I live in the San Fernando Valley, which is said to be the nexus of pornography. We have a long noble history of being the smut industry leader here. And before you scoff at that, remember that a large piece of the world’s entertainment bankroll is spent on adult amusements. A much larger piece than people care to admit. I am not going to quote figures because the numbers you hear in the press are no more reliable than those reported by the major studios. Perhaps even less so, because the industry is kind of underground and no one double-checks anything.

When I was trying to make a career as an editor I interviewed for a gig at Vivid Video. They have a complex in Van Nuys, a fully self-contained factory. In a collection of four non-descript buildings (without enough parking, buy the way) there is a studio, business offices, an editing bay with four or five Avids, and even a fulfillment arm where they package, shrink-wrap and ship the DVDs out to the world. Probably now they’ve turned over some of that space to online operations.

When you think about it, this is a very efficient way to make movies. Not just the factory aspect, but the delivery of watchable content without the bloated star salaries, or special effects, or rewrites or long pre-production times. In the end you have a salable product with a high markup and a loyal audience. You wonder why Roger Corman never went into the business.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 24th, 2006 at 3:25 am and is filed under General, Motion Pictures, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.