Brian Mills’ induction into the GAYVN Hall of Fame caps five years during which he’s directed or co-directed several dozen movies for Titan Media, including such briskly selling titles as the landmark Fallen Angel series, the elegantly crafted horniness of R.E.M. and Exhibition, the raunchy Slammer, and the risky shock of Carny and Cirque Noir.
It’s one of those overnight success stories that had 20 years of preparation behind it. Truly, it’s the symbiotic meshing of a lifetime’s skills that made directing come so naturally to Mills.
A lifelong shutterbug, it was Mills’ still photography that was his entry to the industry, and mainstay within it. Indeed, upon accepting his award, he commented on what he felt was the industry’s oversight in recognizing its photographers.
Clarifying his remark later, he said, “The Best Packaging award is really a recognition of marketing and graphic design, not necessarily still photography. The contribution of photography to the image of all companies is sizable, so I believe the lack of a still photography award should be corrected. It’s important to recognize still photography as a vital part of our media.”
Photography has certainly been vital to Mills’ life. The little box camera he bought at a garage sale when he was a ten-year-old boy, in the small town south of Minneapolis where he was raised, began the shy kid’s slow transformation. “I was a voyeur at an early age,” he recalled, “spying on other members of my family, from a closet with the door slightly ajar.”
The longer and better focus of a 35mm camera let him zoom in on his subjects, as well as his career options. He finished at the top of his photography class at a communications arts school in Minneapolis, and was finding personal confidence. “A camera in my hands gave me a reason to talk to people,” he said. “So I was learning how to make people feel at ease in front of my camera.”
That quality gained in importance later, when the people in front of Mills’ camera were naked, and having sex.
But first, he had to zoom out. “I had to come out three times before I really kind of blew the doors off the closet when I was about 22,” he said. He escaped cross-country, to Sacramento, and allowed his interest to turn from commercial work, photographing model homes, toward human models.
He was sure he could take better photographs than the ones he saw on video boxes and in magazines. When models from local gyms answered the homemade ad he’d put up around town, he did. And the small portfolio he compiled traveled through a friend to a friend who worked at Falcon Studios, where Steven Scarborough saw it. It was momentous for Mills. But nothing came of it — until Scarborough left Falcon and started Hot House. Mills recalls with great relish, “My first day on a set was a sex scene with Aiden Shaw and Jake Andrews. You can’t do much better than that! And now Jake was inducted into the Hall of Fame with me this year!”
When Hot House cameraman Bruce Cam founded Titan Media, Mills freelanced for both firms for several years. “Here’s where my midwestern work ethic paid off,” Mills related. “This business is really hard. Very few people make it past the financially and emotionally draining couple of years it takes to develop a catalog of product. But I did it. I showed up, did the work, developed a reputation, and loved what I was doing. The little boy who was a voyeur was now a grown man who was a voyeur and becoming very good at what I was going.”
His renown as a still photographer grew until he was honored with a hardcover collection. As a salaried employee for Titan, Mills learned production coordination, screening and booking models. And then Cam took Mills behind the camera, mentoring his filming skill, and shooting two-camera features with him.
In the five years that he’s been a full-fledged director, Mills has developed a distinct vision of erotica. “It’s not literal. It’s very fantasy-based. My erotic imagery has a quality that seems almost dreamlike, or is driven by the visual component, not a narrative.”
He’s also developed a strong concern for his work’s ramifications. “People say, ‘It’s just porn.’ But it’s also gay sociology. I don’t know if it’s possible to be politically correct in gay porn. I think it’s unwelcome. But I do want to reinterpret classic gay scenarios and myths, to reflect sexuality in a positive fashion.”
After 13 years in the industry, with five as a director, he’s grateful for GAYVN recognition, but typically modest. “I feel like my work as a director is just now reaching a level that really warrants recognition through awards or reviewers taking an interest in me individually. And I think my best work is ahead of me.”
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