Page 64 - AVN Januray 2017

GAYVN
THE DOM
Dominic Pacifico relaunches his website—and sets its focus to fetish
the camera will be limited.
“I’ll do it when it’s a special occasion, but
after all this time … I’ve put a lot of content with
myself on the site already, and that I think was
one of the biggest downfalls for the porn star-
based websites. Yes, they have the fan base, but
they’re in almost every scene. After a while, I
think they just bored their audience. I want to use
my name as a brand name, not just to cast.”
That decreased workload will give Pacifico more
time to harness his other talents.
“I did go to school many years ago for audio
production and multimedia, so I learned how
to work in the studio and produce content. At
the time, I just didn’t have the opportunities for
directing, and I was more focused on my music
and DJing,” he says. “Now that I’m running my
own business, all of the years of experience and
knowledge accumulated … you couldn’t pay for
that, so I’m putting it to good use.”
With increased confidence behind the camera,
Pacifico notes he has developed his own sense
of style. Combined with his experience as a
performer, he possesses a unique skill set.
“I know what I want, I feel extremely
comfortable on set, and I’m not producing it to
compare to any other studio or director, or to
be competitive in any way. I’m doing it because
this is what I like to do,” he says. “That’s coming
across with what I’m doing because the models
be very time consuming, and I wanted to make
sure I give it 110 percent,” he says. “There’s a
lot of marketing and promoting that needs to be
done, as well as rebuilding an affiliate program
from the ground. I have to start a member base
from zero; it’s pretty aggressive.”
He also recently let go of the DJ Pornstar
name, and now uses DJ Dominic Pacifico. “It all
became one and the same anyway, so I decided to
just make life a lot easier for myself,” he laughs.
“The new DJ name has really caught on in a
different way. And I’ve been able to re-establish
myself with the same clubs and promoters,
and a lot of people said, ‘We always loved you
and your music, we didn’t mind the name, but
the new name is so much better in a corporate
sponsorship level. Some sponsors would not
sponsor the night of your event because of your
name. And now that it’s changed, we can keep
working with you, but we can put more into it.’
And I thought, great! Done!”
Pacifico also continues to be a content
provider with other studios, and he just signed a
contract with a company to produce the Pacifico
Products line—including a signature mold of his
(and Everett’s) manhood, with a collection of
smaller items to complement them.
Once the workload settles down with the
website, Pacifico hopes to DJ part time more
often. “Not to make a living anymore, but
BRAND MANAGEMENT | By Brady Jansen
DOMINIC PACIFICO KNOWS THE POWER OF PATIENCE. While he
initially entered porn with a solo in 1998, it wasn’t until some
seven years later that he took the full plunge in front of the
camera and was soon a Raging Stallion exclusive.
“I jumped in a little more aggressively, and I also did
THERE’S ROOM FOR EVERYONE, AND I DON’T NEED TO BE PART OF
production assistance and set design for the company for a long
time,” he recalls. “And then from there I branched out, working
with every major studio over the next decade after that.”
DominicPacifico.com in 2013 (with the hard launch a year
later), Pacifico soon found himself unhappy with the way things
were run. The site was dormant for a while, but after getting
his domain back the performer relaunched it independently in
July using a hosting company (Adult Site Runner) to maintain
it. He rebuilt it with the same content and added new scenes,
but this time “a bit more stylized and a bit more cinematic.” He
D
I STILL BELIEVE IN MY HEART THAT
A BIG MACHINE TO DO THAT—I CAN
His patience has paid off again. After soft-launching
DO THAT ON MY OWN.
— DOMINIC PACIFICO
say, ‘Wow, it’s so easy to work with you, that was
the hottest scene I’ve done in a really long time.’”
He’s found other responsibilities more
will outsource his affiliate program to GunzBlazing starting in
challenging: “As far as being a producer, gosh,
January, when the site will also shift from general gay content to
it’s extremely competitive. Most of the major
all fetish.
companies have merged, they’re these big
“I enjoy producing that type of content and it seems to be a
conglomerate monsters, and it doesn’t leave
better representation of Dominic Pacifico’s persona in front of
room for the little guy … it makes it very hard for
the screen as well, so it just made sense to me,” he says. “It’s
someone like me. I’m one of the mom-and-pops
not going to be a hotel room or a cheesy set where we build
of porn at this point,” Pacifico says, noting how
some boxes with padding on them and they fist each other.
difficult it is to battle piracy. “I have to work 10
There’s going to be more realness to it, but in some aspects it’s
times harder to hold my fan base—and luckily,
going to be more artistic.”
there is a fan base … they’re paying because
Pacifico will be directing and producing all the content, and
they’re buying into me as a brand.”
is excited to explore themes like puppy play, master/dom,
Pacifico had to put his other passion on hold,
spanking, foot worship, tickling and more. “I have tried them
although he looks forward to gigs at HustlaBall in
in my real life as well as performed them,” he laughs. “It seems
Vegas and the Whistler Pride festival in January,
more fun to me than just cookie-cutter sex.”
as well HustlaBall Tel Aviv in March.
Pacifico—who is based in Las Vegas—looks forward to casting
“When I relaunched this business, I put the
a wide range of performers. Partner Casey Everett will be a
DJing aside for the past several months. Running
regular in front of the camera, but the director’s time in front of
a porn site and trying to build a member base can
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actually just do it for fun. That will be a huge
game changer for me in the nightlife, when I’m
coming at it from a different approach—and
that’s 100 percent artistically, not as a DJ trying
to make a living. It’s just as competitive as
porn, and I don’t want to go back into it in any
competitive way.”
It’s a path he is used to creating for himself.
“What set me apart as a performer is that I
didn’t follow that lead, I didn’t quickly conform.
A lot of these porn stars, they came and went.
They had a good five-year run, they blew up
physically or they blew up with their career—and
then it faded to black really quick. Luckily for
me, I just kind of listened to certain suggestions
and I stayed under the radar. I didn’t quite
become No. 1 or A-list—I was kind of teetering
somewhere in I don’t know what category—but
it allowed me to have a very, very long-lasting
and lucrative career. Not a lot of porn stars can
say that.”