Sin City launches its big DVD project in March, and various folks who gave input to the company and were then blown off are waiting to see if their ideas will be used without compensation. If so, lawsuits are coming.
"Luke, what ideas could possibly be original?" writes a Sin City source. "Anyway, the only original ideas that are implemented at SCV are all, and I mean all, come from within SCV. Of course, we have looked at every DVD produced, both porn and main stream, to make a competitive product. A March release might be a little bit ambitious but look for DVD from us in April. This one must sound, even to you, like so much bull."
Months ago, Sin City blew off their relationship with Playboy (and Spice as well). SCV are now exclusive to TEN for domestic broadcast rights. My sources can't figure out the upside of this. TEN was and is the new kid on the block. Playboy pays substantially more $$ for cable rights, although they want world-wide, which always stuck in the craw of Sin City. You have to sell a lot of foreign cable to make up for the difference between what Playboy pays and what TEN pays...and I'm not sure that difference gets made up. Now, no one's in the biz of losing money and revenues, least of all SCV, so why make that move? And if TEN (subsidiary of New Frontier, or NOOF) and it's parent are possibly on the verge of some criminal problems, and those problems effect TEN's very existence, then SCV could be in for some major problems as they blew off Playboy in a nasty way.
A Sin City source: "This leap of thinking, even for you, is fantastic. Sin City's relationship with The Erotic Network is purely arms length in nature. It was forged after the execs at SCV went to Playboy and offered them the "first shot" at a partnership deal. Playboy wanted right of first refusal and the ability to choose the product they wanted to broadcast from all productions which is different than they work with many of the other adult, soft-core companies. This deal would seriously hamper the satellite distribution efforts of Sin City and they decided to give an exclusive to TEN.
"Although their relationship with Playboy is less than ideal, they maintain a strong relationship with Spice and any eventual Vivid satellite launch.
"TEN is very strong
in terms of its capitalization. Sin City has realized this and combined
with their now strong relationships with all the major european broadcasters,
has successfully maximized their broadcast efforts. No major adult company
can afford to sell their broadcast rights for the world to one company
for what is being offered by Playboy. Not Vivid, not
VCA, not Sin City."
From www.noof.com: "New Frontier Media is a leading adult movie subscription and pay-per-view network provider. Through its four adult movie networks - TeN, Extasy, Exotica and True Blue - New Frontier Media provides high quality adult programming to cable television, Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) and C-Band DTH satellite subscribers. The Company's newest network - TeN: the erotic network - launched September 1, 1998 and is targeted to cable television operators and DBS satellite service providers and consists entirely of adult feature-film and video programming which is partially edited. TeN is currently available to over 2.5 million households in the United States. As of October 1, 1998, New Frontier Media's four networks are available to over 4.5 million housholds in the United States."
Email to Luke: "Remember that crummy movie (Nude World Order) Sin City did with David Christopher about professional female wrestlers? Sin City pumped lots of money both into the movie and into PR.
"The idea for Nude World Order came from Gene Ross and David Christopher. Ross either told Christopher that if the movie was produced, AVN would get behind it, i.e., free publicity, awards, etc., or Christopher simply decided to tell potential producers that this was the case. Christopher shopped it around and in so doing, took it to Sin City. Sin City took the bait. They figured they had a guaranteed Editor's Choice, and a guaranteed hit because of the Gene Ross thing. They gave Christopher a large budget (by their standards for a video - not a film) of somewhere between $45k and $60k.
"AVN gave them almost no publicity beyond an on-the-set piece which is done for many movies, without any "we're behind this one" attached to it. Nude World Order won no AVN awards.
"A humorous anecdote: before shipping, the brain surgeons at Sin City decided to send out screener and slicks to buyers. They also bought these little toy magnetic wrestlers, and the screener and toy and slicks were put in some pretty expensive packaging. Well, if you know anyting about video tape, you might know that the media is recorded on the tape magnetically. If you want to remove media from a tape, you degauss it, i.e., use a magnet to remove the media. Hehehehehe...you figure it out. They erased the tapes.
"The whole thing was a disaster as neither Gene Ross delivered the goods in terms of AVN getting behind it (as was thought), nor did Christopher make a half-way decent movie.
"By the way, for all those who figure that if a company spends a lot on advertising, AVN will consistently deliver outstanding reviews. Well, Sin City spends thousands on advertising, and their parent company, GVA takes a one page ad every month as well. Did you ever notice that Sin City's reviews are consistently, for the most part, mediocre? I think Sin City should get awards for the most three and a half star reviews of movies of any company. Maybe AVN doesn't play favorites, huh? Or maybe they simply don't like the Sin City people (make that Mark Snyder or David Sturman)."
Sources tell Luke that the reason that Sin City has been a mess for years is that its owner David Sturman employs friends who aren't competent. One much criticized member of Sin City is the duplicator Ari, who is blamed by many for driving down prices in porn in the mid '80s with his Israeli cut-throat methods. During the 1990s, he's been blamed for Sin City's duplication problems. One mainstream consultant, about four years ago, told David Sturman to put a torch to his duplicating equipment it was so lousy.
Ari is essentially Sin City's General Manager, though the true power at the company has long been thought to belong to Art Director Mark Snyder.
When David Sturman started Sin City in 1989, he wanted the best artist around. Sturman thought the Western Visual boxes were the best back then, and Snyder designed them. Sturman hired Snyder, and Sin City earned many nominations by AVN for Best Box Cover. Snyder also become one of David's best friends. When David spent two years in prison (1992-93), Mark Snyder was a rare porner to visit him regularly.
Unfortunately for Sin City, many artistic persons like Snyder do not have what it takes in a business sense. So David has had to resume control of Sin City's business operations. Sin City does not even have a check book. All its bills are paid through David Sturman's General Video West, located in San Francisco. This is why Sin City is often late paying. While its checks never bounce, its accounting procedures are detailed, rigorous and time-consuming.
Though undoubtedly talented as an Art Director, Snyder still releases (like the rest of his peers) numerous boxes with misspellings and inaccurate information.
Along with Mickey Blank, Snyder is one of David Sturman's closest friends.
"This whole idea that Sin City is in a mess is a misnomer," claims a Sin City insider. "We have one of the strongest new release numbers [though sources tell Luke that SC only sells 1300-1800 pieces per new release], we sell all our releases to domestic satellite, and our international sales are the best ever. With over $5MIL in sales annually, the company does well in spite of its absentee ownership [Sturman is based in San Francisco]."
According to rumors, Ari the duplicator secured his position at Sin City by refusing to testify in the early 1990s against Reuben Sturman, David's father. But a well-places source tells Luke: "David's duplication arrangement with Ari has nothing whatsoever to do with his past relationship with Reuben. To the best of my knowledge, there was never any time Ari was ever called to testify against Reuben. Ari, in effect, is the general manager of Sin City, and he works cheap, David pay him nothing for it. Ari, like Mark Snyder, is a great person.
"Like his dad,
David is a deeply loyal person to people who show him
loyalty. That's why David overlooks some harmless mistakes and concentrates
on the bigger picture. I will let you know a secret about David Sturman.
One of the main reasons he started and continue to operate SCV, is the
creative satisfaction he gets from the development of the product, from
input on all art (e-mailed to him daily) to plot selections. And what
a great excuse to write off trips to Cannes and Milan."
Luke talked Friday with AVN's Gene Ross: "Are you in with the World Wrestling Foundation (WWF)?"
Gene: "Big time. I had a connection and it happened. [Gene connected Cream owner John Bone with the WWF for a recent Bone feature.] Luke, I'm going to stop you right there because I've got the whole story. You're going to have to read my stuff to find what is going on."
A source: "Is there even the slightest shred of doubt about the Gene Ross - John T. Bowen connection? You've reported on it and Ross had denied it. Yet, Ross says porn should learn from wrestling on how to market, and voila!...Bone and the WWF. Funny way to dispell "rumors". Clearly a tag team effort. Ask Paul Fishbein what he's going to do about this obvious conflict of interest."
Gene: "I got a call. The WWF needed girls to show up at their Pay-Per-View event. It was supposed to go to Rob Black, but he either wasn't in town or wasn't answering the phone. So I called John Bone. He just happened to be home on a Sunday morning at 7:30 AM when this went down. He cooperated and bam boom, he wound up on the Pay-Per-View."
Luke: "Did John Bone pay you for this? With a check, cash or contract girl?"
Gene: "Absolutely not. John Bone doesn't know how to spell wrestling. He did get to hang out backstage with me and meet all the wrestlers. He said, 'This is totally lost on me. I don't understand a thing that is going on here.'"
Luke recommends the PG-13 movie Gwyneth Paltrow's Breasts aka Shakespeare in Love.
Find porn stars who escort in New York (Madelyn Knight) and Los Angeles (Bunny Bleu).
Sin City's new PR man Leif Rock aka Jeff W. writes:
BBC1 TV presenter and comedian Ruby Wax was a surprise visitor to the set of Sin City's Body Language on Friday, February 18, 1999, to film the last segment in her six part documentary on American popular culture, and chose the filming of a porn feature to end things on an appropriately controversial note. She arrived with an entourage of ten people, including two cameramen, a still photographer, sound technicians, her director Michael Waldman, a makeup girl and hair stylist, and hung out, filming the action, talking to director Michael Raven, stars Jill Kelly and Randy Spears, and other members of the cast and crew.
Her appearance was a bit of a surprise. An assistant had contacted the production manager a few days earlier and asked if she could shoot something for the BBC, but said nothing of the presence of the American-born entertainer. When Wax showed up, she played down the more sensational aspects of the filming, and said she was focusing on the personalities in the industry. However, for someone who professed not to be interested in the more graphic aspects of the production, Wax and crew spent an inordinate amount of time filming Kelly and Spears having sex, from kissing and gentle foreplay through oral sex (Spears on Kelly, Kelly on Spears), and some penetration. In fact, so fascinated was she by the performance that she got on her cell phone to her friend, Carrie Fisher (allegedly), and put her on with Spears after he had performed sex with Kelly in a standing doggie position leaning on a movable scaffold. Spears confirmed that he did indeed speak to Fisher, a.k.a. Princess Lea from Star Wars fame, and described the position. Fisher's response was that she had not tried that one yet.
Throughout all of the filming by the BBC, The Erotic Network and Raven himself, BBC director Michael Waldman was in something of a panic, running up to other members of the press and demanding that they not use photos of Wax or the BBC crew or include references to them. Needless to say, all pleas were ignored. The BBC presence alone justified coverage as a news event. Wax's presence, no matter that she is unknown in this country, ensures further media attention. For someone who's salary is paid by a globally-acknowledged bastion of balanced and fair journalism to ask other members of the press to muzzle themselves or submit to censorship either smacks of craven fear or jaw-dropping naievete. Waldman's prior claim to fame is a documentary on Covent Garden. Perhaps he should return to soft pieces like that and stay away from hard news. As we say in America, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Provocative photos of Wax on the set are available. Please contact Sin City Video at (818)704-4488 or by fax at (818)999-CITY.
Kevin Beech, owner of KBeech, Midnight/Erotic Angel, says:
"Our contract girls now include Joy, Farrah, Angelica Sinn. Catalina L'Amour is now out of the biz. We're doing a lot with Danielle Rogers. She just had her boobs redone and she looks great. She's been in the last five movies we shot for Playboy. We might even do a line with her. She needs some help. She's gone through some tough times.
"Farrah has cleaned up [from drug addiction]. She looks f---ing awesome. I was thinking about f---ing her again. [Kevin laughs.] Ever since she went to Florida, got cleaned up, and moved back here... She and Christain are thinking about moving here. They're back at her mom's house right now... But as long as she can stay away from the f---ing drugs, she looks awesome. She looks like the girl I used to f---.
"We've got Mad Jack shooting for us in Las Vegas. He just got out of prison [after six years]. He used to be in the biz years ago. I hardly remembered him but he remembered me. He called me from prison. He set the deal up in prison when we started doing those bondage moies with Catalina L'Amour. We kicked ass with those. And then he got out of Prison. He has to be in Vegas for six months until his probation is up. He just shot Mila and a bunch of people. He's a rapper, man. He's a good salesman."
Luke hears that it it is illegal to shoot porn in Las Vegas. Always up to educating the messes, uhh masses, FSC President Gloria Leonard writes: "Because it's on their books quite distinctly as a LAW prohibiting such activity, despite the fact that many people shoot while they are at VSDA or CES, using hotel rooms as sets. If you get caught, you really are f---ed! Hypocritical in a state where prostitution is legal (in certain counties with sparse populations)."
Kevin Beech and
Anna Malle made a deal this week for Kevin to distribute her line Anna
Malle's Wildlife. "Anna Malle wants to go on the road fulltime but she
wants us to keep her name out there full time and put her on the box."