LOS ANGELES—David Edwards and Drew Rosenfeld have launched Genuine Sin VR, a progressive production company envisioned as a one-stop shop for Virtual Reality content.
The veteran executives bring more than 30 years of combined experience in adult and mainstream entertainment to the venture.
Edwards is a seasoned director/producer who has helmed more than 300 adult movies for cable TV, DVD distribution and the Web during the past two decades. Rosenfeld, meanwhile, worked for 12 years as the creative director and head of production for Hustler Video.
The duo is teaming with Jose C., the tech guru and director of photography for Genuine Sin VR. He is a former photographer and videographer for Penthouse.
The Genuine Sin founders say they’ve assembled an accomplished team of producers, directors, cinematographers, editors, and web designers in an effort to offer a suite of cutting-edge solutions for 360-degree, VR video production services.
Their first three clients are Penthouse, Adam & Eve and Hustler.
“We have spent the last year in research and development, creating VR camera systems and post-production tools specific to VR that we think sets us apart,” said Rosenfeld, who is heading new business development as well as producing and directing for the company. “Genuine Sin VR is also offering bulletproof VR streaming through their own CDN for their exclusive customers.”
Genuine Sin is “a solution team when it comes to VR,” Rosenfeld told AVN.
“Everybody’s struggling with how to deal with the content and we’ve been able to help them with all of our solutions,” he continued. “A lot of people are scared of it. And I want people to know if they’re willing to take a little leap of faith and spend a little money with us they’ll see a lot of it come back.
“Because this stuff draws traffic. With that traffic hopefully it’s an up-sell to your business model that you’re already operating with. You don’t necessarily need to vest a ton of money into VR but certainly if you’ve got a couple of VR clips in there it’s a great, relevant way to get people to come to your site.”
Edwards recalled working with various companies for many years as a producer and hearing the same comment time and again.
“Everybody was always talking about and they still talk about it, ‘let’s do something different. Let’s do something new.’ Well, here it is. This is absolutely it. This is your ‘something new,’” Edwards told AVN.
The core of Genuine Sin’s offerings is the “one-click” solution, according to Edwards.
“Where most of the competition has a VR download available, Genuine Sin VR can create a one-click playable stream for your VR content and offer it through our own CDN, using our unique custom player,” he said.
Edwards continued, “And it’s just easy for the studio or website to add VR streaming to their site really without much effort. We almost provide you with what amounts to an embed code. Here’s the video, incorporate that into your site. Your customer just clicks it and it’ll play. I’m calling it a ‘one-click’ play. That one click will play on your desktop, your laptop, your tablet, your phone.
“Or there is the goggle icon in the corner [of the player] and just hit the goggle icon and it’ll go to split screen and you can watch it on your head-mounted device. And all from just one click. So you can cover all your viewers.”
Rosenfeld added, “And it protects your content from theft and getting passed around. Obviously that’s a big issue in this business.”
Since Genuine Sin’s one-click playable stream is accessed through a link, it also lends itself to easy sharing on social media.
“The models can promote it through any social media that allows this kind of content by our one-click method. They can do it through Twitter. We can edit it down to seconds if they want,” Rosenfeld noted.
Genuine Sin’s post-production services not only include editing, but also stitching, color correction and video compression that’s set up for the VR pipeline. In addition, the company offers web design services and management.
At press time they were in post-production on their first project for Adam & Eve that features 17 girls including Tiffany Watson as the lead, Tia Cyrus and Sydney Cole, among other established and up-and-coming performers.
Meanwhile, Rosenfeld said Genuine Sin is in pre-production for another Penthouse feature slated to shoot this month starring Penthouse Pet of the Year Layla Sin.
Calling the VR space “the Wild West” at this early juncture, Edwards noted that it’s not just a matter of pushing boundaries of shooting in the traditional sense, “we’re trying to figure out the next thing that we can do creatively and artistically” with the rapidly evolving technology.
“Because the content is so high resolution in 4K we can edit it in a way that puts you right on top of her or backs you up,” Rosenfeld added. “You can zoom through the player that is being provided, where I notice a lot of the competition is just sort of static.
“There’s just not a lot of ultimate experience going on in what is known as virtual reality.”
Rosenfeld continued, “The other thing that the company is starting to find is streaming is a big deal. Most of these companies are downloading. And we figured out how to stream it through the right compression rates, through the right player. And it’s really important because talking with some new clients, they don’t want to download it. They’re already streaming their other content. Why would they want to add download as a longer process to actually obtaining the content that you just paid for? The customers are going to be lost.”
Another important aspect is being able to preview the VR content with Genuine Sin’s solution, he said.
“So if you can’t stream it, then you can’t preview it, so how would you know what you’re buying if you’re a customer?” Rosenfeld reasoned.
The company has a four-minute preview trailer on its official site starring Sarah Jessie, Luna Star and Lauren Phillips in some naughty pool action.
For more information, visit GenuineSinVR.com or contact Rosenfeld at [email protected] or Edwards at [email protected].
