It makes sense that Active Duty Productions' president, CEO and sole owner, Dink Flamingo, is introducing movies directed by three of his young models; youth and innovation have always been Active Duty's watchwords.
Because it's been so influential, controversial, prolific and successful (seven GAYVN Award nominations, with one win), one forgets how young the company is. It was only in 1998 in North Carolina that Flamingo, who'd sold Dirk Yates four military solo movies, felt the urge for more action and broke away from Yates to create the Active Duty website.
In 2001, it was one of the first gay studios to go online with Naked Sword/AEBN. Flamingo also offered for sale tapes of the video clips he made for the site. They sold more than he'd dreamed. Demands from fans led to Flamingo's expanding his output with hardcore. Sales of three Basic Training titles wore his mailing clerks out, and many more hardcore series followed, along with endless military solos. In 2002 he surrendered to the pleas of a powerful distributor and "went retail," with box art replacing plain white sleeves.
In 2006 a scandal involving his use of military men in porn led to a move first to Pensacola, Florida (which he deemed "too conservative"), and then to San Diego. There he continues his practice of directing all of the Active Duty videos, both solo and hardcore.
In 2007, supported by the large and loyal audience for Active Duty's military product, he created Dirty Bird Pictures to allow for other sorts of stories and situations. Though his intention always was to train young directors from among his models, he hired experienced directors Mike Donner and Jett Blakk to make Dirty Bird's first movies and "get the label going."
Meantime, he felt out his directorial candidates: "Those first movies, in some of which the candidates worked as models, were enough to convince them that Dirty Bird Pictures was a going thing, and also gave me and them more time to build relationships with each other. Trust is the most important element. Then I just gave them a budget and free rein. Barrett Long has five pictures finished in a series he calls XXX Amateur Hour; Brent Corrigan has completed his Summit; and Mason Wyler is finishing a script."
All three new directors had wanted to direct, to different degrees. Long says, "I've always wanted to do it. I told Dink that I wanted to get some web stuff out there, and some DVDs that I owned a piece of the content of, rather than working for a little paycheck here and there. We came up with the idea that I would do some little projects on the side, and my company, Long Media, would do its share toward producing them. Then I handed them over to Dink, and his people produced them still further, and now we're starting to market them. XXX Amateur Hour movies are not amateur, that name is just to give a certain feeling. We have pros like me, Casey Wood and Sean Preston. The movies are mainly all-action, duos and trios and very rarely solos, not scripted, white and Hispanic guys from 19 to 28.
"What I like best is when people respect what I do," he continues. "I'm not interested in there being a ‘Barrett Long style.' I just want to be thought of as [someone who shoots] hot porn so that people get hard and enjoy watching it. I'd been asked to produce or direct before, but I held off till I talked with Dink. I've been fucked over by people before. Dink and I established trust between each other, and a clear agreement that I'll be getting royalties off of what I shoot for the rest of my life."
Brent Corrigan not only has ambitions, he's been fulfilling them already. "I'm producing my own short films," he says. "I came to work with Dink with the understanding that we (my partner, Grant Roy, and I) were at first cautious about working for another studio after some earlier unpleasant experiences with other studios. After my debut in porn, while some legal matters kept me off the screen for a couple of years, I polished my craft by shooting scenes using the young guys associated with a company we had started at that time. My being in The Porne Ultimatum for Dink gave him enough face-time with us to feel us out and become comfortable about exploring the possibility of a collaboration. What's so great about Dink is, he's in tune with the people he works with. He said, ‘Let's get this ball rolling. You've been in hibernation for too long, and let's do something about it!'
"Grant and I formed a company, Prodigy Pictures," he continues, "and I took my cast to a lodge at Lake Tahoe and turned them loose. My movie is based on a reality-show platform. It's about behind the scenes of a porn movie. I call it Brent Corrigan's Summit because it's the peak I've reached so far after a lot of struggles."
Of Long's and Corrigan's completed work, Flamingo says: "When I looked at the finished product with Brent Corrigan's Summit and XXX Amateur Hour, I almost wanted to cry because they represent so much of what I want with Dirty Bird. XXX Amateur Hour reminds me so much of the early Active Duty stuff, it's just so raw and gonzo. And with Summit, it reminds me where Active Duty has evolved to in its later years, with the models' personalities being very much a part of the picture."
And the third newbie, Mason Wyler, is, at the time of this writing (late February), polishing a script with his husband, Mickey Manila, in quite another style. "It's porn noir," Wyler exults. "Did you ever see Chinatown? I want Brent Corrigan, Zack Randall and Blu Kennedy!"
No doubt Flamingo will do his best to get them for his protégé.Meanwhile, Long is proceeding with XXX Amateur Hour segments, and Corrigan is taking seven models to Hawaii.
Company Info: Wholesale, Pulse Distribution, (818) 435-1604; retail, DirtyBirdPictures.com.
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