When Rob Ragan left Pacific Sun Entertainment a year ago he was looking for some inspiration in naming his new distribution company. “I came up with White Tiger, literally in a minute. In my entertainment center in my living room, I have a ceramic statue of a white tiger with piercing blue eyes, and that’s really where I came up with the name. Not too creative, I guess, but it looks good!”
Ragan celebrated his 20-year anniversary in the adult industry in June, with 19 of those years spent in sales or management. “Being at Pacific Sun taught me that the gay side of the industry is a lot more professional and businesslike than the straight. There’s a lot more emphasis put on quality productions, actually doing something with a film and giving it substance. And I was intrigued by that aspect of it.”
With the White Tiger idea in motion, Ragan’s next challenge was finding companies dedicated to putting out high-quality films. “This would be the first time I’ve ever stamped my name personally on a line or corporation in this industry, and with the amount of time that I’ve been in it, I would refuse to do it unless it was absolutely perfect.”
It quickly proved to be easy. A self-professed stickler for perfection, Ragan discovered, upon making inquiries with different companies, that many people knew who he was. “That was, A., flattering and, B., scary,” he says with a laugh. “I was fortunate enough, almost in the very beginning, to end up speaking with David Adamson, who owns D&E Productions down in Miami. David and I have very similar points of view when it comes to business. And he had wanted to spend more time on production, so that’s where this really began.”
White Tiger officially launched in late April, with Surfside Studios, previously distributed through Video 10, and Seymore Dicks Productions quickly on board.
“In the high-end gay there is quite a bit — probably a little too much for my personal taste — of European product here in the United States. There are very few films that are actually produced here and shot here with American actors. So it was something that I was interested in because I’m a big fan of this country, because of all the liberties that we’re born into.”
That includes equal liberties for all Americans: “Gay people want to be able to be married and the government isn’t allowing them to do that, and that doesn’t make any sense, you know? Just because they’re gay. They’re still Americans,” he says. “My wife happens to have several gay friends, her brother is gay, I understood the gay industry, and I wanted to really concentrate and be on that side, because unfortunately there are sides drawn.”
Ragan’s openness to the community also caught the attention of Pride Studios, home to the popular Circle Jerk Boys website and DVD line. “They wanted to break away from the specific mold of just being a solo and group masturbation company into producing and filming action films, and we came to find out that they probably should have done this from the beginning, because it is absolutely outstanding.”
White Tiger also has Happy Endings Studios, which just released its first title, Hollywood Party Boys; the upcoming Daddy Boy Productions; and EON Films, famous for parodies of successful mainstream studio titles (Ashton's 11 and Field of Creams).
“EON's Rocky Brown just finished production on one that is going to be absolutely phenomenal in all aspects of our industry: The Dicks of Hazzard,” Ragan says. “Sometimes you just have certain releases you know are going to do well, you get something that you and everyone else looks at, and you basically just want to hug each other.”
With seven studios under the White Tiger umbrella, Ragan plans to release about four titles a month in the fall. While he wants to grow, he isn’t in a rush to add studios. “If somebody wants to join the White Tiger family they have to give me a really good reason, and I don’t mean monetarily — I mean quality-wise — to do it. I’m very comfortable with what I have right now,” he says. “I would love one day to say that I’m as big as Marina Pacific and Channel 1. I would love for one of my lines to be able to say that they’re as large as Falcon or Kristen Bjorn. Whether it happens or not, time is going to tell.”
With his dedication to promotion — and in maintaining phone contact with all of his clients — Ragan is certain to see a bright future.
“With the studios that were selected to come in, all have something unique; individuality would be a good word to describe White Tiger,” he says. “I believe in my producers, I believe in the fact that this is a passionate art form to them. They’re not just trying to slap together porn and make a couple of bucks. They want their own specific, unique brand of artistic creativity to come out within their films, and every film that I have put out so far has truly showed that.”
Contact Info: 800-795-2577; [email protected]; WhiteTigerReleasing.com.
