This article originally ran in the April 2016 issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see the online edition.
Lesbian-content studio Girlsway has established a new imprint, Pretty Dirty, featuring b/g content.
“I’m calling it ‘Girlsway’s dirty younger brother,’” Girlsway head of production Bree Mills told AVN. “It’s going to be hardcore boy/girl product, very similar to Girlsway in the sense of the style: story-driven content open to tackling a range of different subjects. It’s serialized content, and my mantra is ‘If the story isn’t worthy of appearing on the front page of a tabloid, it’s probably not going to be on Pretty Dirty.’ We’re trying to tackle fun, sordid tales, a lot of cautionary tales, it’s going to be that sort of thing.”
Mills is the lead writer for both the Girlsway and Pretty Dirty lines. “I write 95 percent of the outlines and all the feature scripts. Writing does dominate the vast majority of my time, and pre-production is where I invest a lot of my energy.”
Mills also co-directs the main features with creative partner Stills By Alan, who is the primary director for much of the content, and “he’ll go in and tackle one story a month. That’s his pet project.” Mills, who is based in Montreal, comes to the U.S. for production of the main features.
Pretty Dirty material will be released initially on DVD and VOD, and the DVDs will be a mix of vignettes “centered around a specific theme,” unconnected vignettes, and episodic stories. DVD distribution will be handled by Girlfriends Films, which distributes Girlsway titles, including the critically acclaimed The Business of Women and The Turning series.
For maximum flexibility, Mills likes working close to release: “Once the pipes are running, I’ll usually keep about two months worth of content in the can. You have to keep fueling that. I’ve found that having a two-month turnover of content works well for stuff that’s established. For Pretty Dirty, which we’re building now, I’m very careful and cautious not to go too far into one specific subject or niche, so I don’t end up with a ton of it if it doesn’t pan out. I’m doing a sprinkling of different themes. We also mix it up on release so it’s not Part-One-Part-Two-Part-Three concurrently. We mix different series in. If you didn’t like that story, the next week’s episode is going to be something different. You aren’t stuck with it for a month.”
Mills stressed that the line features performers with acting ability.
“For us, it’s an absolute requirement,” Mills said. “All of our content is story driven. We have scripts for everything we do. We have specific scripts for our bigger projects and fairly detailed outlines for our vignettes. We will work and ad-lib with the actors, but that requires a person who is creative and brings something to their character. That’s an absolute must for us. You have to be able to act. We like to involve the creativity of the talent we work with, and often we’ll adjust the storyline based on a really good idea that one of the actors has given on the set. We try to make it a collaborative process.”
The first DVD title as well as the website PrettyDirty.com are set to launch this month.
According to Mills, Sugar Babies is “a cautionary tale, a tragedy, about what happens when you enter into the world of sugar daddies and sugar babies: everything that can go wrong,” with a cast that includes Chanel Preston, Penny Pax, Jade Nile, Rebel Lynn, Xander Corvus, James Deen and Jessy Jones.
Plans call for two DVD releases a month. Among the projects in the works are Sleeping with My Sister, a vignette collection, and A Life Betrayed, “which is one of my other favorite subjects to talk about: cheating and a revenge plot,” Mills said.
