LOS ANGELES—There aren't too many adult directors who score a AAAA review of their very first movie, but Red Ezra, the porn name for filmmaker/photographer David Lockard, managed to hit that height with Flash!, an all-girl movie released by Wicked Pictures. But after leaving adult and pursuing other ventures for the past few years, Lockard is planning his return to adult—but before that, he'd like to complete his "wish list" project, a volume of erotic photos he's tentatively calling Porn Star Motel.
"This is the biggest of the photography projects that I started back in 2004 when digital cameras started coming onto the market," Lockard explained. "I took an interest and started shooting my friends, and it kind of became a fun thing, and actually, it became pretty important to me and I grew creatively, artistically and kept doing it. Now I've got all this content towards this project and it's not finished, so I'm not sure exactly how to get it done, but with the crowdfunding coming along to finance artistic projects, I figured it would at least be worth a shot to see if anybody wanted to get behind me and see if I can get this done."
And it's not as if Lockard has been a slacker about it up till now. He's already shot dozens of women, drawn from both the adult industry and outside. Some of the stars already "in the can" include Aiden Starr, Asia Carrera, Aria Giovanni, Belladonna, Charlie Laine, Devon Michaels, Jana Cova, Jessica Drake, Jewell Marceau, Joanna Angel (pictured), Katie Morgan, Kimberly Kane, Kirsten Price, Kylie Ireland, Sasha Grey, Stephanie Swift and Wanda Curtis, to name just a few. Of particular interest to photographers is that Lockard has done almost all of the photography using either natural or tungsten light, which punches up the colors in ways unobtainable with modern flash units.
"I would say that most of the girls are porn stars, hardcore porn performers," he said. "I've shot several girls that are not hardcore girls, but not exactly softcore either; I guess you could say they're fetish models, like they do stockings or show their legs. They do full frontal nudity but they do niche kinds of things, like bondage or latex or things like that, so there's quite a few of those in the mix."
But Lockard doesn't feel that the project would be complete without a few more, and that's why he began his Indiegogo funding campaign.
"I think I'd like to add anywhere from 10, 12 maybe as many as 20 more women," he estimated. "People know me pretty well; I'm pretty picky. Not all the shoots are going to get used, so even though I shoot, it doesn't mean it's to end up being part of the project. Going at it with that in mind, obviously, I want to get the best out of anything that I do, but when it's done, it's done, and my sights are focused on two more successful shoots to accomplish what I want to get done, so let's say I'll shoot probably 15.
"I've only talked to three or four girls so far about doing a shoot: Janine Lindemulder, Brittany Andrews and Dyanna Lauren. I talked to Coral Sands; she's not listed on the Indiegogo site, so that's a scoop for AVN. I'm in Louisiana and Coral's in Alabama, so it might be one of those deals where I make a road trip and shoot it there or something.
"It's hard to talk to a lot of people about doing something when you don't have any money to do anything with," he sighed, "so I just kind of talked to a few girls to see if there was any interest in it, and there is. There's a lot of people that like what I'm doing; it's just a matter of being able to pull it off so I can take it to the next step."
One point Lockard made several times during the discussion is that this Indiegogo campaign is a "Fixed Funding" one.
"What that means is that basically, I get the entire budget—$18,500—or nothing at all," he said, "so it was a way for me to say, 'I either want to do this right and I want to do it with the amount of money that I need to get it done right, or I'm going to put it back on the shelf and try to figure out a way to finance it,' so that's kind of where it's at. And if I don't make the entire amount, anyone who donated will get their full money returned to them.
"This is one of those deals where I'll be chalking it up to a learning experience if it doesn't work, or chalk it up to one more step on the ladder to completing the project, but who knows?" he mused. "It's a scary thing to put yourself out there on something like this. I haven't really seen anybody else do something like I'm doing, where I've started a project and I'm trying to complete it. I've got a great project; I just need one last push to get it finished."
Assuming his campaign succeeds, Lockard's plan is to arrange from a week or two's worth of models to shoot, arrange locations, makeup, et cetera, then drive to Los Angeles and sleep on friends' sofas or whatever's available while in town, then drive back and finish editing the photos.
"The Porn Star Motel photo project is not guaranteed to end up as a published book," Lockard noted on the Indiegogo site. "If my pitch doesn't work I will have to self-publish thru a service like Blurb to see this photo project completed. If self-publishing is the only way to go I will hold another crowd-funding campaign to help finance it."
But after looking at some of his photos on the Indiegogo site, it's hard to believe he won't get his funding—but the project closes on September 21, and it seems that few people have noticed it yet, but with any luck, not to mention support from the adult community, it just may happen.
