Page 44 - AVN January 2016

by JASONLYON
Angel passed a major
Adult video company Fallen
milestone this year, marking
two decades since its creation
in 1996. Founded and operated
by longtime married couple Luc
Wylder and Alexandra Silk, the
company embraces all aspects of the
adult industry: production, post-
production and distribution across a
wide range of evolving media.
As I spoke with Wylder and Silk
about the company’s twenty-year
run, I expected that we would discuss
video production, critical times in
the company’s history, changing
distribution platforms, etc.
Which we did. But we also
talked about integrity,
relationships, family, fun
Down to Earth
Fallen Angel’s founders share two decades of porn history
and love. If you think those are trivial concepts next to the
their Fallen Angel VHS/DVDs into the store. We hit it off
hard realities of business, then allow the memories and advice
right away! That was almost 18 years ago and we are still very
from what Penthouse Forum once called the “First Couple of
close friends. Shortly after the store opened we had a Silk Ties
Porn” to convince you otherwise.
event that was epic. Massive fan and industry turnout with all
“The world really matters to me,” says Fallen Angel CEO
the beautiful ladies. A successful night to be remembered.”
Luc Wylder, “and the wake that I leave behind my career is
Not long after Fallen Angel was founded, the company
important to me, the impact that it has on other people and
launched into a partnership with Adam & Eve. Wylder speaks
on their lives.”
of the honesty and ethics of Adam & Eve as forming a “perfect
“Ethics, integrity, love, kindness, and being technically
marriage” with Fallen Angel.
savvy,” says CFO Alexandra Silk about the secret to Fallen
Adam & Eve’s Bob Christian makes it clear that the long
Angel’s longevity. “You have to be willing to never stop
collaboration is based on deep mutual respect. “They are
learning. That will sustain you.”
creative, productive, persistent and great partners to work
Formally incorporated in 1996, Fallen Angel began as both
a production and distribution company.
“We had a huge warehouse where we would ship
product,” says Silk, describing the large stock of VHS
tapes Fallen Angel distributed in its early years.
“There were a couple of other ‘angel’ companies
around,” says Wylder, explaining the origin of the
company’s name. “Evil Angel and Elegant Angel—I
actually called them both when I named the
company and asked them if they minded me
incorporating the angel part. They were all
very close to me in the early years of my
career. I did it on one level to honor
them, but on another level to expand
upon the work that they had done.
with,” says Christian of Silk and Wylder. “It may sound dull to
say they are reliable and our go-to people, but it is very special
to find such a great combination of talent and imagination
and execution in one place. Through the past decades, Fallen
Angel has worked exclusively with Adam & Eve, I believe, but
neither of us ever demanded or contracted for that loyalty. We
both just want to work together, and that is a great thing.”
“Luc and Alex,” Christian continues, “have been creative
partners for Adam & Eve Pictures with the variety of projects
they bring to us and produce with us. They started, and
continue to produce, our longest-running series, Amateur
Angels, now with twenty-nine different movies. Luc and Alex
took us all on tour with Sex Across America, enabling fans to
enjoy the sex in twelve major U.S. cities and at the Sturgis
Motorcycle Rally. Then they took the world inside the real
FEATURE
So Fallen Angel is an angel coming
down to earth from heaven for the
right reason, to bring a message to
people, to try to change the world
one orgasm at a time.”
Fallen Angel’s early series
include The Master’s Choice, My Dad’s
Dirty Movies and Dirty Dancers. While
those series would set the groundwork
for Fallen Angel’s later productions, Fallen
Angel’s Silk Ties (1999), directed by Silk,
marked a turning point in both production
quality and exposure for the company. Theresa
Flynt, former vice president of LFP, describes the
premiere that took place at Hustler Hollywood:
“Alex and Luc were some of the first people I met
when opening the very first Hustler Hollywood
store on Sunset Boulevard in December
1998. They came in to see me about getting
Fallen Angel is an angel coming down
from heaven for the right reason, to bring
a message to people, to try to change the
world one orgasm at a time.
—Luc Wylder
homes of adult stars like Ron Jeremy, Nina Hartley, Nicole
Sheridan and Carmen Luvana in their series Adult Stars at
Home. When they found the time, Fallen Angel made some
features with Adam & Eve, and last year they introduced us
to a serialized insider view (albeit fictionalized) of a different
world, Confessions of a Sex Surrogate. I can’t stop without also
calling out their current strong series they are producing for
Adam & Eve, Swingers Wife Swap, now up to No. 4, The Block
Party.”
Throughout Fallen Angel’s existence, Wylder and Silk have
followed the age-old maxim of quality over quantity. Silk
describes 2003 as pivotal for Fallen Angel as they won AVN’s
Best Specialty Release “New Genre” Award, even though their
winning video, Internal Affairs 5, was the only one the company
produced that year.
“I’m so proud of this award because of its meaning,”
exclaims Silk. “This was in 2003, the heyday of adult, when
everybody and his brother had a camera and they were ‘a
pornographer.’ And that year we made one video, and it won
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