Damon and Hunter: Doing It Together
Mrs.C hates it when I do this. She’s the one in charge of managing our bandwidth and she thinks putting a 26 minute preview of a work in progress is not the best use of our limited resources.
Too bad, honey.
We got pre-orders for this title the day we put it in our DVD shop, and since then we’ve had a steady stream of folks who have taken us up on our offer of a really good price if they can just wait a while for us to finish film. Those pre-orders have been encouraging, but they’ve also had the unexpected side effect of making me feel the weight of people’s expectations. A few folks have written asking for updates, and one or two decided to take advantage of our policy of giving refunds on pre-orders to anyone who asks. But the vast majority of folks have simply been waiting, quietly and patiently while Mrs.C and I have worked on this title.
Damon and Hunter: Doing It Together (formerly “For the Love”) represents a number of firsts here at Comstock Films. It’s our first gay film, and it will also be our first shot on film release. If I can refer you to an earlier blog post “Team Work” you’ll see Mrs.C and me, each with a Super-16 camera on our shoulder. Once you figure stock, processing and telecine, 16mm film costs about a dollar per second of footage – and that’s for each camera. As you can see from the photo, when we shoot a sex scene we shoot two cameras.
We chose to shoot the sex on film because film give the lovemaking a look and feel that you just can’t get from videotape. Never mind the FinalCutPro plugins and 24P cameras you might have heard about, for now the only way to make your work look like it was shot on film is to shoot it on film. But when you compare that to the $3.00 or so that a MiniDV tape costs (60 minutes), even the $30 cost of a Digibeta (30 minutes) tape, you can see why our choice to shoot this on film has made us extra conscious about making sure that we take the time to make the film that we want to make, the film you expect us to make, the film that needs to be made.
But the backbone of this film isn’t what Mrs.C and I do with the film cameras. As delightful as it is to see Damon and Hunter naked and fucking and sucking, and as beautiful as it looks when it’s shot on film, sex is only really interesting to me when I start to understand who Damon and Hunter are, and why, out all the people they might have fallen in love with, they fell in love with each other. Without that understanding it’s choreography, but it’s not dance; it’s running a scrimmage instead of playing a game.
What I’d like to show you today is what that backbone looks like laid bare. The clip I’ve got is 26 minutes of Damon and Hunter telling who they are and how they met and how the sexual pleasure they give to (and take from!) one another is a huge and important part of who they are as a couple. As you watch, you’ll notice that there are some black pauses; chapter marks if you like, places where I want let you catch your breath for a moment. There’s still sound work to be done, so to really enjoy this clip put on some earphones, or if you have external speakers, turn them up. Hunter says some funny shit half under his breath, and you don’t want to miss it!
You’ll also want to keep in mind that this is a 27 minute clip squeezed down to 21 megabytes. Naturally that takes more than a little compression, and degraded the audio and video. But you’re all savvy net surfers, so I don’t really have to tell you that, do I?
While you’re watching I’d like you to imagine what this story is is going to feel like once we start integrating the footage of Damon and Hunter’s lovemaking into it. For those of you who’ve seen Marie and Jack or Xana and Dax, you’re halfway there. Even if you’ve only seen our previews, you’ve still got a pretty good place to start.
When it’s done, Doing It Together is going to be every bit as raunchy, every bit as raw, and every bit as sweet as anything we’ve done so far. Thank you so much for waiting as long as you have. We won’t make you wait much more!
Rough Cut: Damon and Hunter Narrative Backbone, Interview Only, Scratch Audio
Enjoy!
-TC
Tags: Damon Demarco, Hunter James, Real Gay Sex, Real Gay Love
