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!

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.

Bernard-Henri Lévy

“All theoreticians of eroticism know that when there is no distance, there is no border; when there is no border, there is no taboo; when there is no taboo there is no transgression; and when there is no transgression there is no desire.”

All theoreticians? Really? Not me, but then I’m not a erotic theorotician, I’m an erotic filmmaker. At 58 Lévy still has time to discover that transgression is not the essense of desire. Good luck, Bernie!

It’s taken for granted that people watch porn with one hand on the remote, and the idea that you’d watch an erotic film straight through from the opening title to the closing credits without fast-forwarding is pretty much unheard of.

In fact, if you read Violet Blue’s or Freddy and Eddy’s advice for newcomers, both both suggest watch with your thumb hovering over the fast-foward button so that when (not if) the video becomes boring and/or off-putting, you can zip past the offending material before it kills mood.

With that in mind, you can imagine how delighted I was to read Alex Thatcher’s lovely review of DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER in the December edition of Australia’s Eros Association Magazine:

In an age when it’s easier than ever to see sexually explicit imagery, I slipped the Damon and Hunter DVD into my player with the usual emotional void and jumped into bed with my boyfriend, ready to watch another empty “fuck he’s hot – let’s just get off” porn flick.I’ve never actually watched a porn movie from start to finish without jumping my partner within the first five minutes, so you can imagine my surprise when I actually saw the end credits of this film.

I’ve got nothing against a good quickie. But it’s not the only way to have sex, and it’s not the only way to make a film about sex– a collection of little thinly connected scenes that are designed to turn you on, get you off, and let you get cleaned up, all inside of fifteen minutes.

When Peggy and I see a mainstream film we really like, we’ll sit through the closing credits just to make the experience last a little longer, and I think it’s sad that we’ve gotten to the point where peoples expectations of porn have become so narrow that they’re suprised when they find a film they enjoy watching straight through to the end.

What’s the hurry?

I like sitting there in the dark as the credits roll, letting the last vapors of the director’s vision wash over me. I like taking my time in bed too. And I like that people watch my films with their hands on something other than the remote control.

And speaking of being in a hurry, if you’re in Australia and in a hurry to get a hold of DAMON AND HUNTER, or any of our other titles, try one of these retailer:

BeDaring Stores
Shop 11, 727 Gympie Road
Chermside 4032, Brisbane
Queensland, Australia

Shop 7, 75 Morayfield Rd.
Caboolture 4510
Queensland, Australia

Corner Nicklin Way & Thunderbird Drive
Bokarina ( Kawana Waters ) 4575, Sunshine Coast
Queensland, Australia

Bliss4Women
1/245 Lonsdale Street - Melbourne
Victoria, Australia

My Secret Place
126 Leichhardt Street - Spring Hill
Queensland, Australia

Out DVD
108 St Kilda Road
St Kilda VIC 3182

Polyester Books
330 Brunswick Street - Fitzroy
Victoria, Australia

Toolshed
81 Oxford Street
Darlinghurst
NSW 2010
ph:02 9332 2792
fax:02 9360 1737

“It’s not about procreation. It’ll never be about procreation. Neither one of us is getting pregnant anytime soon. So we have to be a little more honest. This is about pleasure, this about getting off, and doing it together.” — Damon Demarco, from Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together

Duh. We get it Tony. Damon and Hunter are gay.

Among the various outrages I’ve been accused of, subtlety is not one of them. I’m a ham-fisted sentimentalist, and proud of it. But today’s blog post “The War on Contraception is a War on Sex” on Violet Blue’s TinyNibbles.com has helped me finally the words to my own personal subtext to the opening of D&H.

I am a breeder. Not just a breeder, but a breeder who has bred. More than once I have impregnated my wife, and then watch as her belly grew larger and larger, until they day when finally it could grow no more, and a baby, a new life emerged from her body, driving her nearly mad with hours of agonizing pain in the process. I treasure my children, and regard them as the greatest among many gifts my union with my wife has brought me. I know as well as anyone else that conceiving children can be one of the great joys of having sex.

But I deeply resent the suggestion, the assertion that by taking steps to avoid an unplanned pregnancy, or engaging in intimate acts that could never result in pregnancy that we have somehow degraded our love for one another, or debased the intimate time we spend together. I resent it when someone says that about my wearing a condom or my wife using contraceptives, and I resent it when someone says that about two men loving one another or two women loving one another. However it’s said, it’s an outright assault on the most precious, personal aspect of the relationship between me and my wife.

I didn’t demand my wife prove her fertility before we were wed, nor did she ask the same of me. We became lovers, and then became husband and wife in large measure because of the sexual desire we felt for one another. And I deeply resent the assertion that the way I feel about my wife – the need for her I feel, the hunger for her I feel, the way I adore looking at her naked body and the way that fills me with desire – can only be justified by the possibility of conception.

I love our children. I am profoundly moved by the knowledge that their fleshly existence is a product of my and my wife’s fleshy union; and I cannot imagine my life with out them. But our children do not sanctify our marriage, they do not consecrate our lovemaking. They do not excuse the carnal desire I feel for my wife, or the pleasure I take from reveling in her flesh. And I wonder just what goes on inside the mind of a person who would seek to heap these unwarranted burdens of justification, consecration and excuse upon my children or their own. It seems cruel and sad and perverse to insist any child must carry such burdens.

And fortunately ours do not.

Because it’s not about procreation for us either. Not all the time. Not even most of the time. It’s about pleasure; my pleasure, my wife’s pleasure. It’s about getting off – and doing it together!

Hello. It’s time for another installment of the Comstock Films Video Podcast.

This episode of “Xana and Dax: When Opposites Attract” take us further into Xana and Dax’s tender but passion lovemaking. A small glass of baby oil comes out to add some lubricity to the proceedings, and Xana and Dax’s hand and mouths feast on each other.

For your iPod or iTunes:
pcast://feeds.comstockfilms.com/ComstockFilmsVideoPodcast

All others:
http://feeds.comstockfilms.com/ComstockFilmsVideoPodcast

And don’t forget, if you like what you see, you can get the entire film on DVD from The Comstock Films DVD Shop.

Enjoy!

ManNet.com’s Brent Blue opens his review of Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together by saying:

“Damon DeMarco and Hunter James look like the gay couple next door in this very intimate rendering of sex. This isn’t really about porn, but lovemaking. As Damon says: “This is not about procreation.” It’s about their pleasure as a couple, which is exactly what the films attempts to capture, a very personal romantic coupling, simply shot so as to allow the full nature of the moments to stand on their own, rather than be washed over by the gloss of porn.”

It’s the p-word again. A reminder that even to people who like porn, it’s a word that means something, that while it may connect to the audience sexually, leaves some many other aspects of human need and desire unaddressed, or even belittled. A reminder of why I’ve grown uncomfortable with the word. But the other day, I saw something that reminded me why I fell in love with porn, and what drew me to wanting to make sexual art.

Somewhere on the vast internet (I’ve lost the link) someone post photos from an early 80s issue of Playboy; Girls of the Military I think it was. The women were, of course, pretty. But they weren’t caricatures of glamour, at least not to my eye. No, rather than seeming like confections of the photographer’s, stylist’s and surgeon’s skill, they seemed like the very beautiful women I see ever day; my daughter’s schoolmate’s mother, the college girls who life guard in the summer, my own wife.

I’ve undressed all of these women (and many others!) in my mind’s eye, and the images in my imagination are as lovingly crafted as these Playboy images were. The light is gentle and flattering, whatever “flaws” or “faults” the object of my desire might have, they somehow disappear in the kind gaze of my desire.

Of course back when I had an opinion, I much preferred Penthouse to Playboy. I like tits fine, but for me the real treat lies further South. Playboy always seem vaguely gynophobic, while Penthouse was lustily gynophilic! But in either case, back in the “golden age” of these magazines, you could actually see photographs where (a small aspect of) the subject of sex was treated with the care and craft that is devoted to things like food or clothing; and seeing some these photos again reminded me of the promise that porn once seemed to hold – that someday soon we would see sexuality, our own raw fleshy need to connect, rendered with that same loving eye.

Mr. Blue closes his review by saying:

“[Describing the end of the film] Back at the interview, both note that as adult film stars, they have had “sex” on camera, but not “sex,” as Damon says. If you see Damon’s face as he says this, you’ll know the difference. What was just shown was their version of sex, rather than porno sex. However, they once again express an exhibitionist side in saying that they hope not only gay men, but also woman and even straight men can see this and “get some ideas,” learn about sex from two gay men who seem to honestly love each other.

“Shot by Tony and Peggy Comstock (I’m assuming Peggy is a woman, which perhaps does make the statements above even more true), the scene here is revealing and trusting by Damon and Hunter in allowing the viewer into their private life. The scene is rather short [19 minutes] and purposely unglamorous, so it’s often hard to know what really went on [I think he means “Is this real reality or fake reality?”), but it is clear that these two men are doing something different than just fucking for the camera. There is emotion here, not faked, not acted, but truthful. It’s an alternative to porn. Not better, not worse, just a different side. Reality porn, so to speak.”

Or course I am very happy and very flattered by Brent’s thoughtful review, that he’s seen and appreciated the care and enthusiasm, that “loving eye” that we bring to our work. (You can read the rest of of Brent’s review here.) But it also makes me feel a little wistful. How is it that loving, crafted images of sex became the “alternative”, the exception, instead of the rule?

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

Woah. A lot of (maybe too much) ranting on here about porn philosophy and film theory. How about some ranting about something measurable and quantifiable. How about a little on why todays porn looks the way it looks?

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING FOCAL PLANE

Even 70mm film, used in Hollywood epics (the cinematic standard is 35mm) is a pretty small negative compared to what is used to produce a lot of the high-end imagery we see. Despite claims to the contary, 4″x5″ film is still the industry standard for most commercial photography. 120/220 twenty is used where speed of loading is important, but even there the RZ and GX680 are more popular that Hassleblad because (in a rectangular crop) the negative is nearly twice the size. When you see the same subject shot with both 35mm and 4″x5″ there’s just no comparing the sharpness and and detail of the smaller negative to the larger negative. In other words, in photography, size matters.

To create the “illusion of sharpness and detail” in the cinematic image, one of the easiest tricks is to show some difference between what’s in focus and what’s out of focus. What’s in focus (the subject) will look sharp and detailed by comparison to what’s out of focus (the background). (There are other reasons to employ this technique, and it’s common in still photography as well.)

If you look at modern porn, especially modern video porn, you seldom see this pleasing contrast of focus between figure and field. As porn (both moving and still) has become more and more dependent on consumer gear, it has in turn become more and more dependent on gear with small focal planes. Focal planes on cameras like the Sony VX1000 and it’s decendent are about 1/3″ inch measure diagonally. “Palmcorders” have even smaller chips, a tiny as 1/5″ diagonally. Compare that to the 1/2″ or more commonly 2/3 inch on broadcast video equipment, or the approximate 1″ diagonal measurement of non-anamorphic 35mm wide screen. That means that when you see smut shot on a Sony PDX-10, the total area of the film plane is less than a tenth the area of a broadcast video camera, and about 4% the size of the cameras that are used to shoot your favorite T.V. shows or movies. As I said before, in photography, size matters.

This focal plane size difference is part of why movie, TV shows, classic 70s porn and and even early shot-on-pro-gear video porn has a look to it that can’t be replicated by today’s consumer gear. Sure, the CCDs in today’s consumer cameras outperform yesterday’s professional chips in, but the chip size and lenses on these consumer cameras severely restricts the kinds of images that can be made. Because of the immutable physics of optics, particularly the relationship of angle of view, focal plane size and depth of field, this effect difficult, sometimes impossible to achieve shallow depth of field with small focal plane consumer video cameras.

The distinctive look of small focal plane photography has uttlerly changed the face of porn. I suppose whether or or not you like that change is largely a matter of personal taste. I don’t. Resolution issues aside, deep focus shows all the clutter in the background. When pornographers are savvy enough to attend to this, they clear out everything, so the sets in “high-end” porn always has a stark, sterile look. You’ll never see the pleasingly art-directed cluttered background of a “real movie” because all that clutter (that helps create a sense of place and mood) looks terrible when it’s just as in focus as everthing else. (For the same reason that large diamonds cost much more than small diamonds, there will never be large CCDs (these perform the same function as film in a film camera) in consumer gear, nor will consumer gear have higher quality lenses.)

And with out the soft/sharp relationship, everything looks soft, which further compounds the fact that images from this kind of gear are soft. The lenses aren’t very good, the lens flaws are spread over a proportionately larger part of the focal plane, and the tiny CCD’s gather up the image aren’t all that good. The final image has soft, plasticy sameness to it. This is a big part of what makes porn look different from everything else. It’s part of what makes people say “ewww, that’s porn.”

That’s not to say that high-end consumer gear (sometimes called “prosumer”) has no place in making pretty pictures. Both Marie and Jack: A Hardcore Love Story and Xana and Dax: When Opposites Attract were shot on the Sony DSR PD100A, a camera with a very small chip. But we had to work hard to compensate for the limitations of the gear. These days we’re using a combination of video (for the interviews, where we have absolute control over every aspect of the light) and film (for the lovemaking, which is a little more “catch it as you can.”)

Using film for the “catch it as you can” part runs contrary to a lot of conventional wisdom about where to use film and where to use video. Our reason are both technical and aestetic. More on that in another instalment.

-T.C.