Lucky Media, one might say, is an apropos moniker for a production outfit managing to maintain any sort of name for itself on today's super-saturated porn playing field. But this outfit seems to be doing just that, thanks to its innovative strides in keeping with the times and the revved-up passion of the people who run it.
One of those people is Oren Cohen, the company's vice president and general operations leader. Part of the company since its days as Lucky Distributors — which had been around for about 27 years as a leading shipper of magazines and mag packs — Cohen and his partners launched Lucky Media two and a half years ago in an effort to evolve and dodge the risk of becoming stale and stagnant.
"It seemed like a natural progression for us to cultivate the relationships we had with our customers by providing them with a wider variety of product," Cohen explained. "I guess it's pretty evident how much we were missing out if you go into an adult book store and see how disproportionate the square footage devoted to printed material vs. DVD is.
"The final motivating factor was my dissatisfaction with the product I was being offered for sale on the lower end of the scale. To make a long story short, I took out 20 grand in student loans and put myself through school to learn everything and anything related to high-end DVD authoring and motion graphics. When we started the company, I actually did all the encoding, authoring and menu design myself."
And so Lucky was off, though at first, only as a comp company. "Lucky Media owned a large library of footage compiled of both exclusive and non-exclusive masters. I guess we're pretty much known as the company that invented the 20-hour DVD box set," Cohen went on. "I wanted to shoot our own content, but was reluctant to do so until we had enough working capital and experience to do it right. I knew that the last thing anyone needed was another new release company."
Therein lies the biggest problem facing porn companies right now; as Cohen put it, "I think a lot of our original business model's relevance has fallen by the wayside due to the over-proliferation of content in the world today."
Hence, the name arrived upon for the company's production arm, TightFit Productions, has proven even more apt than originally intended. "The original idea," said Cohen, "was to have a niche company that only focused on huge cocks with tiny girls in HD. The name and the HD stuck; the concept now remains as one of our up and coming series, simply named TightFit."
As to why a separate name was chosen at all for the production side, Cohen explained that, "I definitely wanted TightFit's autonomy to be preserved. Lucky Media was already branded as a compilation and sell-through company. TightFit needed its own brand identity. It also needed a look that would make people shit their pants."
That's a tall order. Getting anything to stand out in the ocean of pornography on retail shelves these days is a bit akin to making one particular straw of hay look more palatable to a horse. But they sure tried, and they didn't do too badly: the release Full Service picked up a nom for Best Packaging on this year's AVN Awards ballot, due to its Cinescope orientation and eye-catching cover that niftily folds out.
"We wanted a packaging concept that would mimic the natively widescreen aspect ratio of high definition," Cohen told us. "We thought the fold-out landscape orientation would definitely yield strong opinions both positive and negative. The paper stock we chose was the same holographic stock Disney used on The Incredibles' box.
"From a marketing standpoint, it definitely sets us apart from the pack. There's just no room to be anything but different right now. I think it also conveys our desire to be high-end."
But what about complaints from retailers that they don't want anything packaged such that it has to be displayed sideways, due to the constraint that puts on shelf space? Answered Cohen, "We addressed the retailer's resistance to our sideways box right from the get-go by giving them a traditional vertical display option on the rear of our box. We certainly can't make everyone happy. That just comes with the territory when you break the rules. If we made everyone happy, we'd be pretty fucking bland and boring, wouldn't we?"
In addition, the company will provide traditional boxes for rentals and "dummy" boxes for shelves if requested. But for some of its upcoming releases, there's going to be a total about-face coming in the packaging concept, Cohen promises: "It actually approaches the whole thing from the opposite end of the spectrum. Rather than go foil or shiny, we went completely matte. The new box looks more like a press packet you'd get from a luxury car company at the auto show. It uses no plastic case. The disc is self-contained in a custom cardboard folder that also houses 20 large, glossy production stills from our shoot."
Now there's a novel idea. Sort of reflective of the overreaching attitude Cohen has toward the company as a whole. As he put it, "If I have to spend more time somewhere than at home, I better love and care for what I do. The minute there's no more room in our business model for me to fiercely give a shit about what I produce, I better find another career.
"Ultimately, the quality of one's product will be the deciding factor in their success. There are a lot of people that do an amazing job producing their product in our industry today. I'm certainly not going to find the future success of my company by poorly plagiarizing what others have already done."
Cohen demands that same fierce enthusiasm from his directors; so far there's only been one, Jax, but according to Cohen, there are a few others in the wings getting ready to start up this month.
"Jax has been in and around our industry for a long, long time," Cohen said of the helmsman. "He's also a punk rocker from back in the day. More importantly, he's a hardcore consumer that still actually loves watching porn. I wanted someone that was a little green, a little less jaded than the status quo. Someone that still got excited about directing. Ultimately, anyone can learn the mechanics of directing. I put much more stock in people's attitude and energy. There are a lot of competent assholes out there."
So clearly, this is one company that isn't looking to just be another face in the crowd. Said Cohen, "If anything, I would rather steer clear of the well-traveled road and blaze our own trail. That's how all the great ones did it before us. The Evil Empire certainly didn't get where they've gotten by looking at what worked for others who'd already prospered.
"It's nice to see others be successful by doing what moves them. Granted, there are many things that feel quite at home in the kingdom of bland and boring. I just don't think fucking is one of them."
Lucky Media/TightFit Productions can be reached at 800.338.8439 or 818.779.1400.
