LOS ANGELES—Two things you should know about 2016 Penthouse Pet of the Year and adult star Kenna James—First, she loves to feature dance, which is what led to the strip club-themed fantasy for James’ showcase and the latest edition in Elegant Angel’s legacy line, Kenna James Is Slutwoman. Long and lithe, James is a natural on the pole.
Second, James snortles when she laughs, which happens a lot. She cannot help herself and it only leads to more giggles, giving her a sort of goofy sweetness. On-set for the shoot, her in-real-life boyfriend, professional stuntman and adult co-star Nathan Bronson was cutting up, which set off her laughter. They make a very good-looking couple.
Or throuple—their friend and cast mate Dante Colle was also there, in a conversation with performer Robby Apples about Apples’ foreskin-lengthening regime, which involves weights and stretching to increase the foreskin’s surface area; a serious, yet humorous topic, to be sure. When you work with your penis, these things are important. Apples, who was working on the crew that day, said his sensitivity had increased significantly since he started training.
James confessed that she had already performed a DP scene with Bronson and Colle for the showcase—and also, occasionally, off-set. For those who wonder what that’s like, “Oh my God, it's always good,” James told AVN.
“Like I've done it on-camera and off-camera, oh my God, so fun! Honestly, I mean, if I have a dream team, that's it,” she said.
In Slutwoman, Bronson plays dual roles (as James’ lazy boyfriend and a rival club owner) and Colle had been cast as a bodyguard. Apples performs in the movie’s finale scene (shot on the first day of production), for James’ first-ever gangbang, along with Bronson, Charles Dera, Lucky Fate and Lawson Jones.
Later that afternoon, James would do a blowbang, gloryhole style in the bathroom stall, with Bronson, Colle, Axel Haze and Johnny Palms—another career first.
Daniel Chura, executive producer at Elegant Angel, said the production is the first time for him to try his hand at screenwriting, after developing the plot-line with James. One of the genre-defining showcase titles produced by the studio (alongside the Buttwoman series), the first volume of Slutwoman was released in 1998, starring Roxanne Hall and directed by Elegant Angel founder Patrick Collins under his nom de porn, Roscoe Bowltree. A legendary figure in the gonzo genre, Collins passed away in 2024. Chura knows there’s a legacy to be upheld.
He explained that he and James started discussing the idea in January, with a “lunch meeting where me and Kenna met and talked. Then, I came out a few months later and we met again. You know, all of us went out—Nathan, Kenna, me and Al [aka Mad Creativity]—and just had dinner. Then, on the flight home I got inspired for a screenplay. I know it's not her real story, but kind of loosely based on her career coming into the industry, going from stripping to coming out [as a performer].”
James said that feature dancing and performing on-camera each have their own rewards, and she likes being able to choose.
“Honestly, it just depends on the day and depends on the club, really. There are certain companies that I really adore shooting for—and I get to shout out Alex [Mad Creativity] and Elegant Angel here—because, truly, they are one of them that I've always loved shooting for, among many, many others,” she said.
“But there are certain clubs that I also really love dancing at. There's one in San Diego that's truly what I call my home club now—it's Exposé.”
A fenced-off warehouse location had been rented for the three-day shoot, in East L.A. across the L.A. River from Little Tokyo; the tagged-up buildings and boarded-up storefronts in the hard-hit area feel like a real-life version of GTA: San Fernando against a backdrop of the city skyline.
Inside, the sets included an all-red bedroom, a mini strip club with bar, a bathroom stall, a nook that will serve as an alley, and a dingy studio apartment where you might live, if you were just starting out as a dancer.
Chura has produced several showcases this year with onstage scenes. He pointed out a stripper scene in their big summer showcase feature Jennifer White: Hollywood Whore and, at the end of last year, a burlesque-style sex performance in The Red Door—An Octavia Red Showcase Film.
Octavia Red was also on-set for the Slutwoman shoot. She and 2025 AVN Female Performer of the Year Anna Claire Clouds appear in the first scene, as two of a trio of dancers with MILF star Ryan Keely, who “initiate” James into club life.
Red recalled writing the voiceover for her featurette, The Red Door, noting that “when you're watching something to masturbate or to have sex with somebody else, you don't necessarily want to constantly be into a dialogue scene—so, what I wanted was for the scenes to flow, over what was just this sexual, seductive voiceover that leads you through the story right into the sex scene.”
Clouds had appeared as a dancer in the Jennifer White showcase, and now, in Slutwoman. All three starlets’ (Red, James and Clouds) are featured in projects this year for Elegant Angel directed by the cinematographer who goes by the moniker Mad Creativity.
“I really loved working with him because it was an idea that we had a long time,” Clouds said of her upcoming feature, which will be titled Shared.
“We were just at lunch, talking, and I said I think it'd be really cool to film porn how they film gonzo thriller movies, adding that sense of thrill and intensity and anticipation—and the perfect way to do that is a man who doesn't want to think he's a cuck—so it's just this real anticipation, real fear behind the anxiety of, like, an adrenaline-filled act, kind of the same thing as a scary movie," she described. There won’t be a stripper scene in Clouds’ thriller, though, because she is not a very experienced dancer. She enjoys being onstage, but “when I have to go ask for the money, I’m not very good at it.”
Creativity had “mad” production skills as a cinematographer-photographer prior to starting in adult and has amassed some impressive credits in a few short years with work for Digital Playground and Elegant Angel. The latest Slutwoman episode is a feather in his cap.
“I can't wait for this one because all the girls here, they all bring a special kind of energy for it,” he said. “Even Anna, for example, yesterday was like, ‘Hey is there anything I can bring?’ and then Octavia also—I mean these are girls that are just top-flight, and that there are no egos. You know, they obviously all deserve the spotlight, but then they also are team players and they want to make sure that the girl in the spotlight gets all the attention. So, I love that about them. They're phenomenal talent—it's an honor Elegant has such a legacy of showcasing really A-list girls and showing them off.”
Creativity and his assistant, Miguel Ochoa, met in the mainstream industry before landing on a Harry Sparks movie in 2021.
“I think honestly it's almost the same thing,” Ochoa said, comparing his experiences on mainstream and adult sets. “Like, I compare this to a commercial-level shoot, so, I wouldn't say we're here in a big studio movie, like, $20 million budget, but I do think this goes par-for-par with massive six-figure commercials—even six-figure music videos.
“I have worked with big, big artists and their videos were half a mil, and this is the same level of like attention-to-detail with how much camera we're doing,” Ochoa added. “I think, on these, the challenging part is we do a lot more social shooting, so, we do a lot of stills. On other shoots they never—that's very rare, so, I think there's actually more being done on these sets.
“I've always thought you get a pretty good product for the amount of investment and I don't know if it’s… It seems like folks that work in this part of the genre it's more like a community effort like with the girls. They're not competitive, they want everyone to shine… That is the one thing I actually do love,” he said.
AVN Hall of Fame performer Evan Stone wore a jacket made famous in 2005 adult blockbuster Pirates, as he made a cameo appearance as the owner of “Club Fluff,” to set up the all-girl scene. Returning from a hiatus for hip surgery, Stone said he anticipates a full comeback to performing. He posed for stills, surrounded by the fishnet-clad girl squad of James, Keely, Clouds and Red.
Another legendary Hall of Famer, director James Avalon, had been there since early morning to shoot camera—some of the still images Ochoa had mentioned. Avalon’s phone is filled with stills and video clips going back to the mid ‘90s. In fact, his production company was named Hand Cranked Films because, when he started in production, Avalon had to edit from spools of film and splice movies together by hand. A few of his hundreds of credits include titles like The Red Vibe Diaries (1997), Les Vampyres 1 & 2 (2000, 2002) and Roller Dollz (2008).
Most recently, Avalon has directed a new feature for Elegant Angel using green screen technology. He explained the futuristic plot: A couple, bored with their relationship and unbeknownst to each other, end up on the same virtual reality dating platform where users live out their wildest fantasies through avatars. Of course, the story takes a twisted turn from there, which Avalon compared to a dystopian take on the yacht rock ’70s classic known as “The Pina Colada Song.”
Over the years, Avalon has seen his share of starlets and showcases. When asked what he would call the current era of adult entertainment, he smiled and said, “I’d call it the 'Woman Boss Era.'”
To view Kenna James is Slutwoman and other titles, visit ElegantAngel.com.
Photography by Mad Creativity & James Avalon
