Page 32 - AVN Januray 2017

WHO’S WHO
PORN WORTH PAYING FOR
For director Bree Mills, fan feedback is the key
WHAT I LOVE TO SEE IS
THAT PEOPLE WILL WATCH
THE FIRST EPISODE ON
GIRLSWAY.COM AND THEY
CAN’T FUCKING WAIT TO SEE
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE
STORY SO THEY GO ON VOD
AND THEY BUY THE REST
OF IT. OR THEY GO PICK UP
THE DVD BECAUSE THEY
WANT TO HAVE IT.
—BREE MILLS, GIRLSWAY HEAD OF PRODUCTION
INTERVIEW | By Sharan Street
IN ADULT ENTERTAINMENT, it’s been common for directors to wear many hats.
Performer, videographer, screenwriter, production designer, even composer—all
these are roles that have been handled by those also credited with directing.
king, one skill has become increasingly important: that of marketing guru. And
when it comes to filling that role, Bree Mills stands out.
co-directed with Stills By Alan. The Girlsway head of production took time out
of a busy day to talk about her background, her approach to marketing, and the
obsessions that drive her.
Mills took her undergraduate degree in English and film studies to Canada and
found herself working for Gamma Entertainment, the Montreal-based online adult
giant that handles membership sites for many major adult studios. She learned
production on the job, she explained, and considers herself lucky that she has had
“such an experienced crew to educate me.”
created Girlsway. They made a splash last year with Girlsway’s first two projects,
The Business of Women and The Turning, both nominated for multiple AVN Awards
P
But in the ever-changing landscape of adult entertainment, where free porn is
AVN got a chance to talk with Mills on the set of Little Red, which she wrote and
A self-described “theater kid” and passionate cinephile who hails from Boston,
With that crew, and working closely with co-director Stills by Alan, Mills
last year. And in 2016 they added Pretty Dirty, a new imprint that features boy/girl
content.
When we spoke last summer on the set of Little Red, there were two features out
from Pretty Dirty: Sugarbabies and Good Little Girl. Mills explained, “I want Pretty
Dirty to be the place that you come and say, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe they did
that story. What were they thinking?’
“For Pretty Dirty, my main role is as a writer and producer,” Mills continued.
“Alan is our exclusive director for Girlsway and directs the vast majority of the
catalogue. I just really come in and co-direct the features with him. He does all
of our standard scenes and our mini-series. And Craven Moorehead is our lead
director for Pretty Dirty. … But I’ll actually work with Craven in much the same
way to co-direct features for Pretty Dirty, so he’s going to have to deal with me
pretty soon.”
What Mills brings to the table as co-director is multifaceted. For one thing,
she favors certain themes. “I always like to tackle really kind of interesting
and transgressive subjects. Little Red is all about, basically, sexual predators.
It’s essentially what our twist on the fairy tale is about. And that’s obviously
something that is a very taboo subject. … It’s what happens when you don’t listen
to your mother and you go off the path and you meet a bunch of people who try
to basically fuck you over. And that’s what’s happening here, though it’s just
happening within a sexual context.”
For another, there is her keen understanding of how to release and market adult
content. “We’re making content for Girlsway.com; that’s our primary source of
distribution, which is, of course, our membership site,” Mills said. “ And most
companies tend to be web first in their distribution, where you want to get it
out and you don’t want anybody to pirate it so you wait months and months
before you release it on DVD, and you release it on VOD as a sort of secondary
distribution channel.”
But Mills wanted to do something else. “I think it was with the release of The
Turning, I went to the powers that be and I said, ‘I want to try something really
different because for me the big thing is, we do four to six of these projects each
year. They’re definitely the most anticipated projects that we do for the brand, and
we have fans of all different types. There are fans who are still very much DVD
based. And fans who want to get everything right away, looking at a pay-per-view
type of model. And then of course we have our membership, which thankfully has
been growing month over month after month since we launched.
“So we have all these different fans, and for me I want to take the anticipation
and amplify it,” Mills explained. When I release, I don’t want to release Little Red
in bits and pieces over the next six months—I want to release it all at once, I want
to put a megaphone to it, and I want everybody who wants to watch it in whatever
medium they want to watch it to be able to watch it.”
This approach “raises a lot of eyebrows” with concerns that it might dilute web
sales, but Mills has found that simultaneously debuting on the site as well as on
DVD and VOD helps to strengthen a title’s momentum.
But to make this approach work, the content must be compelling. “The key to
Girlsway is what I call addictive programming. I want you to get off and be excited
about next week’s programing. ... Why are people so into Game of Thrones? Because
they can’t fucking wait until next week. They can’t fucking wait until next season.
It’s that kind of mentality that we want to create with these stories. What I love
to see is that people will watch the first episode on Girlsway.com and they can’t
fucking wait to see what happens to the story so they go on VOD and they buy the
rest of it. Or they go pick up the DVD because they want to have it.”
The Girlway team has fed the addiction by creating a story arc about a cryptic
organization called MANTIS that carries over from last year’s The Turning to this
year’s Telepathy, Project Pandora and Missing. “We actually have people asking us
once we release the final MANTIS piece to do a boxed set. … It’s pretty cool.”
With Little Red, Mills said, “I hope it’s the first of many lesbian fairy tales. We
shall see. The fans will decide.”
Above, Bree Mills, head of production at Girlsway.
(Continued on page 114)
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