Page 59 - AVN August 2018

performer turned director Kayden Kross, who is enjoying a breakout
season behind the camera.
“She’s directing a masterpiece right now. It’s going to be pretty
fucking big,” Lansky says.
He’s referring to a yet-to-be-titled star showcase for Tushy
featuring Abigail Mac, whom Lansky considers “the most
underrated” woman in porn.
“We have one really big role that’s non-sex,” Kross tells me. “So
we had casting for it and it’s an actual [mainstream] actor and he’s
great. It’s going to really push us into a more believable space.”
Lansky adds, “I love her attention to detail. She’s so hard on
herself. … She’s such a perfectionist. Working with artists like her
makes all the difference.”
Kross has become a regular shooting for Blacked, Vixen and a
couple scenes for Tushy. She tells me she likes her Blacked stuff
the best. Recently, she shot a Blacked scene with Bree Daniels and
contract stud Jason Luv, but the Abigail Mac project is on her mind.
“I’ve never done anything this size,” Kross continues.
NEGATIVITY BLOCKED
Lansky prides himself on being able to control his thoughts.
“I see a lot of people complain. ‘Why am I not this? Why am
I not that?’ My favorite book in the world is As a Man Thinketh,”
he says. The self-help book by James Allen about the power of
positive thinking was published in 1903.
“I read that book almost every day for the past eight years. If I
give a gift, it’s that book. It says, ‘In a universe of power, individual
responsibility must be absolute.’ That says it all.”
Lansky points to his daily routine of meditating as “the single
biggest outside factor” to his success.
“I meditate about 50 minutes a day for the past five-and-a-half, six
years. I never miss meditation,” he says. “It’s been incredible.”
“I’m still a pretty intense guy and I react to things and I’m
passionate. It’s not making me more calm, but it’s expanding this
muscle,” he adds, pointing to his head.
Without question, one way Lansky stays mentally strong is his
commitment to blocking out negativity.
“I honestly think my ability to focus my energy on the positive
and not let all the people dictate their negative energy on me has
given me the ability to do what I do and what I continue to do,” he
says.
“When you’re nobody, you’re not a threat. When you’re not a
success, then it doesn’t matter. But when you become successful then
you remind people of their own failures sometimes.
“I get so many emails and messages and DMs from people in the
industry—sometimes people that are just doing Clips4Sale—saying,
‘You motivate me so much. Thank you for saying what you’re saying.’
Whether they’re performers, or producer-performers, they love my
message. They love my motivation. I like that. I like to elevate people
around me.”
He continues, “If you look at my life I’m not really controversial.
I’m not out there being like, I hate this or I hate these people. But
my success alone is what’s controversial. … I knew that this was the
price of admission and I’m willing to pay it. And I will defend and I
will continue to do whatever I think is best for our company.
“You choose the people you surround yourself with, and one of
my strong suits is my ability to do two things: get better at ignoring
the people that don’t get my message and get better at connecting
the people that do get my message.”
GOING GLOBAL
Lansky wants his brands to penetrate overseas markets, starting
with his home continent, Europe, where Vixen is already
making significant strides. Before he initiated the current
European expansion he flew his production team from abroad to
L.A., where he delivered a two-week “master’s class” on the standard
he was looking for and what his expectations would be.
“I want us to shoot everywhere. I don’t care if it’s New York
or if it’s Ibiza or Greece; or if it’s in the Bahamas, Tahiti, Italy,
Spain, Croatia, England—the whole world—wherever of course
it’s permissible and acceptable and it doesn’t offend the local
communities,” he says.
“I want to kind of create the Vice of Porn. It’s really my deeper vision of it long-term. I want
to bring us as many new talented directors and photographers as possible and all express their
vision within the high-end stuff. If you look at Kayden’s stuff, Kayden has such a different style
than me. And I love that. I don’t want people to do like I did.
“Everybody has copied our website; everybody has copied our style of shooting. Everyone’s
copied our style of social media with giving the girls an avatar and a background. We were the
first ones to do that.
“But we’re innovators and sometimes we miss, but sometimes we strike. It’s because we
shoot that we get to strike a lot. It’s because we take risks. We’re a risk-taker and we’re a game-
changer. And I think that attracts talented people.”
He says his team made a conscious effort to maximize Instagram, where at press time between
his four brands—and his own personal feed—they had accumulated almost 3 million followers
on the platform.
“I thought about it two years ago and I told my team we’re in the image business,” Lansky
says. “We’re good at making cool images. With Instagram, the rules of engagement are simple.
Whoever makes the coolest images gets to the top. Let’s get to the top. Let’s make cool images.
“It’s a simple strategy but we’ve worked really hard on social media and having a very strong
social media presence. And our audience and our engagement is next level. We get more
engagement than even some of the oldest brands that have been around—because we care.
Because we want to do remarkable visuals.”
Jared Rutter, the former chairman of the X-Rated Critics Organization, who has worked in the
adult industry since the early ’70s and still is a senior contributor to AVN magazine, considers
Lansky’s movies “the gentrification of porn.”
“Maybe not all of it but certainly two of its once most transgressive genres—anal and
interracial,” Rutter says. “Back in the day—40 or 50 years ago—interracial and anal movies were
rare. Later, they proliferated but never really lost their ‘down and dirty’ brand. Lansky came along
and aestheticized anal sex (Anal Beauty), turning it into an art form (The Art of Anal).
“He simplifies everything with his trademark white-on-white sets. He disarms critics with his
voiceover intros that pay at least lip service to political correctness.”
Rutter continues, “Just as gentrified neighborhoods can retain some of their funkiness, Lansky
has never forgotten what he learned from shooting for Reality Kings. Heat matters. Beauty is a
must—men as well as women—but so are passion and expertise.”
Lansky says that his mantra that “adult performers are artists” is part of a larger picture of
how he sees things.
“A lot of times I like to make the parallel between the adult industry and art because it’s
something that wasn’t done before—something that elevates,” he explains. “ Any initiatives I do
it’s good for our brands, but I also like to think it’s good for the adult industry.”
Lansky’s vision is to create a global lifestyle brand.
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