said "Unusually, I am prepared to put my own money where my mouth is, but I can't independently raise enough funds to get the film I'd want to make made". The feeling expressed on the forum was that they worked with small budgets because theirs was a cottage industry, and as such, I was wished the very best of luck. Given the controversial nature and 'what's wrong with porn' tone of my article I'd expected to be patronised or dismissed far more, so maybe readers saw some truth in what I said and had nodded to themselves, saying, "Well yes, in an ideal world…"
At the time I thought they might have a point about finding a backer. But that's before Jerry Barnett of Strictly Broadband was given a gentle poke by AJ to get in touch. He'd read the article and thought he could find a couple of grand for sponsorship if I could come up with some convincing cost projection figures. Taking this as a green light, I began to make my porno plans in earnest.
Things began to fall into place when I responded to an advert in my local paper offering, 'Aircraft cabin available for hire as a filming location'. Amazingly the phone didn't get slammed down when I said I wanted to shoot adult there (such a lovely, vague, catch-all term) and even though it was expensive to hire, I knew it'd bring my project a cool setting. In my February piece I'd listed some male fantasy stereotypes (nurses, 'schoolgirls' and French maids) which I wanted to avoid and it occurred to me that air hostesses were a relatively untapped subject. I checked with AJ, a reviewer of films at Strictly Broadband as well as their chief designer, and he confirmed he'd not seen any porn movies set on planes. I've since found a couple, but then I never imagined mine would be unique. As I explored the idea, friends reminded me of Britney Spear's Toxic video (fondly remembered by many, it seems) and I looked it up on YouTube. It convinced me the idea had legs- and shapely legs at that. I toyed with a few film titles, as they can make or break a movie. Would you want to see Alien, or Star Beast- its working title? Trolley Dollies sounded ok, and my brother laughed 'til Sprite came out of his nose at 'Flaps' but it was Cum Fly With Me that I decided on in the end.
With only two hours shooting on the plane set possible due to its £200+VAT per hour price tag, I knew I needed a way to link-in some of my other ideas, to be filmed at cheaper (i.e. free) locations. But then the 'movie on a plane' format has a long history of prologue scenes and flashbacks. Since the location I was looking at was equipped with a screen and projector for staff training, I could have an in-flight movie shown… Slowly my ideas for sequences formed until it struck me. Every film set on a plane needs nuns, and I could have naughty nuns!
Fearing the BBFC might have strong feelings on how naughty nuns could be, I called them and spoke to Murray Perkins, their senior examiner for 18 and R18 films who also happens to be interviewed in Empire magazine's June issue. He explained that everything's looked at on a scene by scene (and indeed, frame by frame, if required) basis but as a rule, masturbation with a cross would be ok, so long as there was no figure of Christ on it and language used in the scene wasn't blasphemous. I could also have a man in an ape suit it I wanted one. Which was reassuring.
I also called the Obscene Publications unit within the Clubs and Vice department of New Scotland Yard to talk about the shoot. They were helpful about things like having a large audience of extras on the plane (it'd look weird empty but for the performers) -it's fine so long as everyone is over 18, which makes me wonder why more adult films don't have crowd scenes. Other than bukkake!- and gave clear advice on what constitutes reasonable security while shooting in (semi)public locations.
Jerry and I met in February to discuss what he could bring to the project as well as the financial aspect (he knows a music producer who owes him a favour, for starters), and I used the same trip to the capital to visit Robin Archer at his Holloway Road workshop and store; House of Harlot (.com). I'd contacted him looking for a latex air hostess outfit, and he happened to have a shop-second one in front of him. With 'Mandy's list price of £275, plus £60 for the matching hat, I was very pleased to accept his offer of £150 for the pair. I also popped into Fettered Pleasures (.com) next door and convinced Andy, the boss, to lend me some of their fancy fetish gear.
I made some calls and sent some begging emails, and I was delighted to be sent a big pump-action bottle of ID lube (.com) by Richie Bowles. I promised him to get some clear shots of it into a scene, and I'm pleased to have been able to do some product placement in the film. Monique at SexToys.co.uk also sent a box of surprises over to me, including two matched double-enders I needed for the Alienesque scene I'd come up with in my original article. I made sure Hilary and Robert who design and make the Pretty Pervy (.com) range had read it, and by the end of February I'd had a chat about my ideas with them, and they'd agreed to rent me a couple of their amazing inflatable suits for my first scene. As time went on and I realised I needed a third, they were still happy to help, so long as they could film their own behind-the-scenes footage for their site. Continuing the spirit of co-operation, Robert agreed to man the third suit.
Anna Kieran of Hot Rod and David Girow of Harmony both got a call, and were forthcoming with advice. "Make sure the girl's sign to say they're responsible for their own tax and national insurance", said Anna, and David talked me through some of the pitfalls of getting the right distribution deal. My public thanks to both of them too. Another person worthy of a name check is Tony Barre of BarreParts.com who I contacted after seeing a news feature on his music in ETO. He posted me three CDs of music which might be suitable for my film. With so many different looks and styles, music is going to be very important to both add atmosphere and help pull the project together into one coherent film.
March 25th saw me at a London dungeon (not THE London Dungeon. Have you seen their prices?!) to photograph a dominatrix called Goddess Qing. I brought the dress along to show her, and with almost childish delight she shooed me from the room to try it on. It looked pretty spectacular on her and soon my mind was whizzing away, trying to come up with a plan to involve her in my film. "I don't do porn", she told me, which did put the skids under my scheming for a while. With my first scene fast approaching, she did let me shoot some video of her and Cecile in BDSM action as practice though, and seemed as happy as I with the results.
The first scene I had planned was the sci-fi thing with horned suits which I'd outlined in my February article, and I took my old school mate Phil to the remote location I'd found to be the interior of my spaceship; a concrete box in the middle of nowhere that looks like a nuclear bunker. I wanted to check it was still unlocked, as it had been when I discovered it, as well as look for similar structures in the area which might be even better/easier to get to. It was, there wasn't, and we spent an hour cleaning it out and sweeping up the choking dust. By the time we'd finished it was much more presentable. As vast subterranean concrete voids go. Less simple was finding suitable actresses to fit the suits I'd hired. They both needed to be over 5ft 9", without any tattoos. I even tried Walpole Group glamour/adult model agency. After teasing me with a couple of 'maybes', they weren't able to find me anyone suitable and available.
April 10th 2007 is a date which will live on in infamy, at least while my wall planner is still up, and not simply because it started with a broken thermos flask of tea. Their insides are mirrored; it's bad luck. It was the morning of my first shoot and I was a mixture of excited and scared poop-less. A lot rode on the success of this day and I thought I'd packed everything I could possibly need. Too much it turned out, as even with loading up Team A (Hilary and Robert from Pretty Pervy/Obviously Odd and Andy from Handiwork - my lighting and camera guy) Team B (actresses Kat V and Tracey Lain, plus me) still had a lot of gear to hump the half-mile-or-more from the closest parking to the location I'd found. Had the additional security and a stills photographer I'd originally expected to come along been with us maybe I wouldn't have ended up knackered with bruised shoulders even before I'd lifted a DV camcorder in anger. My last minute replacement for Phil the security guy was a big piece of wood, but it's not what you think. It was for wedging the steel access door closed.
I've described this day as the least sexy I've ever had, and although it was my mum asking how it went, the answer is still true. It was simply too stressful for me to engage with the action and a lot of things I wanted to do I couldn't, for one reason or another. Overambitious is the word that keeps coming to mind. I'd look at my mobile and the 20 minutes I thought had passed were in fact an hour and 20 minutes. Still, Andy's dedication to getting the lighting just right (not so easy 20ft underground) might have slowed the action down, but the end result was something pretty uniquely… pretty. I just hoped it'd work as porn as well as art. It was around 7pm when we wrapped up and I still have no idea where the time went. Naively I'd imagined we'd be in and out in three hours. The problem now was I'm made Tracey miss her last train but I reassured her I'd get her home that evening if I had to drive her half way to Scotland myself.
Andy (acameraguy@hotmail.com) kindly agreed to transport Hilary and Robert back home for me, and Kat accepted my suggestion of keeping me company on the trip to return Tracey home so long as I fed her. Seemed like a fair deal so, lacking time to collect my own gear, we cleared out of the location and I locked it up, hoping to come back later to tidy up. After a bout of paperwork (there's so much in porn! What with model releases, photos and photocopies of ID- signed on the back, and 2257 forms filled in in triplicate) I waved Team A away, and took Tracey from Banbury all the way to West Yorkshire. Tired and a bit ill from the long, cold, smelly (the pyrotechnic smoke was evil when it got concentrated in the gas masks) shoot she slept while Kat told me how she'd have directed the scene. Annoyingly all her points were good ones; that's years of experience for you. Wanting to make the most of the day, I listened carefully to Kat, vowing to make my next shoot less punishing on me and my performers.
We left Tracey with her husband and I headed back to London to get Kat home at a halfway reasonable hour. However, exhaustion had caught us both up and after the first meal of the day at gone midnight -so the first meal of two days- we both fell asleep in my car in the services' car park. A few hours later, the same thing happened again when I stopped for petrol outside Oxford. For a woman getting home 12 hours late, I have to say Kat was a total star for not giving me a hard time, and this night will always be the one when I slept with a porn star. Similarly, it occurs to me that if anyone ever asks me if I've ever paid anyone for sex, the honest answer is now yes. Just not with me. At 10am I eventually collapsed back home, feeling like I'd climbed the steep part of the learning curve. But I had my first scene in the can (well, on four DV cassettes) and nothing, Nothing could go wrong with it now!
AAAAGGGH! Trying to capture the material Andy had filmed highlighted a problem. His camera had been set to widescreen, as had mine. But while my widescreen was 4:3 with black borders top and bottom, his was stretched 16:9 in just the way he said his camera couldn't do. Bugger. It took two meetings with Andy to sort it out. Plan A was to use his camera to capture from, hoping that it'd re-squeeze the video. When it didn't, Plan B was to use some of Andy's software to de-stretch the footage back into the same ratio as my camera's. Joyously it did, and I was able to watch it back properly at last, often tutting at myself for getting in the way of a shot. Still, with three hours material for a 20-25 minute scene, I was happy I'd 'be able to fix it in the edit'. One thing that went very well is the opening titles to 'Lesbians' (all the letters of Aliens, plus a B an extra S) which I made with Macromedia Flash. Polished graphics really aid presentation I think.
Kat had worked for free on a content share basis as she liked the idea of the scene. Anything "not shot with another girl in a hotel room" to quote her, sounded good and I was happy to swap her time for the right to use the material on her web site/s. My preconception about actors accepting less pay for part-ownership of the film went by the wayside. With their own pay-sites demanding fresh material, content share agreements have much more potential. Suddenly I'd an angle to get Goddess Qing involved. The 5 minute scene of her and Cecile at a dungeon near Warren Street I'd recorded and edited had been for her web site - could I tempt her to be in my film with a similar deal? A phone call confirmed I could. So long as she didn't show her undercarriage and the setting was a BDSM one of interest to the subscribers to her site, she was in. Oh happy days!
At 7.24am on the morning of the shoot with Qing things went badly off the rails. I got a text from one of my other performers saying she was ill and that she wouldn't be coming. I was a mixture of cross, angry and pissed off- but on the other hand I wanted to have the full experience of making an adult film, and last minute cancellations do appear to be part-and-parcel of the process.
Fortunately the lovely Lala, who I'd met at Venus in Berlin on the very day of my film's genesis, responded to one of the many frantic texts and emails I'd sent off before I'd had to get in my car. She was on her way in minutes, with an ETA which let me collect a fucking machine and some masks from Fettered Pleasures and a doggy-position restraint from the good people at Zeitgeist -also on Holloway Road- and pick up Qing without entering London's dreaded Congestion Charge zone. Traffic willing, I should get to Croydon just ahead of her and my other actress, Emily Cartwright. By a strange twist of it's-a-small-world fate, Emily knows ETO publisher Lee Schofield and was able to accurately describe the tattoo I saw while sharing a bed with him in Amsterdam. But that's a whole other story…
With Emily's chap(erone) Max in the other room and the bloke upstairs thoughtfully turning his stereo down, it was time to make a movie. Looking back, this scene was far less stressful than my first and despite not having the best lighting, the muted brown and red tones of the dungeon worked well with the dark green of Qing's rubber military uniform (also from House of Harlot. She'd become a fan since trying on my air hostess dress, and has even bought her own. This has opened up some more shooting possibilities on the plane) and the multi-layered cream and red outfit Emily was wearing. Lala started in a white vest and shorts, and even though I had a more fetishy outfit ready for her once she'd been corrupted by Qing, it never got worn. Lala has a body that's a crime to hide once you've seen it. I'd planned a costume change for Qing but that, like a lot of ideas, got dropped due to lack of time. Still no watersports, still no A2M, dammit! However, I was very happy with the core material I'd shot. I'm also proud that my commitment to varied porn is continuing, with tall, elegant Chinese Goddess Qing starring alongside 36HH English Rose Emily and Lala, a pocket-rocket Nubian princess from Paris. Viva la difference!
So what have I learned? That porn stars can be very poor communicators who seem to suffer more than the national average with computer/phone/internet/health problems. That anal sex carries certain risks, the biggest one being poop splashing next to your ear, and it's possible to see more blood than you really expected to while shooting hardcore. I've also learned why so much British porn is front-room based: The only way to make a living from it is to approach porn as a production line. Fortunately for me, it doesn't matter that I've already worked out there are easier ways to make money. So long as I show a profit from the end product, I'll have regarded this experiment as a success- I'm not relying on porn production to pay my mortgage and put my non-existent kids though private school.
At the time of writing there's still more filming to be done, with PVC nuns, ripped-fishnet-wearing street hos and especially on the aircraft set, and then a lot of editing and cover artwork design. Then comes BBFC approval (new charging structure since I wrote my February piece. Now a two hour film, plus artwork, will cost me £976 inc. VAT, down from £1030) and the search for the right distribution deal for me. But these are tales to be told in my third and final article, due later this year, with the hope that my film's ready for the Adults Only show in Birmingham in October, if not the July ETO Show at the NEC.
Half way through the experience, do I still think 'I can do better' than the British-made porn that's available at the moment? I still hope to make an interesting film well worth wanking over and take some comfort from the fact that half of all British-made porn is below average quality (that's averages for you) and remain convinced I'll be in the better half with my first film. Gone are my silly ideas of working with a handful of performers and Venn diagrams though. With fairly fixed costs, it seems better to introduce a variety of actors and actresses - providing the format of the film's 'story' allows for it.
To answer the big question, 'how hard can it be', having filmed two scenes, spent well over a grand (feels like most of it was on phone calls) and got home a day late on both occasions, the answer is bloody hard! It's been a rollercoaster ride that's alternated between terrifying and just plain scary and I've a new found respect for British porn producers. Yet having spoken to several performers who are as bored of bonking on a sofa as I am of watching it, I still believe there's room for creativity- even on a shoestring.