Australian Penthouse

There are brave men and women around the world who face questions such as these every time they front up to work. Christopher Hart, the maestro behind big-budget Digital Playground productions Pirates and Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, is one such courageous soul.

Hart is a qualified recording engineer, songwriter and producer with a background in mainstream movies, television shows and commercials. His first attempt at an adult soundtrack—Pirates—netted him an Adult Video News Award for Best Music in 2006.

“I didn’t look at it as composing for porn,” says Hart. “I saw it as scoring a film, and for that you need to know orchestration, arranging and the effects different instruments have.”

Hart tells us that both Pirates and Pirates II had completely original scores, composed specifically for each movie. “We recorded strings, flutes and a huge variety of other instruments. The Pirates movies have about 90 minutes of non-sex scenes in them, which is comparable to feature films. We wrote more than two hours of music for each film.” But this is not the industry standard.

“This is very rare in adult films,” explains Hart. “Usually, there’s no budget at all for a composer and they put in some music from a music library. That’s why porn music is often so bad. They say the music doesn’t matter, but the relationship between sound and image is important.”

Closer to home, award-winning songwriter, score-writer and television star, Glenn Dormand, is another musician who fell into composing soundtracks for adult films. “I was working a day job and a colleague mentioned he was going to make a porn film with some money in the budget for a score,” says Dormand.

“I’d just had a minor hit on the radio with a song Tex Perkins and I had written together (‘Fake That Emotion’), so I was the most famous musician he knew. I was in my mid-twenties and had just broken up with my girlfriend, which meant that I had one stipulation: I’d need to be on set to find true inspiration.”

Dormand, best known for his work as Machine Gun Fellatio’s Chit Chat Von Loopin Stab and as a presenter on musicMAX, worked on porn soundtracks and sets between the demise of his first band, Vrag, and the many joys of his second, MGF.

“We wrote tracks that would work over a long period of time, whether that was 10 minutes or 20, and then we’d arrange them to best highlight the images.

“Though the old ‘wah’ is an industry standard and surprisingly still works well, at the time we opted for drum and bass, which was very popular and effective. We’d build with string pads, then get crazy with the drums. We also used a lot of slide guitar.”

Aside from the artistic details, the process of score production is fairly straightforward. The music is written, or cut together, scene by scene while the film is in ‘locked picture’ mode—meaning it is edited the way it should eventually be sold.

“The tricky thing is, the director can do re-cuts and take out scenes after the film is locked,” Hart tells Penthouse. “That means the last couple of weeks before the deadline are crazy and consist of 18-hour days.

“For Pirates, we also worked with the movie before all the heavy effects work was put in, so in the beginning we would only see the actors and a green background! We would write certain themes—the hero theme, the villain theme, the love theme and so on. And then we would compose scene by scene, and put in variations of the themes. In Pirates II, they travel around the world, so we got to write a lot of ethnic music, too.”

However, Cherry2000, an AVN-nominated electropunk band from Sydney, experienced the process from the other end.
“Producers used to cruise MySpace looking for tracks—this was back around 2006. They’d pick a song off your page and say, ‘Can we use that?’ Money rarely changed hands, but there was usually a bit of quid pro quo going on.”

Songs from the band’s first two albums were cherry-picked, and their music ended up on a soundtrack that was nominated for an AVN Award.

“A porn producer named Jack the Zipper got in touch with us,” says Cherry2000 singer Rachael Chaos. “He was doing ‘alt-porn’ with an up-and-coming video company. He asked if we would like to give him some music to use in his films, and we said yes. It became an ongoing relationship, though we never got paid.”

It was during that little adventure that their quid pro quo relationship with Jack eroded to nothing. Before the tension, though, Cherry2000 had written the title track for Jack’s next film, King Cobra. The song didn’t make the cut, but the lyrics were printed on the DVD cover, with no credit given to the band.

“It was annoying, but we were still flattered,” says Andy Rantzen. “The thing is, there were times when we felt we were being taken for a ride, but there were also times we did feel valued. People like Kimberly Kane and Eon McKai had respect for the musicians they worked with.”

American porn star-turned-director Kimberly Kane, whose film Live In My Secrets won Best Music Soundtrack at the 2010 AVN Awards, acknowledges there is good and bad in the industry. “Most pornographers are in porn to make an easy buck,” she says, “so they’re all about quantity over quality—the soundtrack is the last thing they think about.

“But great audio lends an important depth to any movie. I know the best pornographers in the world and they care about every detail of their films. That’s what makes them the best.”

For Hart, it’s even simpler than that, “You don’t put on crappy music when you want to seduce someone, do you? You put on smooth jazz, sexy R&B or hard rock. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and a lot of directors seem to forget that.”

For example, what do the rightest of right-wing religious groups and the leftest of left-wing feminist collectives have in common? They are both virulently anti-porn. It’s a stand which bridges the most divergent of philosophies and factions, even within these polarised entities.

Sure, let’s bring out a line of G-strings and padded bras for tweens. Let’s have video games where 12-year-old boys blast the bejesus out of Taliban soldiers, but showing two people consensually pleasuring each other? That’s just plain wrong. Disgusting, even!

Such attitudes are the very definition of hypocrisy. Firstly, without porn, most of these naysayers wouldn’t be able to bolster their Andrea Dworkin/Germaine Greer/Betty Friedan collections via Amazon. In his new book, The Erotic Engine, author Patchen Barrs argues that porn was responsible for building the hidden infrastructure of the internet and that without it, cable television might not actually exist.

He also contends that had porn been legislated out of existence, e-commerce would be a shadow of its current status in terms of security and accessibility. What’s more, the video-streaming technology developed by and for porn has made cultural benchmarks such as YouTube and Skype reality.

Aside from the technical innovations it has fomented, porn has also exhibited a creativity which is routinely overlooked in the wider cultural landscape. Evidence is to be found in the humour and wordplay that litters X-rated catalogues. Sure, the net is teeming with compilations to cater to your every erotic whim, but with minimal effort you can also find chuckle-worthy titles with punning artistry that wouldn’t be out of place on The Simpsons. (A show which nodded in porn’s direction with its own Sperms Of Endearment spoof movie title.)

Operating on the premise of giving an established film title a sexual twist—for example, Eat Pray Love might become Eat Spray Love—porn producers have long pumped out gems worthy of a Twitter trending topic. The list is endless, but a few personal favourites include: Lawrence of a Labia, Diddle Her on the Roof, On Golden
Blonde and Itty Bitty Gang Bang—the latter movie cast almost entirely with little people.

Not to put too fine a point on it, these titles indicate a real knowledge of film history; a cultural awareness, if you will. Not content with merely punning on titles, a new wave of porn involves parodying entire TV shows.

American company New Sensations recently spoofed sitcom The Office with Ashlynn Brooke taking on the Ricky Gervais/Steve Carrell role. Complete with intentional slightly desperate attempts at comedy, “that’s what she said” gags and cinema verité-style photography, including bored looks direct to camera.

Not that such products haven’t long been in the cultural zeitgeist. Back in 2001, an episode of Friends featured Jennifer Aniston complaining to a hotel clerk that she had not, in fact, watched Dr Do-Me-A-Little in her room. Boy, did we laugh.

Not surprisingly, Friends is a natural candidate for porn parody. As is Star Trek: The Next Generation, with the actor paying tumescent homage to Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard in This Ain’t Star Trek commanding himself to: “Engorge!”

One of the spearheads behind the porn parody movement is Jeff Mullen, who writes and directs under the name Will Ryder. Geddit? Will. Ride. Her. Having produced his ‘Pound Town’ takes on such beloved sitcoms as Bewitched, The Cosby Show and a trio of Brady Bunch homages (the first of which was released in 2007), Mullen believes the genesis of the movement can be traced to a 2005 release entitled Britney Rears.

This mixture of referencing existing entertainment and hard-core porn proved such a hit that Mullen described the phenomenon to Newsweek as “a new gold rush”. (The interview itself an indicator of mainstream awareness.)

Taking the approach that it should be “more akin to making sitcoms as opposed to making porno”, Mullen’s send-up of The Cosby Show echoed in the minutest detail the interior of the Huxtable’s home, the dancing against an all-white background in the opening credits and generally had the characters spot-on.

One of the secrets to Mullen’s success lies in casting. For the role of Cliff Huxtable, he chose Thomas Ward, a Detroit comedian living in LA whose Bill Cosby impression is nothing short of uncanny. Ward doesn’t have sex in the film—he’s there solely to provide a sense of verisimilitude. For his time, Ward was paid as much
as any of the lead female performers who did have sex.

This is notable in that women in porn are generally remunerated to a greater degree than their male counterparts. But according to Mullen, an increasing number of ‘legitimate’ actors will be appearing in porn parodies in non-sexual roles.

Another aspect of porn production that parodies have challenged is the writing. Mullen asserts that if you’re going to parody a comedy, your script must measure up in the hilarity stakes—a feat he believes he achieved with his version of Married With Children. “That show is so damn funny. It’s just line, line, zinger, line, line, zinger. So we had to write it accordingly,” he told Newsweek, before going on to add that he’d be more insulted if a viewer didn’t find his movies funny than if they didn’t find them arousing. His dream project is a hard-core Mary Tyler Moore Show.

So far, the porn parody genre has protected itself from litigation by prefacing its titles with phrases such as “Not The…” and “This Ain’t…” and their targets seem boundless. Everything from Seinfeld to I Love Lucy is fair game, with the latter being shot in both colour and black-and-white, so you can make the experience
as authentic as you desire.

According to the producers, they have “no ‘splainin’ to do” to those who own the source material, and they have the budgets to ensure their spoofs look as accurate as the originals. However, 20th Century Fox did recently issue Digital Sin/New Sensations with a cease-and-desist order regarding its sexy version of The X-Files. Not the movie, just the name. It’s now titled, more clearly, The Sex Files: A Dark XXX Parody.

In matters pornographic, history suggests that where America goes, Australia will follow, and perhaps we’ll even have the market to sustain our own parodies. We’ve already had Crocodile Blondee, so why not King Wood Country? And while the thought of an X-rated Mother & Son is too awful to contemplate, who wouldn’t want to watch Toadfish give it to Mrs Mangle? It may not be a turn-on, but it would be funny. And that’s kind of the point.

Are you interested in expanding your output from still photography to film?
The internet has killed that area unless you have a lot of money behind you. I have friends who do, but it’s not really where my head’s at. I think the internet is run by people who want to see women be abused, but I’m not into that. I believe in consensual S&M. Whether a woman is on the top or bottom, I don’t care. A lot of profitable sites are for guys who get off on torture and the visual displeasure of women, and it’s not my deal.

Your photos show some discomfort… I mean, those heels could kill….
The point is that a woman in high heels is vulnerable, and not necessarily dominant. Unless, of course, she is Annie Sprinkle, who can move fast.

The beauty of your work is the intimacy between the photographer and the subject.
I like that. I lot of people say, “You’re not going to get involved with the women?” and I’m like, “Totally.” The thing is, if she’s there and it’s play and we’re high, then it’s cool. One night, we had two women and this guy came over and we all took turns playing sexual games. Everyone had cameras and we were all taking pictures. There was one shot of me taking a picture of Gwen framed by her naked legs.

The beauty of your work is the intimacy between the photographer and the subject. I like that. I lot of people say, “You’re not going to get involved with the women?” and I’m like, “Totally.” The thing is, if she’s there and it’s play and we’re high, then it’s cool. One night, we had two women and this guy came over and we all took turns playing sexual games. Everyone had cameras and we were all taking pictures. There was one shot of me taking a picture of Gwen framed by her naked legs.

So authorship is not that important in your photography?
It’s more about the energy. Of course, I’m helping create that energy. I’m bringing in those elements. I love to orchestrate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Does invoking your name help?
It’s amazing what women will let us, including my friend [and fellow photographer] Richard Kern, do—either with them or to them.

Why is that—is it your celebrity?
It’s partly that. Everyone wants to be recognised. They want to be in a Kroll or Kern book. It gives them validity. There’s a lot of insecurity out there and people don’t know where they are going, so they are validated by being in a photograph. Another thing is that a lot of photographers have no fucking pre-visualisation. They expect the model to come up with something. While they know I try not to direct too much, I know what I want and they appreciate that. For example, a shot called Girlfriend as Birdfeeder had Gwen covered in birdseed, which is sexual
but humorous and had a bit of Dada going on—a wave to the furry teacup [sculpture by Méret Oppenheim].

Are you a fan of Dada and the Surrealists, then?
Yes, I have a lot of Man Ray’s work. When I first met Gwen, I would get her to shave a lot and collect the hair, then I’d photograph her sticking the hair back on, like under her armpits. I also put her pubic hair on a slice of pizza for a shot.

With people such as Richard Kern and yourself there seems to be a rebirth of almost amateurish photography, where available light is used as opposed to that of the studio. And where the models, even porn stars, are used but deliberately not made up—showing pimples and the like.
I think Richard and I both lean that way. Irving Klaw, who shot the Bettie Page photos in the ’50s, was a big influence. These hot women were lit by floodlights and you could see the light sockets. That’s what I was jerking off to. What was erotic to me was it was real.

But your work is a lot more elaborate than that.
Certainly in the costuming. My mother was a model when she was young. My parents gave me this aesthetic that you see in the photograph

A ’50s New York style?
Yes, I get off on that. There are some girls whose pussies I want to look at, but for the most part I would rather see them clothed. I shot this 19-year-old and I didn’t care for her pussy. She’s not going to read this, is she?

Maybe. Where do you usually find your models?
Well, that girl was stripping and did escorting. She made a lot of bucks. She walked into one of my exhibitions. She didn’t know who I was, but she wanted to be in one of my photographs. I don’t put pressure on people to work with me. If I see a girl, I give her my card and let her know what kind of work I do. And if she wants to call me, she will.

Then flawlessly airbrushed beauty is not your aim?
I’m not really interested in making someone look beautiful. My theory is that the stuff you jerk off to at 15 is the stuff that does it when you’re 40. The girl who took my virginity wore a girdle and that stayed with me.

That reminds me of ’60s comic artist Robert Crumb whose obsession with big-bottomed women litters his work.
I appeared in the documentary about Crumb. I had a woman I was photographing, but in the movie he rejected her because she was too perfect. She wasn’t large enough.

What’s he like?
He’s really nervous. He did a nice drawing for me.

You’re probably best know for your work with one particular model, known as Gwen (real name Felice), whom you had a relationship with for almost a decade. How did you meet?
It was Valentine’s Day 1995 or ’96. I was on a booth with my wife and I went up to this area, saw Gwen being tied up, gave her my card and it didn’t mean shit to her. Her boyfriend or the guy she was in love with said, “You should pose for him.” Good thing he was around or she never would have called me. She was 21. I wanted a role relationship, but somewhere along the line it became a love relationship.

Was your wife okay with that?
No.

She didn’t like that particular kind of photography, either?
As long as I was married to her, I was an art photographer. The moment we got divorced, I was a pornographer.
My name appeared in a book alongside [painter and sculptor] Joan Miró, which I was excited about, and she never even looked at it.

What sort of relationship did you and Gwen have?
Gwen didn’t like me fooling around. We were paranoid about having safe sex—and what we called safe sex was a lot safer than what many other people would do. Even in my photographs, I’m known for putting plastic wrap on the pussy before doing oral sex.

Does having a camera act as a buffer and help you remove yourself from the fact that Gwen was actually having sex with someone else?
Not really. You can’t have a hard-on when you’re directing. I have a house in Tucson, Arizona and we’d met this guy at a local restaurant. He was a good-looking black guy. He came over a couple of times for photoshoots and he was cool with it all. One time, we were playing ‘Truth or Dare’ and we had a few drinks and it got wild. There was a lack of communication and the next thing we knew, it got more sexual. Later, Gwen asked, “Why didn’t you stop him?” I admit I did photograph it, so it can be kind of touch and go sometimes.

Has it ever gone too far?
Not that I know about. People expect me to be protective, but I’m not going to be overly protective. I’m not that monogamous kind of guy. I’m more concerned about disease than moral issues. At the beginning of our relationship, we would play separate from each other, but we cut that out as it was getting weird.

Does having an unstable relationship upset your work?
If the communication breaks down and we fight, then there’s not the support there. I go from one deadline to the
next, so it helps when I don’t have to think, “Is this relationship working?” Also, I’m getting older, so I don’t really need another pussy—just the one is plenty for me.