"Natural light is really tough to shoot in, so temperamental, especially here," says director Chris Ward, on the Hawaiian set of Raging Stallion’s latest production, Lords of the Jungle. "But it’s giving us results unlike anything I've ever seen in porn before."
The sunlight may be tricky, but it gives the shots an amazing depth and realness that’s rarely captured — if at all — within the confines of a studio. With Raging Stallion’s recent switch to HD, Ward may be on the way to getting some of the most stunning — and sexiest — footage ever captured.
I’m tagging along as a producer for NakedSword.com, which is co-producing the Behind-the-Scenes feature that’ll be used both on the site and on the Lords double DVD. In the spirit of theproduction, we’re aiming for something a bit more realistic, avoiding the sunshine and rainbows of typical behind-the-scenes footage for something that tells the story of the production through the stories of the models.
Despite the excitement over the early footage, Chris Ward is nervous — and with good reason. Not only does the sunlight shift from light to dark with the swipe of a cloud, but Lords represents a huge bet for his steadily growing company. Both in terms of men and money, Lords is the biggest production to date for the seven-year-old studio.
Part of Raging Stallion's success has been its willingness to use masculine, multi-ethnic models and unwillingness to resort to stereotype. Lords of the Jungle is no different; the skin on the shoot includes Jason Crew's brute alabaster, Justin Christopher's pale olive, the rich mahogany of Marc LaSalle, and the dark petroleum of Jay Black. That's only four out of 14. It's as if, when confronted with the task of lighting this many shades of man, Ward shrugged and left it up to Pele, Hawaii's unpredictable volcanic goddess.
If only filming Lords were that easy. Ward has 14 stars on this shoot and wrangling them has been a task in itself. The boys are stationed in the middle of nowhere. Literally. Kalapana, the closest town in a relatively uninhabited section of the island, was erased by lava in 1990. Even the nearest Wal-Mart is over an hour away. But Raging Stallion is using a commune-like eco-resort as its base of operations, and the differences between the two cultures is so comical it borders on farce: the pagans and the porn stars, organic and orgasmic.
There are nearly a dozen scenes on two discs and at every turn, Ward tries to pack even more meat into the picture. On the way back from scouting one of over a dozen locations, Ward is near-ecstatic. "I found an amazing rubber tree with vines that grow from branch to ground," crows Ward to videographer Ben Leon. "It's dark and dense in every sense. There's nothing beachy about it. I love it."
Keeping the jungle in this movie is of paramount importance to Ward, who is well aware that he's traveling in the footsteps of Falcon and Titan who filmed on the western side of Hawaii's Big Island. Both of their titles were beach movies. Ward is fixated on the dark and shadowy inner life of the island. "There's something desperate about the context of this movie," says Ward. "It's a desert island pic, but it's less about rescue or plot than it is about men left to their own devices."
The men stalk about the island, alternately hopeless and speechless, looking for salvation, but only finding solace in the bodies of their compatriots. There is no story, only a situation. Ward doesn’t waste time explaining how or why the men wash up on the shore any more than he wastes time figuring how to get them to fuck. He wants to create a mood, not a modus. There are no characters, just a rag-tag group of refugees.
Torn shorts and machetes are about the only remnants of civilization viewers will see in Lords of the Jungle. There are rucksacks that the men carry around, but they’re mainly used for keeping rocks out of their backs and knees. They come in handy, but not for clothes or supplies.
In many ways, Ward and crew’s predicament is not so dissimilar from that of their on-screen counterparts. Raging Stallion has clawed its way on shore and macheted through an unforgiving jungle of content. Whether they’ll be saved or merely fucked rests in the hands of the consumer.
