egafd.com

Yeah .. read Nancy Friday too. See 'Straw Dogs' too for similar territory. Art and fantasy is ironic though isn't it .. one has the 'get out' that it's not actually happening.

Well Andy, as I have been involved with many award winning shows, I feel I have the right to comment and not be slagged off by you. After all never seen your stuff so I couldn't comment.
However I was not slagging the guy as a person, But it's sounds ludicrus that that kind off figure for any scene short or long.
Otherwise we can all book girls in the name of art.

I look forward to reviewing some of your outstanding product someday.

If I could I'd ban the word 'arty' from being used in the context of pornography. What I'm on about is the lack of creativity and vision in British porn and the prevailing abundance of witless, brutish mediocrity that's out there instead (and the celebration of it). This is not about art, it's not actually about class.

I know why the crap's out there -- because a naked girl fucking is the greatest, cheapest, easiest special effect there's ever been. I'd just love to see porn being done better here. At the most basic level it's not about the performers, it's not about the crappy suburban front room. It's how the director puts it together and presents it. Shane Meadows and Lynn Ramsay are independent British film-makers who work wonders with council estates (to use a roundabout term). Paul Abbott with Shameless as well. Of course I'm not expecting the same level of creativity and vision to be common in British pornography. But British pornography has HARDLY ONE OUNCE of that creativity and vision at the moment.

And it really isn't that hard to do something different and distinctive. You just need to pinch yourself awake and take a fresh look around you. It doesn't cost a penny. I'll give you an example.

A couple of British production companies release scripted, drama-based titles. They make money. On those terms, they work. But as pieces of drama they do not work. The script inhibits the performer, whose talent is more likely to be to fuck rather than to spout lines. Cue productions that feel cheap and tawdry because they're just being done wrong and the sex is consequently, on average, crap and fake. And yet these kinds of production could be great. Rip the script up, get the director to go on some kind of weekend theatre improvisation course, then spend half an hour before the actual shoot to play some games, some impro, having some fun expanding the basic scenario and very basic characters and then just shooting the results on the fly. They do this kind of thing at school for fuck's sake! The performers feel they've got greater ownership over what's being created, they're chilled out and, depending on the basic dramatic idea, they could well be feeling pretty horny once the cameras start turning and you might even get some hot sex. Oh, and don't try and do it 'properly', just do it deliberately crap. That way you get amateur charm, not amateur tat. You could market it in exactly the same way to exactly the same audience and I bet that audience would get more out of it and I bet you'd end up making more money.

So that's a drama-based idea. But likewise so much gonzo stuff, indeed an awful lot of the more expensive, glossy stuff as well, could benefit from producers and directors just sitting down and looking at things afresh -- giving performers the space and confidence to be themselves more, watching how much creativity there is in all the different kinds of TV shows there are out there, different ways of shooting, spending a bit more time getting more pre-sex footage and playing around with the first three minutes more in post-production, etc etc etc. And I'm sure that there are producers and directors working in the British porn industry right now who could improve their stuff if they wanted to. But it's just so easy to carry on coasting.

What I'm not so sure about is why we haven't seen more young creative people coming into the British porn industry trying to do things a bit differently. We have a great tradition of rebellious creativity here in the UK and their non-appearance in the three or four years since the introduction of R18 has surprised me. Just a couple of new names would have been good.

Terry, I agree with your comments about Destricted. I believe very strongly that the best place to play around making sexual material is in the porn industry as a fully-paid-up and proud pornographer, respecting the cardinal rule of turning your audience on as best you can then playing around to your heart's content. But despite the fact that I do have a bit of a snooty (indeed smug) attitude towards Destricted and the Shooting People competition I do welcome it. The more this stuff is experimented and played around with the better.

We'll get there in time. Already the internet is throwing up some very refreshing new takes on porn that work and make money. And in the US DVD market you can see several examples where innovation is proving likewise successful. Which makes it all the more depressing when you turn your eyes back to the UK and see the very, very sorry state of affairs over here.

Alas, Marino, you don't have the right to comment and not be slagged off, whether by me or anybody else.

Some good ideas Andy, but I think we're some way off from seeing the terms 'improv' and 'workshop' associated with porn productions. Do you really want productions held-up by the stud asking 'What's my motivation in this scene?'

I think you are a thoughtful person and care about porn Andy. I can see both sides of this debate and you aint far wrong about taking a different approach to it as i do feel you are right, this is the way forward.

The man with the camcorder days are great but now what will seperate the men from the boys so to speak is their approach to how they make films and their eventual outcome.