Director B. Skow called the AVN offices this morning to discuss his latest Vivid Entertainment feature, The American Dream. Shipping today, the new release stars Monique Alexander, Katja Kassin, Daphne Rosen, Hillary Scott, Tony Pounds, Jay Huntington, Marcus London and Flower Tucci.
"I got the idea from two guys in the business, Jay Huntington and Jerry," Skow explained. "The original inspiration was Jay's story about how he came here from Austria and got into the adult industry. The movie is a comedy about this Austrian guy who gets his wife pregnant, has no money, no job, and he's obsessed with sex. His father ships him over to America as a stowaway on a plane…he tries all these different jobs throughout the movie just to keep himself away from girls, but he's always tempted by sex."
Skow has been working with Vivid for over 15 years, photographing all of the company's box covers and print ads. He began directing movies for the label in 2005, starting with the Brianna Banks vehicle End Game.
"In my movies, my main concern is the customer, the person watching it," Skow said. "I always make sure the sex is really good, putting the right talent together so they're into each other. It's not staged - I just let them go, and capture everything with two cameras. So my stuff always has an intense feel in the sex scenes – I build my movie around the talent and the sex."
Skow also notes that Vivid's product has been getting harder and hotter of late. "We're trying to push the sex, but we still want to keep Vivid what it is," he said. "There are guidelines we have to follow, unlike the gonzo companies – we can't show ass-to-mouth, we can't show pussy-to-ass – we just don't do it. There's no extreme choking or fish-hooking. But all my movies have little fetish things like spanking; it's never just putting the performers through four positions."
The director especially praised the onscreen sexual skills of Alexander, who has three scenes in The American Dream including a solo masturbation sequence. The blonde starlet also headlined Skow's last release, Cherry Bomb.
Although Skow has won considerable acclaim for his visual skills, he avoids over-stylizing his adult work. "The reason someone goes out to rent a porn is to see sex and see the girls, and I really consider that when I shoot," he said. "I make sure everything is really clear, with no quick edits or gels on the girls' skin, and no effects over the sex scenes. I do all of my creative and visual stuff in the lead-up. I make sure the lighting is down and the talent is comfortable, and I shoot around them, so it has more of a real feel. A lot of the stuff today is so overproduced – the talent always has to be stopped and aimed into the light, so you don't get that raw, real feeling."
Other forthcoming Skow projects include The Sunny Experiment with Sunny Leone, and Burnt Fury, a cop-show parody starring Evan Stone and Tommy Gunn as detectives. "I think it's the best thing I've done so far," Skow said. "It's really funny – every single editor and everyone else who has seen it has told me the same thing. It's kind of a play off C.S.I. I don't want to give away the story behind it, but it's similar to the Starsky and Hutch remake.
"I don't just shoot these movies to get a paycheck," Skow added. "I'll put every minute I have into what I'm doing and make it as good as I can."
