Page 105 - AVN November 2017

FEATURE
Then I’ve got the Tommy Pistols and the people that are
super fun to shoot. I’ve shot Tommy a number of times; he’s
on the monthly roster at this point. Great actor, obviously.
One of my resident creeps I can use.
Chad [White], we’ve had him a couple of times; Michael
Vegas is another strong one; Ryan Driller is another strong
one. The whole cast of Half His Age, which is the first feature
that we’ve put out this year to introduce the product. That
whole cast, talk about a group of players coming together.
We had Charles, we had Xander [Corvus], we had Small
Hands, who is a very underrated actor—like a great actor. And
then we had Kristen Scott, who I love working with, who’s
also excellent, and little Jill Kassidy. She came out of nowhere.
Here’s this nice, sweet Texas girl and she killed it. And now
we’ve probably shot her more than any other single performer
for PureTaboo just because she hit such a stride with us so
early.
She was like, “You know what, I’m so used to being cast
this way but I love doing this twisted stuff. I love the acting.”
She’s been a great advocate for us since the launch in terms
of promoting her work on the site. It’s a perfect place to
showcase someone who otherwise is not going to get a lot of
attention for acting but is a fast-rising star within the industry.
She’s someone that’s totally sweet and looks like your next-
door neighbor and is a ferocious sex performer. Like really has
a great energy with the camera and plays to it and she’s pretty
daring. She’s going to really grow in that capacity. But also
loves the acting. She’s been real fun—we’ve had her play all
kinds of things. People are going to see all sides of Jill Kassidy.
“WHAT I TRY TO FOCUS ON
DURING REHEARSALS IS JUST
LET’S NOT SPOON-FEED THE
AUDIENCE.”
—BREE MILLS
What about your crew? How were you able to find that
chemistry and develop it?
We use a core team of people actually for all of the Gamma
Films productions we run out of L.A. It started as a small crew
that we put together when we were launching Girlsway and
then it kind of grew over the last few years to include more
and more players. My approach with the crew is that we’re a
family. They’re all over at my house for the holidays. It’s a real
close group. We’re all artists and filmmakers and we love what
we do and enthusiasm is contagious. What it took to bring
PureTaboo to life was not just my idea, it was taking the idea
and hashing it out with this collective.
So I work with Craven Moorehead on this project. We
started this together and he brings a lot of experience from 20
years in the industry and is really the anchor of the crew.
He’s the one that organizes everybody and makes sure that
we move from location to location. He manages all of our
audio; he’s one of our cameramen. He’s definitely the real
strong, stable, calm diplomat amongst us. Then you have
myself and Matt Holder. ... We’re really kind of the crazy
artists of the group.
Everybody has multi-talents. You have people who are
directors on other sites or other projects who are working for
us; you have people who are cameramen and PAs. ... We’re
making little movies and that’s what we love to do and so it
has a great chemistry because it’s not, “Hey, I’m going to show
up and get paid and go home” type of deal. Yes at the end of
the day we’re all paying our bills but we’re there because it’s a
mission and not a job.
What made you decide to start posting
the original episode treatments on the
site?
I really want to use this series as a way
to say “fuck all the conventions” that relate
to how to shoot, release and promote adult
content. I want to make must-see TV with the
added bonus of having hardcore sex in it. Why
do we have to short-change ourselves for that?
So the way that our website is set up is also
breaking a lot of our conventions. I want to
have my cast on there. I want to have the scene
treatment. Why do we have to do these cheesy
scene descriptions that we re-write? Let’s take
the scene treatments and post them for fans
to see how they brought it to life. ... My entire
approach to producing content has always been
transparency and engagement with our fans.
Girlsway has gotten to the point now where
the community is so large that well over 50
percent of our monthly production comes from
stories they write that we just crowd-source.
I’m creatively driving all those stories but
I’m lifting ideas from everywhere and talking
to people every single day on the site and our
other sites. We have done other things to sort
of break that convention that you shouldn’t
be talking to your fans. I disagree. I think you
should talk to them a lot more.
When you think about this five-year run
you’ve been on, what comes to mind?
What I’m happy about is I’ve never run
out of steam creatively. That what interests
me most in this life is having opportunities
to create. And I love to set things up, that’s
kind of my thing. I love to start things. I like
to pick the color of the drapes; I like to choose
everything in the frame and then I’ll do that
and I’ll get it to a point and let it live and then
I’ll do that with something else. That’s just
been my behavior for the last five years.
I’ve been with Gamma for almost 10 years
now, so I was behind the scenes for a long time
before I started working in production and I
kind of went from being interested in that to,
oh I’m kind of interested in production. I have
some quasi-experience. Let me go learn about
adult production. OK well let’s start this site.
Now let’s build a whole network. Let’s do this.
Let me go out and make the Law & Order of
porn. Fortunately I have a lot of autonomy to
be creatively free.
Perhaps more recent fans may not realize
that you working behind the scenes
before all this.
I think because I worked as Gamma’s
marketing director for many years I was always
working with content and mostly interested
in how people were consuming it. What did
they find interesting with this line versus this
line? And my background before adult was in
marketing as well. I’ve always been fascinated
by porn fans, in particular their behaviors
and their appetites and all the nuances. The
psychology of sex. Why I’m still here 10 years
later ... that’s what I find fascinating.
11.17 | AVN.com | 105