I didn't plan to get back into the Business -- really, I didn't. But two factors conspired against me: first, it's getting more and more difficult to earn any sort of a living writing. Markets are drying up, publishers are being eaten up by conglomerates, and rates are FALLING. [Not that there's been any sort of pay increase in the last 20 years.]

Second, I was approached with an offer that was too good to refuse. A friend of a friend had been wanting "to shoot a porn film" with all of his new technology. We got together starting in the late summer, and had several talks.

I did my best to scare him off. "Remember," I said, "There are people right here in town who put up good money for anti-porn billboards, and unless you're willing to be somewhat discreet, and to take the crap that you might have to face if anyone finds out, it's best not to even think about it."

He refused to listen to me.

All right, thought I. I had been wanting to try out certain things, based on some good old "Golden Age" techniques. After working on fifty or so sets, and seeing all the cliches, I'd come up with a lot of ideas about how to get a quality product on a budgetary shoestring.

i.e.: how to do it cheaper and better -- our own little bouncing ball to Mars.

The only problem was that the technology in the mid-80's wasn't there. In many ways, the technology I was looking for then has only became affordable in the last six months.

That's where 20 years of computer typesetting and PC and Mac experience came in handy. Some issues were real technical nightmares -- fortunately my partner has a live-in computer tech, otherwise I'd have walked away.

I thought long and hard about having my real name out there in front of a sometimes hostile public. I had long talks with my wife, who was -- as a former HUSTLER and CHIC writer -- enthusiastic about the idea.

The entire time I was in the business, I used my real name. That way, I couldn't be blackmailed later, and I was saying that I wasn't doing anything I was ashamed of. Now, I was going to have to use my real name again, and I had to think about it. There are magazines I write for that might well fire me on general principles. (No: I learned very quickly to "hide" my adult credits on my resume after the first several times that a job interview turned ugly. HUSTLER, for example is listed as LFP, Inc.)

We went to "Boogie Nights" and listened to the lobby nastiness of the "knowing" college students, and after a bit of a shock, we reluctantly decided that we could take the heat.

We were ready.

PRE-PRODUCTION I

If there's one thing that I learned in Hollywood, it is that you save yourself time and money by taking the time to do pre-production carefully. "Winging it" is a great way to enrich your fellow man without seeing any result. I had no intention of being a philanthropist. This was BUSINESS.

I spent some time writing a script that would:

1. Minimize the amount of dialogue given to the actors.

   (Face it: we're not paying them for dialogue. We're paying them to screw artfully in a hot room under movie lights. That's a lot to ask already. Add to that that the general "acting" professionalism throughout the field leaves something to be desired -- often at the level of, say, a High School play -- and you don't want to leave a LOT of leeway for acting to make or break the film. Of the actors in the Biz who CAN act, I didn't have the budget for them.)

2. Stand up with long gaps in the narrative.

   (It's tough to tell a story in a porn film, don't let anyone fool you. The inherent problem is that you've got the long gaps of sex scenes between plot segments, and if it's too complicated, or convoluted, it's asking WAY too much of any audience to remember what the storyline is.)

3. Minimize shooting time

   (This is the most important part. Time is money, and video or film is inherently an unbelievably EXPENSIVE "art" form. If I wanted to do porn watercolors, it would only cost a little for paints and paper. To do a feature-length piece with an "acceptable" [to me, to be fair] degree of quality costs AT LEAST five figures.)

4. "Idiot Proof" the shoot.

   (I used to write scripts and then work on the set. Very quickly, one learns, the simplest piece of dialogue, or set, or character can backfire on you. Someone can get sick. A line that is NECESSARY to the plot is changed by an actor, or lost by the editor, and AVN accuses you -- as I often was -- of writing a brain-dead script. It wasn't my fault -- the script was fine -- but that didn't change the fact that the MOVIE paid very little attention to it. Robert Towne, who wrote "Chinatown" once wrote that fundamentally the screenwriter is a production designer -- if you want "art" write a novel. That gibed with MY experience. What the script gives you is a blueprint for shooting. Not ONE of the words may ever make it to the screen. This is doubly tough when you're wearing three hats: Producer, Director, and Screenwriter. As Producer, I reserve the right to screw wth my screenwriter. The Bottom Line is the thing. So I carefully went over the blueprints taking out every extra penny that I could. So the screenwriter screamed: screw him. I did it anyway.

   (I don't mean "Idiot Proof" in a bad way. Generally *I'm* the idiot referred to. The point is that anything that CAN go wrong on a shoot will OFTEN go wrong. You have to know in advance that people aren't going to show up on time, someone might get sick, the set you wanted might not be available, your camera might flake, technical glitches will occur, etc. I needed to have as MUCH time as possible to deal with emergencies WITHOUT having to worry about the script. Pre-production needed to be cut and dried. So I came up with a "Plan B" for EVERYTHING. ALWAYS have a "Plan B."

   (And, I sat down and did storyboards -- which I have found is always a good idea. You can talk and talk and talk to people until you're blue in the face and they won't "get" what you're trying to tell them. But show a movie person a PICTURE and they'll get it instantly.

   (Later, during the shoot, these thumbnails would prove invaluable.)

PRE-PRODUCTION II.

Now, with my screenplay clutched in my hot little hands, I went over it, line by line with my partner. Was there an easier way to do this? Was this feasible? Could we do it?

I called my cameraman down in LA. (There is something to be said for paying your dues. I KNEW the people I would be working with for ten years and more in all cases.) I asked him -- he's a notorious "Chicken Little" and probably the best person to shoot holes in what CAN be done, and what I WISH could be done. He fired away.

After a long, tough grind on the ego, we'd thrown out more things that we wanted to do, and were down to bare bones. I got prices and phone numbers (The screenwriter now started muttering nasties under his breath; shut up screenwriter!):

• Talent (actors and actresses)
• Studio
• Camera
• Makeup
• Lights
• Still Film
• Tape Stock
• Set Dressing
• Miscellany

And, we tested the feasibility of our high-tech stuff. There were several layers of technology we were going to have to "prove" and I wanted to have as many questions answered BEFORE I shot as I possibly could.

Everything checked out.

Now, we looked at our "ballpark" figures and what we'd need to raise (and have ON HAND) to get the feature shot. Not surprisingly, a TREMENDOUS amount of the cost would be the talent. With a fairly good "guesstimate" of how much we'd need, we sat down over a football game and decided whether to "go" or "no-go."

It was a "go."

BUDGET

All right.

Now, it was time for the brown stuff to hit the rotating blades. I called the agent and we haggled on prices. Because we were going to have to travel to LA, I WOULDN'T have the time to pick and choose my actors. The cameraman and the agent would book them, and try to stay in my price range.

That's when you thank your lucky stars that you have ten years or better of a working relationship with them. I was going to have to TRUST a Hollywood agent! (God help us!)

I sat down with my old commercial budget sheets, and, line by line, put together a budget, leaving some fudge room in each category. There's no real way to explain HOW to do a good budget. You want to keep "real world" in your estimates, but you NEED to estimate the high end of everything. Sure as hell, when you get to the shoot, there'll be something that you forgot or missed or got wrong. That's where your "pad" comes in.

There is no disaster in film-making worse than getting 80% of the flick in the can and not being able to finish it.

When I got to the line marked "wardrobe" I chuckled. Well, we were certainly going to be saving money there! I filled in a "zero."

I wrote a good, tough budget.

Then, we went about raising the money. I wish I could tell you the strange and unlikely sources from which the cash came, but I'm sworn to secrecy. But if you imagine the STRANGEST place that money could have come from, you wouldn't be very far wrong.

PRE-PRODUCTION III

Now, we got our dates. We gave the agent and cameraman some fudge room for booking: two days, five scenes, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, November 18-21. We could shoot on any two consecutive days 18-19, 19-20, or 20-21. (1997)

Then, I followed up with phone calls and filled in the last of the figures in the budget. They were very close to our estimates.

It ended up that we'd be shooting Wednesday and Thursday the 19th and 20th. My partner was booked through Sunday the 16th, so we'd have to take off from the Pacific Northwest and jam over a thousand miles to LA on Monday, the 17th -- a hellacious, but do-able trip, weather hopefully being cooperative. The Sierras and the Cascades are STILL a bitch to get over in the winter if it's storming. And I-5 is notorious for closures during bad weather. We'd have Tuesday to get unlagged, and run around picking up the normal crap that you always have to pick up for any shoot.

Why do all this preparation? Well, except for some long-distance charges, we hadn't, as yet, spent one red cent. The second we started shooting, the meter would be running, so whatever cash could be saved, we (hopefully) saved it in pre-production. NOW, though, the meter was going to be running.

The last thing that I did was to put together my shot list -- close-ups and cutaways that WEREN'T standard Industry shots, and that I'd have to make SURE the cameraman got. Past experience told me that the less you can keep in your head during a shoot, the better. As exhaustion sets in, you're prone to huge mental skips, and that shot that ABSOLUTELY has to be in the movie gets lost unless you've got a checklist to make SURE you get everything. While we're all brilliant and creative when we're planning, after 18 hours on a set, that same brain might be inhabited by a moron. I make a point of writing notes to that moron who's going to be inhabiting my brain after shooting's started.

THE METER STARTS RUNNING

OK. Pre-production's finished. The money's in the bank, budget's finished and itemized. I've got a copy of the script, the budget, AND the storyboards in a notebook, and my little "Dayrunner" production book with phone numbers, a receipt envelope and pens and scratch paper. I picked up a receipt book and a rubber stamp (for cash payouts and payroll -- it's STILL a good idea to pay actors in cash.) For any payments over $600, I had a pad of 1099 forms.

We filed the papers to get our company, and got a business address. Filled out more paperwork. We were now filming as "Brown Bag Production." This is when it's nice to have a friend who's an accountant and/or a lawyer. We did. The d.b.a. checking account wasn't up yet, so we'd have to pay in cash anyway.

We got our dates and our rates. I call and confirm. I've parceled out some of the responsibilities to my partner (I've handled getting the costs, the budget and the cash; I've booked, etc. He'll be responsible for housing and transportation -- though my credit cards will pay for gas.)

My bags are packed. The date is set. I've finished up all the emergency chores my wife has come up with at the last minute, and we're almost ready to rock. And I haven't seen a naked person yet.

I don't even know who they'll be.

Sunday, November 16th passes VERY slowly. Still, I'm about to shoot my first porn flick in ten years, and it's COMPLETELY LEGAL. There's something to be said for fighting in the front lines of the First Amendment when I was a kid. Who knows? Maybe this is a payback. Strange how times change.

(c)Hart Williams 1997

Hart Williams wrote and worked in the "Business" from 1977 to 1987. He wrote for, among others, HUSTLER, ADAM, FILM WORLD REPORTS, VIDEO X, OUI, VELVET and many others. His film credits include "Caught From Behind III." His video credits include "The Other Side of Lianna," which was, in 1985, the runner-up to "New Wave Hookers" for XRCO's "Video of the Year." Since NWH was pulled after the Tracy Lords debacle, he wonders if "Lianna" -- as the "First Runner Up" -- ever became Miss America. Hmmm. After ten years "away" from the business, Hart suddenly found himself doing what he'd sworn he'd never do again: producing an XXX video.