You've read the play, now see the movie. Even as we speak, Video Team's biggest project of all time, Westside, a 10-day, seven-locations' shoot, is underway. A takeoff of Romeo & Juliet, it stars AVN Female performer of the Year, Inari Vachs; Male Performer of the Year, Lexington Steele and Best Director, Ren Savant who also wrote the script. The Kismet is not just coincidence. Video Team's Chris Mann, who's attending this year's Maui conference, said the chemistry was quite intentional. With what looks like nine sex scenes, Mann, in the final analysis, suspects that the cable version will air as a two-parter and that the video release will be "as action-packed" as possible. Mann had this to say during a break in the action at Maui.
Mann: "The way Ren Savant shoots is a combination of traditonal location shooting where we rented a very large warehouse in downtown L.A., with a big catwalk for a number of our important scenes and we rented this huge mansion in Malibu that's never been used in an X-rated shoot before.
"It's a spectacular, beautiful, opulent location. I especially enjoyed the dichotomy of having this big, grungy warehouse as well as the mansion. I think they helped emphasize each other. We also rented out a restaurant in the West Adams district.
"But the other thing that Ren Savant does is just numerous, additional days where he'll shoot two, three hours a day just driving around cities, streets, beach scenes, car chases, little interchanges that happen at different corners - all sorts of things. That kind of guerilla shooting coupled with Ren Savant's traditional location-shooting turned it into a multiple day shoot. I'm had pressed to tell you how many days we shot, but I know we're in the excess of seven days of shooting.
"We're wrapped up with the principle photography. We're wrapped up with the Malibu location that we did for two days. We're wrapped up with the downtown warehouse for two days; we're wrapped up with the restaurant that we did for one day. We still have more ancillary shots to get all over the city. We're trying to give the video as much of a big budget look as possible and we're trying to open up the four walls and get some sense of panoramic views, urban grit and city streets. We're trying to give it as varied a look as we possibly can, keeping in mind that we're at nine actual action [sex] scenes in addition to everything that surrounds it on the periphery. I'm willing to give it a two hour, or two hour twenty-minute running time. We're going to edit it to make it logical as to the content. I'm not going in with a pre-conceived notion of running time. I want it with what Ren thinks is appropriate to tell the story and show the action.
"It's no accident that we went that way [with the hiring of Savant, Vachs and Steele]. I already knew that I wanted Ren Savant to be the director. He had already directed some work for us at Video Team under prior nommes des plumme. In fact he made reference to me in his [AVN] thank you speech. We're friends and I have total faith in his abilities. He drives people crazy during the course of production. He's a very angst-ridden, dedicated, sometimes overly passionate director. But for all the anguish that he puts the producres and the talent aand the crew through, he's hardest on himself. And the results show up on the screen.
" I also knew that this movie, to have its conflict needed the specific interracial mix that it has now. I obvioulsy wanted my big budget feature to be interracial. It's one of the things that's associated with my company and I wanted to prove that the all-black genre doesn't have to equate to the lower budget, one-day wonder. I wanted to show we could make a serious and seriously-erotic video with the higher production value with the interracial theme. It seemed to me that the old Romeo & Juliet story, when re-told no longer made sense from the family conflict point-of-view, not when you're updating it to the year 2000. But there still is a considerable amount of controversy and emotion attached to the old taboo of interracial dating, specifically black man, white woman.
"Lexington Steele won male performer of the year, and, having worked with him a number of times, I know that he's a gentlman with intellectual prowess and acting ability, in addition to delivering a great sex scene. Seeing that Inari Vachs won female performer of the year, and having the same feelings about her - that she turns in sizzling hot sex scenes and can deliver the dialogue and turn in the acting performance, it seemed like it was a matter of fate that these three award winners should converge, work together and make, what I think is the most important video of my company's career.
"Even if the AVN Awards had yielded different results, I think we would have still wound up with this particular combination because they seem to be perfect for the roles. Ren wrote the script himself. This is one where he took my story concept, a Y2K version of Romeo & Juliet with conflict from the interracial taboo, and the class struggle that goes with it, ran with it and wrote the story surrounding it. Giving credit where credit is due, I guess it goes to William Shakespeare. It is Romeo & Juliet redux. Ren wrote a great screen play. It not only makes for a good sex movie with a lot of action, but the way the characters are outlined, I think that we will be able to get plausibility from the actors. Frequently, in the bigger budget, heavy storyline-intensive videos, we ask the cast to act to a level that maybe isn't traditionally found in X-rated videos.
"In this case, it all fell into place. I also want to mention two other people that have incredibly significant roles in this video- Nici Sterling and Wilde Oscar [Chris Norman] who play the guardians of Inari vachs. They obvioulsy play it as a British couple. If you had a chance to read the screenplay, you'd see that these two roles were tailor-written for them. In fact, the character names are Nici and Chris. We knew going in that that role had to be written for them. Fortunately, we were able to get the scheduling right to secure their performances in it. I wouldn't be surprised if people are talking about Chris Norman's incredibly wicked portrayal of the bad guy. I think a lot of actors will tell you that playing the super arch villain is the fun, meaty role. Chris Norman has it. I'm happy with the progress so far.
"I confess I haven't seen any of the footage yet because we're still shooting and this weekend wrapped the big loaction-stuff while I was in Hawaii."
[Mann is looking at Westside as an Adult Entertainment Expo promotion this summer with a subsequent August release. The feature co-stars Midori, Mocha, Mr. Marcus, Julian St. Jox, and Tina Tyler to name a few performers.]
"We brought in a lot of people who have worked with Video Team over the years," said Mann, "because it just made sense. It was rewarding to give these people roles that were a little meatier than the gonzo fare that you're used to seeing them in. We have a pretty sizeable cast. When all is said and done, my financial bet is that we're going to have a seriously good, erotic, interesting sex video. I'll make no bones about it. This is my statement for the year as far as my premium, higher budget productions. Obviously, we still put our faith in our backing and some dedication into our franchise product, the Baby Got Back series and the No Man's Land series, but this is on the bigger budget level. I'm anxious to hear what the consumers and the folks in the press have to say about it."
