This article originally appeared in the June 2016 issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see a digital edition of the magazine.
It might seem a bit incongruous that PenthouseTV had scheduled its first VR shoot for Easter Sunday, but then again, not everyone’s religious—and pretty much everyone does like sex. That most certainly includes the 15 established and rising stars who populated the pool area and cabanas at the country estate where Penthouse set up its VR camera rig.
However, unlike most of the shoots that take place in the adult industry, this one was not intended for a DVD or even Penthouse’s many websites, but rather as a demo of Penthouse’s ability to make fun, hot, sexy VR to show to potential buyers and partners at the MIPTV broadcast trade show that was held in Cannes, France, in early April. To that end, the entire production would be softcore, with an eye toward being able to show it to as wide an audience as possible.
Hence, those who had the pleasure of attending Penthouse’s VR demo got to see bikini’d, topless and fully naked porn stars, including Penthouse 2016 spokesmodel Layla Sin as well as Christiana Cinn, Valentina Nappi, Aidra Fox, Marica Hase, Jenna Sativa, Ana Foxxx, Bobbi Dylan, Tara Morgan, Charlotte Cross, Katy Kiss, Dallas Black, Mila Jade, Ellena Woods, Taylor May and Leah Gotti playing in pools and under waterfalls with inflatable balls, a giant inflatable seahorse and other air-filled toys, blowing giant soap bubbles, and even demonstrating their prowess with Hula-Hoops. (Click here to see some photos from the set; pictured above: Valentina Nappi.)
“This is just an amazing shoot,” commented Penthouse owner Kelly Holland, making her first appearance on a set in many months. “You know, when we launched 3D—we’ve been working in 3D for two years—we had partnered with Panasonic; Panasonic had brought us their beta test cameras from Japan to work with. We’ve now had a lot of history in it; we knew what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go. With VR, we’re in our early stages. We’ve done a couple of tests and I wasn’t happy with them, and I saw what else is out there and it’s just dull, dull, dull. So what we’ve decided to do is bring together 15 amazing girls on a nice Easter day and just have them around the pool, all doing different things, all doing things that if you were a man standing in the middle of it all, it would be a wealth of visual sensations, and we’re going to put the camera in the middle of all that, so whether you turn left, turn right, turn east, turn west, there’s beautiful girls doing amazing things.”
Holland had said that if the test shoot turned out poorly, she’d discard it and try again later, but it turned out to be a success—even better than she expected.
“We are now fully committed to VR, and to that end, we are working with a variety of rigs from simple to complex as well as working with a variety of mainstream production groups in creating our best workflow,” she stated after returning from the MIPTV show. “I premiered a great 3-minute VR piece at that show and although VR is not integrated into a broadcast environment right now, I had in-depth conversations with my licensees about how to deploy VR in OTT and multi-screen environments.”
OTT, or “over-the-top,” is defined as “the delivery of audio, video, and other media over the Internet without the involvement of a multiple-system operator in the control or distribution of the content.”
“Under the new company—the new Penthouse ownership, yeah!—we are racing to launch a new Penthouse.com brand site/paysite,” she added. At press time Holland anticipated that the site would launch in late May. “All attention and focus is turned to that,” she said. “Within the new site, we’ll have a VR theater where we can have lots of fun. I’m also writing a VR feature that is designed to use all of the best aspects of the technology.”
If she’s successful, that would be the first full-length VR feature ever produced by the adult industry—and with any luck, enough customers will have their own VR headgear in time to make such productions profitable.
Holodeck, here she comes!
