The story work on Ashley and Kisha’s interview is done. It’s smooth, it flows it has pace and panache. Right now I’m working the rhythm between the two shot and the close-up, using the camera choice to emphasis passages or highlight reactions. It’s one of my very favorite parts of making these films.

I am also monitoring the reshuffle of our Google site index and the the slow return of ComstockFilms.com (hopefully) back from page 15 obscurity to a relatively high ranking on the search term [real sex]. And that’s how I discovered that Sienna Miller didn’t have real sex in a recent love scene.

A week ago I didn’t know who Sienna Miller was, and mostly I still don’t. What I do know that she looks very nice bumping and grinding and humping with her co-star (I found a link to the clip on The Hater.) Warm glowing light, a roaring fire, and (what’s this now?) jump-cuts.

In a love-scene, jump-cuts are a hipper version of cross-dissolves, and they solve two editing problems that come up when cutting love-making.

Like a cross-dissolve, a well executed jump-cut can be understood as passage of time. The couple is going at it mish jump-cut now she’s on top, and we, the modern movie-going public understand that it’s not a magic act, it’s a symbolic passage of time.

The other problem they solve is you don’t need the sort of shot coverage that a match-cut would require. You can move people through time and space with jump-cuts, showing all the different ways the couple humped and bumped, without going to the time and trouble of actually moving the couple through time and space. The mismatch between shots stands in for all the missing action and time.

Comtemporary filmmakers like jump-cuts in love-making scenes because the old standby, the cross-dissolve has become associate with Hallmark movie of the week montages, and late-night cable softcore. 9 SONGS has jump cut in the love-scenes, INTAMCY has a few, Erika Lust uses them in THE GOOD GIRL too.

So far, I haven’t used jump-cuts or cross-dissolves in my love-making scenes.

I know it’s old fashioned, but I like cross-dissolves as a way to symbolize the passage of time and/or create a dreamy atmosphere. But you can’t throw them around willy nilly. Every time I try to use them in these films, they’ve ended up feeling jarring and discordant, so I’ve taken them back out.

I haven’t used jump-cuts either, but that’s more philosophical.

As accepting of jump-cuts as modern audiences are, a jump-cut is still more noticable than a match cut or other techniques used to create flow or compress time. Jump-cuts feel more mannered and remind me I’m watching a confection. To me, traditionally editing feels less obtrusive, especially in a love-scene, and that make the love-making scene feel more more “real”, and “real sex”, the kind that people whe really care about each other have, is what I want my films to feel like.

At any rate, all props to Sienna Miller’s PR people. All the buzz of real sex on film without having real sex on film. Clever! I’m taking notes!

One of AdultDVDTalk.com’s most prolific and respected reviewers, Astroknight, has just posted the first review for MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER. Here’s my favorite part of his very nice review:

“It takes a wonderful look at not just the sexuality between a couple, but how it got to be there. That thought of sex as a journey doesn’t seem to come up for too many directors, but at the same time is something that almost any couple who’s been together for any length of time realizes. It’s a movie about passion and romance not only existing together, but also feeding off each other to draw two people even closer. It’s a beautiful thought, and one that had a smile on my face within the first few minutes of the movie.”

The thing I love about reading Astroknight’s reviews of our films is that they come from someone who is truly passionate porn. Astro’s written about 2000 (yes, 2000) reviews for ADT, covering nearly the entire porn spectrum. He’s both a porn conesuer and a porn omniover. He’s as likely to pass out praise (or scorn) to a gonzo anal raunch fest as to a couples feature.

When Astro gives us praise, it gives me a feeling of extra satisfaction. A lot of the people who enjoy our films don’t really like porn, but I also like knowing that Astro thinks what we do is pretty nifty too. I like the idea that there are straight people like our gay film, gay people like our straight films, and people like Astro who can dig the Comstock vibe too.

A very nice note came in over the weekend. By permission of the author:

“Hi Tony,I suspect you are at the AVN Awards tonight — having a lovely time I hope — but I just watched _Matt and Khym_ (I was a pre-order customer) and couldn’t wait to email you. I found this couple utterly delightful and feel I could not overstate my praise for this film.

Coming on the heels of our misadventure with PBS, this note is especially welcome.

We make enough money through this work to sustain us financially, but against the constant backdrop of vilification, it can be tremendously draining emotionally. Whether it’s the OFLC or PBS, or printer that won’t print a poster because it’s “pornographic”, their cravenness and my own impotence in the face of that cravenness is exhausting, it’s discouraging, and sometimes I just want to quit.

Then I get a note like Emily’s, or I read a post like Jenn P’s, and I feel like we’re doing something important, something that matters, something that makes the world a better place. And I decide I can quite tomorrow.

From Fleshbot:

While we relied on our heart (and certain other parts) to come up with our top ten crush objects of the year, we used more a rather objective method to determine our list of 2006’s best gay porn movies: a formula which involved the number of days each movie remained in or near our DVD players; the number of times people asked to borrow our copy; the number of days (or weeks) it took said people to return it; approximate number of ounces of lube we went through while “reviewing” it; and the inverse coefficient of the number of times the word “hot” was used it its press release. So you see, it’s all very scientific.#8 DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER
Though they’re no longer a couple, watching Comstock Films’ porn verité exploration of the relationship between then-boyfriends Hunter James and Damon DeMarco is more than an exercise in wistful nostalgia: the perfect antidote to the glut of overprocessed smut crowding the porn shelves, the conversational, intimate “Damon and Hunter” is both the kind of film your straight girlfriends will keep trying to steal from you as well as a rare look of what porn stars look like when they’re not having sex like porn stars. And any porn DVD that was banned in Australia deserves a space on anyone’s Best Of list as far as we’re concerned.

“Sex and intimacy is something you should cherish…” Khym, from MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER

That’s a sound-bite from our film that begins this very nice podcast review of MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER from Professor P and Sweet Tits of the Bellingham WA video store Video Extreme. They say MATT AND KHYM is “the perfect couples film, or anyone else tired of cookie-cutter porn.” Yay!

Also on the podcast is a review of Jack the Zipper’s BLACK LIGHT BEAUTIES. The review for that comes first. The review for MATT AND KHYM is about half way into the show. I got a nice laugh hearing Sweet Tits recounting my cold call!
(Press “play” to hear it.)

Image from the upcoming ASHLEY & KISHA

I don’t know why it’s happened, but in the last week Comstock Films has risen to the second page of google for the search string “real sex”, and as a result “real sex” has been our number one search string for the last week. (That space is usually occupied by “Comstock Films”.)

I remember, I was in the shower when it came to me, fully formed:

Comstock Films: Real People, Real Life, Real Sex

Real people, meaning folks who seem whole and authentic; real life, meaning a point of view about sex that sees it as a part of the greater human experience, and one of its great joys; and real sex, meaning depicting sex in a way that is at least about the mutual pleasure of the subjects as it is about indulging the voyeuristic fancies of the audience (and the filmmaker!). It’s a tagline that would suppose to differenciate what we do from what is more commonly available to people who go looking for a film about sex with the very specific intent of watching it and getting turned on.

But lately I’ve been thinking the problem with porn isn’t that it’s not real enough, but that it’s too real. Too much of the time porn looks exactly like what it is (people having sex on camera for money), and not enough like what we wish it was (people having sex on camera because it makes them feel good). Instead of emotional, porn feels transactional; alien instead of fantastic.

That doesn’t mean we’ll be changing our tagline anytime soon. A lot of people who say they want something different say that what their looking for is something that feels “more real”, and a lot of those people find what they’re looking for in the films we make. But our tagline not withstanding, more and more I’m thinking the Comstock Films difference isn’t between “real sex” and “fake sex”, it’s between real intimacy and real alienation.

Australia’s Ms. Naughty writes about watching her first gay porn film.

“There I was at the post office, excitedly ripping open the package with my copy of Damon and Hunter: Doing It Together inside and my husband was shushing me and telling me not to wave it around in public.“So we went home and I promptly watched it.

Thank you Ms. Naughty!

A warm welcome to visitors from the UK! We’ve got preview clips scattered around the site and the Comstock Films Video Podcast offers serialized version of our films. It’s great way to find out what makes Comstock Films different!

http://feeds.comstockfilms.com/ComstockFilmsVideoPodcast

Now as to this metrosexualization of yours truly:

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail request for a phone interview from a woman who said she worked for a British newspaper with an impressive circulation. Since people tend to exagerate put their best foot forward when making these sorts of requests, I chopped a couple of zeros off what she claimed was the daily readership of her newspaper.

I was wrong. I was really wrong.

Yesterday The Metro introduced Comstock Films to a couple million Brits. There was no hot link to our website, but this AM google.uk is our number one referrer, pouring several thousand visitors into our site. And they’re buying too. Not counting our Hurricane Katrina fundraiser, yesterday was our biggest single day of sales ever!

Here’s a bit of the article:

Metrosexual: Between the Sheet
‘Watching two professional actors having sex in a porn film is no different to watching two horses have sex,’ says amateur porn producer Tony Comstock. ‘Neither is very interesting.’Comstock, who makes his living by filming real couples have sex, is referring to the lack of genuine intimacy a standard porn film offers its viewers.

You can read the rest, featuring commentary from Wired’s Regina Lynn at the Metro website.

And to those of you worried that this metrosexualization might have involved a haircut, waxing, or manscaping, there’s no cause for alarm. I’m still the same shaggy beast you know and love.

Sunday I had the privilage and the pleasure of chatting with Christophe and Diana for an upcoming episode of Blowfish Radio

One the long bus ride into the city to meet them I watch Cinema Paradiso. On the long bus ride back out I ordered I Am Curious, Yellow, I Am Curious, Blue, Nine Songs, The Dreamers, and Intimacy. I guess I should have got Last Tango in Paris while I was at it.

What a year 2005 has been for Comstock Films!

In 2005 we went from being a quirky little indie company with one cult hit, to to a quirky little indie company with two certifiable breakout best-sellers. We went from shoe-string, DIY, handicam productions to shot-on-film production methods that rival anything in the mainstream adult industry, and we went from being almost totally unknown except within a very few sex-positive circles, to national recognition for breaking new ground in erotic film.

In January, “Marie and Jack” received a warm review in Penthouse Magazine:

…Through well-done, thoughtful interview segments, they describe their meeting and initial attraction, and give insight into their sex life. Their sex scene, which runs half an hour, is considerably different from what Aria’s fans have seen before. From slow, sensuous kissing to genuine, real-life orgasms, she and Bravo open up in a way few in this business have ever done.”

That same month, we shot two new scenes, one gay (Damon and Hunter) and one lesbian (Ashley and Kisha). Both used the same intimate documentary style established in “Marie and Jack” and “Xana and Dax” , but with the growing commercial success of our work, we were able to move from shooting on video to shooting on film.

In February, Comstock Films travelled to San Francisco, where we shot five more couples (three straight, two lesbian) — burning nearly 16,000 feet of film in the process.

In late May we released “Xana and Dax”, and it immediately became a bestseller, with some of our wholesale customers making six and seven re-orders in as many weeks.

In the early Summer, the mainstream press began to take notice of Comstock films. Writing in the July issue of Esquire Magazine, Stacey Grenrock Wood said:

“You may want to try a title from Comstock Films, a company that specializes in films of real couples having real sex, documentary style. Founder and director Tony Comstock offers an alternative for those people who find themselves turned off by the established porn aesthetic.”

In the August issue of Men’s Fitness, adult superstar Tera Patrick put “Marie and Jack: A Hardcore Love Story” at the top of her list of adult films she’ll watch with you for a “passionate time together”.

The next month, in the article “Was That Movie Good for You?” Tango Magazine name “Marie and Jack” and “Xana and Dax” to the top of their list of films couples should watch to spice up their relationship:

“Marie and Jack, porn stars married in real life, have the genuine chemistry and knowledge of each other’s bodies to make this film sizzle. It starts slowly, with the couple discussing the intimate details of their love, before getting down and dirty. Xana and Dax: When Opposites Attract, offers a similar scenario.”

Of course September also brought the shocking tragedy of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, and like many of our colleagues we felt moved to respond. Starting at midnight on September 14th, we held a one day benefit, with all proceeds from sales going to the American Red Cross. The response from our customers was unbelievable, and in 27 hours we raised over $4,000.

October found us in the pages of TimeOut New York in their article “The New Pornographers”:

“One feature of the local aesthetic is that it avoids the stereotypical silicone-enhanced Barbie types. Comstock Films finds real couples willing to do the deed on camera.”

That mention led to an invitation to meet with HBO, which may or may not mean something in 2006. Whatever the case, it was fun to hear them say nice things about our work, and it was exciting to tell them about what we do!

In November we stuck our toe in the shallow end of the video podcasting pool, begining by offering “Marie and Jack” in a serialized, syndicated format. If sales numbers since then are any indication, this is turning out to be a great way to bring the Comstock Films vision of sexuality and filmmaking to an even wider audience!

That same month, encouraged by our own assessment of “Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together” as well as enthusiastic feedback to rough-cuts, we decided to re-transfer the negative to HiDef and master the project in HD. This may well make “Damon and Hunter” the first adult sexually explicit movie shot on film and mastered in HD.

December found both Comstock’s offerings on the Eros Magazine Holiday Shopping Guide:

“Comstock films released the excellent Xana & Dax: When Opposites Attract, the follow-up to their award-winning Marie & Jack: A Hardcore Love Story. Also depending on an interview format — by now a hackneyed gonzo-porn cliche — Xana & Dax is far from standard-issue porn. The sense of emotional intimacy throughout this exceptional feature is enough to set it apart — but even if it weren’t, the gorgeous performers and intense sexuality makes Xana & Dax compete with the hardest of hardcore on its own terms.”

And of course this is all beautifully capped off by finding “Xana and Dax: When Opposites Attract” on Violet Blue’s “Best Porn Films of 2005″ list!

On a personal note, one of the most satisfying aspects of all of this, is that it’s been an entirely independent effort. Our projects are independently financed, independently produced, and independently distributed. That independence comes at a cost, and the cost is increased risk – I’ve got a few more wrinkles and grey hairs than I did a year ago.

But that independence has also given us the freedom to go our own way, to shoot sex the way we think it should be shot, and to give our projects the budgets, time, and attention we think they deserve. This isn’t always the easiest way to do things, and it may not even be the best. But it lets me make the kind of films I want to make, and hopefully give people the kind of films they want to watch. And as I’ve taken the time to review what we’ve accomplished in 2005, I think we might just be doing something right!

None of this would have happened without you, the people who buy our films, tell your friends “I’ve found something different and special!”, leave comments on this blog, and send us notes of encouragement. I see each and every notification of a new sign-up for this newsletter or blog comment, and every one of them encourages me to keep going, and keep making these films, even when that gets difficult or discouraging. Without all of you, this vision that is Comstock Films would have withered away long ago. Instead it’s blossomed into something that I’m very proud of. I hope you are too!

From Peggy and me,

Thank you, and Happy New Year!