When Chris Ward worked as an accountant for a firm at the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco he had a "hobby." It was directing porn part time and he had his own personal website: PowerFist.com.
When Ward didn't properly erase some porn-related emails at work, a top executive of the company discovered them and he was ordered up to a major meeting with the owners. "I was certain that I was going to be fired," Ward recalls. "Much to my surprise, they let me know that they thought my porn career was great! I continued to work at the firm for another two years."
It's a long road since Hole Puncher, his first video at Hot House Entertainment where director Steven Scarborough gave Ward a chance to make his own stuff. Pal J.D. Slater's urging Ward to break out on his own and start his own studio paid off in one of the most prolific — 24 movies a year — companies in gay adult video.
Raging Stallion Studios is now located in a 15,000-square-foot, four-story warehouse in the heart of San Francisco two blocks from Union Square. Inside is a carpentry and machine shop for making sets, a floor devoted to distribution (Raging Stallion began self-distribution in 2002, and in addition to U.S. customers also distributes its own movies in Europe — the first U.S. company to do so — as well as South Africa and Australia), an in-house gymnasium, a suite of offices for the sales staff, an administration floor, an art department, and two 5,000-square-foot sound stages.
Not long ago Ward expanded the company across the Pacific, partnering with Australia's Pistol Media which has developed an Internet operation that is one of the largest on the Web.
The Raging Stallion library now has 68 titles and Ward will have directed his 100th video ever by the end of the year (he's planning something big to celebrate, natch). At 44, he is one of youngest presidents of a major gay studio. And he still edits, writes, produces, shoots, directs, casts, distributes, bookkeeps, promotes, and has a hand in every title his company releases, working an average of 70 hours a week. He insists, "I really love what I do."
Others love what he does too. "Many of my fans buy every movie I make. They are very loyal," Ward says. "Some of my best fans have actually become models for Raging Stallion!"
Always a champion of unshaved, tattooed, and pierced men — for years unthinkable in the world of mainstream gay porn — Ward is gratified to see the influence he has had. "I am happy to see that my theory of what audiences are interested in is really happening, because there was a time when I was arguing about using more hairy guys and tattooed guys in the mid-1990s and all the companies were horrified by that," he says. "I always thought that the baby boomers wanted to see more masculine guys their own age, in their thirties, forties, and fifties."
Ward says he was influenced by Jean-Daniel Cadinot and Kristen Bjorn. He has developed his editing and storytelling style from his love of good porn and classic Hollywood movies. A John Ford and John Huston fan in mainstream cinema, when Ward relaxes with his boyfriend (who works in the sales department) they're watching classics on their big screen projection system at home. He uses a lot of dissolves and cuts in his videos, and pays attention to the detail and camerawork he sees in Sunset Boulevard, Rebecca, The Talented Mr. Ripley and other mainstream favorites.
Chris Ward learned about editing and lighting from Scarborough and credits Hot House for giving him his start. "I never saw second-rate movies come out of there, and that's where I got my start and I'll always be thankful to Steven," he says.
Now, he's preparing to give star Parker Williams his start as director of Lube Job a movie about horny guys at a lube factory who all fuck one pig bottom. "When working with a new director, I usually co-direct the first few scenes, giving a constant verbal lesson on what I am doing," Ward says. "Then I shut up and see what they can do."He sees his personal talent in editing, and he's able to do it quickly and efficiently. Passport to Paradise was done in five days in his "spare time" from running the company.
One of the misconceptions about Raging Stallion is that it's a fetish-only or fetish-heavy company. In fact, Ward's fisting videos were done at Hot House and Falcon and "Raging Stallion did not release a single fetish film for the first three years of our history. Now we produce some fisting films, but these make up only about twenty percent of our output," he says.
Although Ward writes scripts for his movies, and Slater always writes a scintillating score, they know that most customers prefer all-sex vids. "Because of this, I have always limited the amount of storyline in my films," Ward says. But hitting on "a way to include several versions of a movie on a single DVD without adding any extra footage" enabled him to satisfy all customers by presenting a full version and a "sex-only" option.
It's tough to pick a favorite, but he says Sexus, A Porn Star Is Born, Drilled, and Passport to Paradise rank among his best. "In general, I like almost every film I have made," he said. "I think one of the things I can brag about is the fact that I have never released a bad film."But, ultimately, Ward says, "I hope I am branding a certain type of look of a guy that's not always out there, and that our name is associated with high quality erotica."
Photo courtesy of RagingStallion.com
