Residents complaining about filming in their neighborhoods are nothing new in Los Angeles, so complaints about porn shoots are par for the course, according to a Los Angeles Times article today.
Helaine Gesas, an Encino resident, tells the newspaper that it was just last Easter Sunday when she noticed production trucks and lighting equipment arrive at the red-brick house across the street, prompting a new round of complaints by her and other neighbors in her upscale neighborhood.
A few scantily-clad models soon made their way to the house amid peering eyes of neighbors who soon found out that there was nothing wrong with the filming.
They were told by city officials that the production - albeit a porn shoot - had its proper permits and that despite noise and clutter of parked trucks and cars, there was nothing they could do.
According to the Times story, there are an average of 3,900 porn shoots in the city in a given year, and like mainstream film producers, they must also request filming permits when they shoot within city limits, regardless whether it's filming hardcore sex or mere stock footage of building
exteriors.
On this particular Sunday, Vivid Entertainment Group was shooting The Alphabet, featuring Lacey and Lyndsey Love, a pair of 21-year-old identical twin starlets who perform sex acts in alphabetical order.
While area residents received fliers notifying them of the shoot and its need for on-street parking, some neighbors immediatly flooded the city with e-mails and calls calling for a halt to the production.
But Steve McDonald, president of the city's film permit agency, Film L.A., said he is barred by the Constitution's free speech provisions from preventing porn producers from filming because of its subject matter.
One resident told the newspaper that he would have had the same reaction if the shoot was for "The West Wing" TV drama, saying the shoots disrupt the neighborhood.
But Vivid co-chairman Steve Hirsch told the newspaper that he is sensitive to neighbors' concerns, saying his shoots are quiet, with the sex scenes filmed well beyond peering eyes.
But to local neighbors, the home in question has become a magnet for porn shoots. Just a day after Vivid left, a Playboy crew arrived to film in the spacious home.
By law, only the home owner is allowed to rent out a home for film production and when the red-brick house's owner was contacted by the newspaper, he said he knew nothing of the Vivid shoot. He later asked his tenants to cease and desist renting the property for filming.
