Anatomy of an Adult Film

Anatomy of An Adult Film

By Sunset Thomas (with R. Richard) © 2018

Published by R. Richard at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 R. Richard

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Anatomy of An Adult Film

By Sunset Thomas (with R. Richard) © 2018

Forward

Anatomy of an Adult Film is a one-of-a-kind,

original book, an accurate description of a vast industry, as revealed by inside experts. Anatomy of an Adult Film is very entertaining reading. "If anyone knows the pornography business, Sunset Thomas does. She writes about our world of flesh and money with the insight and knowledge of a true insider.

Like all great confessionals, Anatomy of an Adult Film tells it like it is and keeps it sexy as hell." --Larry Flynt

Having known Sunset for almost two decades (more than most people), I can speak with authority when I attest to the fact that no one knows the business better. Having seen it from so many perspectives...actress, contract player, centerfold, cover girl, strip club owner, brothel worker, columnist, etc. etc. (Get the picture?)...her insights are entertaining and valuable. In addition, years after Heidi Fleiss was out of business, Sunset became the biggest adult star to enter the world of escorting. Many others then took her lead and that says a lot. This story makes for a great read. --Ron Jeremy

Sunset Thomas has gone where few women have dared to go and has come back with a great tale to tell. Her experience and insight make this an entertaining and fun read, full of the little details that only an insider can render to the reader. If you thought you knew anything about adult films, be prepared for an eye-opening education. --Nina Hartley

Prologue

Most folks don’t believe my life story, when I tell them over drinks or by the pool, with just the facts. I’m too smart, too pretty: the facts just don’t seem to square.

But me, I’ve been a porn star, a prostitute, a pawn, and a king. Whoopsie, that’s Old Blue Eyes! I’m not plagiarizing his song, but I’m singing a similar tune.

The truth is, I’m just a simple girl from the little town of Sikeston, Missouri. I’m the youngest of eleven that my Momma raised to be strong, proud, and sassy.

I never graduated from High School, but I reckon I had the good fortune of what they call here in Vegas Kismet. See, the breaks just fell my way.

Larry Flynt took a liking to me, and from my first shoot with him, all I had to do was act naturally; not really acting at all. I became a contract girl in the porn industry, an HBO television star, a Penthouse Pet, and a XXX-Hall of Famer, baby, I’ve seen it all and done more!

My story is something of a campfire tale. A little bit of fiction mixed in the stew of a life story.

Anatomy of an Adult Film is a partnership between me and R. Richard, who approached me with the idea some months back. He’s an established writer of erotic fiction, and the concept of detailing my life alongside the components necessary to get me on the screen was very appealing.

Writing this book has been an exercise of changing the names to protect the guilty. The truth can be told, but only like a song or a piece of art, embellished and sometimes reinvented.

Creating characters, especially Double Dynamite and Texas Lightnin’, was akin to getting to play dress up, the entire process has just been a blast. I wear the costumes as well as I take them off.

I’m so honored and thankful to my dear friends Larry Flynt, Ron Jeremy, Nina Hartley, and Axel Braun for giving me shout outs on the back cover.

So sit back while we take you behind the scenes of porn sets, brothels, and strip clubs.

It’s a steamy ride, so don’t be afraid to dog-ear a page while you set the book aside and give in to the urge to fuck, diddle, or stroke … I won’t hesitate, and you shouldn’t either!

--Sunset Thomas

Introduction: Anatomy of an Adult Film

You watch an adult film. You see sexy girls, hung guys, and spicy action.

How does all the glamour, all the sexiness, all the beautiful people come about?

The Anatomy of an Adult Film will take you on a journey through the adult film industry from the hiring of talent to the creation of a script, from securing exotic locations to massaging the personalities who are working together.

Let's analyze what you see in an adult film.

First, the film has to be shot somewhere. The somewhere is called a shooting location. Because the days of one guy with a camcorder recording his friends in flagrante delicto in a motel room are pretty much in the past, someone has to arrange for a shooting location. The director, usually, is responsible for finding interior and exterior settings for the film’s action.

The director is the boss of an adult film set, and he's (the director is usually male) responsible for everything about the shooting of the film in addition to secondary activities like buying sunscreen or tipping the caterers who deliver pastries and fresh fruit. We'll see how a director sets up the shooting of an adult film and then follow the process in depth. Did you ever want to tell a girl to take all her clothes off and have sex? Directors get to ask beautiful women and men to undress every day, but that titillating moment is only one of many ways the director engages the film-making process.

In most modern adult films, the director has a script. The script tells who has sex with whom and how and even why, they may be slight, but there are motives in adult films, too.

The director then has to hire performers to have the sex.

The director almost always hires the female lead first. She’s the sun around which the entire movie orbits.

So, perhaps the director just calls up a girl star and makes her an offer to perform in an adult film? No, hiring a female lead is not nearly that simple.

The director has to hire a girl who will work well with the script. He also has to find the best girl he can within the budget the producer gives him. The process of selecting the girl star is a delicate one and is just one reason the director earns his pay.

Then, the director has to find the right performers to work with the star. The performers are going to have sex with the girl star and probably with each other, so there has to be chemistry between the performers. The process of selecting the performers is quite complicated and is another reason the director earns his pay.

Once the actors are hired, the director has to find the right crew to shoot the film. The selection of the crew is almost as important as the selection of the performers. The members of the crew have to function well together and have to be capable of working at the speed of an adult film, staging, filming, and editing with an absolute minimum of screw ups. The process of selecting the crew is a key to the shooting of an adult film. In a mainstream Hollywood film, a scene can be re-shot until they get it right. In the adult film industry, what the crew gets the first time is pretty much what an audience sees. (Once a guy shoots his wad, it's not going to happen again right away, regardless of what you might hear around the locker room).

After an investigation of shooting sites, we consider the cast. Where do the female stars come from? Why do they do what they do and how do they do what they do?

Adult film actresses come from small towns, big towns, and in-between towns. They're sometimes the girls who got thrown out of school for stripping in the boys’ locker room or posting inappropriate pictures on Facebook. They're sometimes the girls who couldn't get dates because they weren’t willing to send semi-nude photos of themselves over the cell phone. They're the girls who were cheerleaders and sometimes wallflowers. They're the girls who were honor students and flunk outs. They're the girls whose marriages failed and the girls who were never married. They just might be one of the girls you sat next to, back in a high school class.

Are they just any girl? Hardly. An adult film star needs to have a face like a mainstream Hollywood film star. An adult film star also needs to have a body that turns heads when she walks on the beach in a bikini. The girl also needs to either like sex or be able to turn in an Academy Award performance in each sex scene.

Why does a young woman become a star (or for that matter just a performer) in an adult film? The process that leads her to start in the adult film industry normally begins with her discovery that there's no real-world market for a high school essay on The Merchant of Venice, that, for her, the skills she learned in high school might not generate as much profit as is necessary to live well. A bit of careful self analysis leads the young woman to recognize she has been sitting on her assets all along, that her money-makers fill out nice jeans and stretch the front of t-shirts.

The girl needs money to eat and to sleep under a roof. She casts about for a way to make money with the talents nature provided her.

Many adult film actresses get their start in topless or nude dancing. Let's assume a girl tries topless dancing and she discovers she attracts a solid clientele and makes some money. She then quickly discovers that nude dancing pays a lot better than topless dancing. However, not all girls who can handle topless dancing can handle nude dancing. The girl who does follow the money discovers (usually from the other performers) that she can make even more money as an adult film actress, the money on the pole is good, but the money in front of the camera is even better. Nude dancers almost always have to fuck customers. So, the transition from nude dancer fucking guys in the back room to adult film actress screwing under the lights with a crew watching is simple, right?

Wrong! The transition from fucking a guy in the 'privacy' of a strip club back room (there's a guy watching in case the customer gets out of control) to fucking a guy on camera is a major one. Even the girls who eventually make it to star status often have initial difficulties with fucking on camera. (In a later chapter, you'll get to follow a real, if slightly fictionalized to protect the guilty, adult film girl star though the process).

A young woman goes through stages on the way to becoming an adult film performer. Some of the stages may involve other girls as well as the guys she screws for money to supplement her income. However, it's difficult to imagine a girl becoming an adult film star unless she enjoys sex.

An adult film star has to lie on a bed (or couch or floor or pool deck chair or copier machine) and have sex in front of a camera with one or more boys and/or girls. If the performance is going to be credible, the girl either has to enjoy the sex or be a talented actress. Most of the girls like sex.

The novice adult film star quickly becomes a talented sexual athlete. She knows the moves (or the director tells her the moves) or learns the moves (and she has a trained sex partner to help her learn the moves). However, she still has to project enjoyment of the sex act for the audience. (No projection means no, or very few, sales of an adult film; most men have wives or bored girlfriends who can play the part of a disinterested partner).

What is the girl adult film star feeling during on-camera sex? In a later chapter, we'll follow a girl adult film star through several sex scenes and get a good idea of what the girl is thinking as you watch her act. Of course, not all girls have the same thoughts, so we get to follow two different girls through several sex scenes. You’ll be surprised to discover the range of emotions the girls experience.

Do all adult film girl stars go from dancing to adult films?

No. Another path is from nude model to adult film actress. Remember, the girl adult film star has to have the kind of face and body most girls dream about. So does a successful nude model.

Because she's already nude in front of the camera, the step from nude model to adult film actress must be a simple one, right?

Wrong! The nude model poses and projects while the camera takes a picture. She then moves to another pose and waits for the next shot. The process is entirely different once the actress is in front of a video camera, there are no pauses between poses. Nudity isn’t the problem, projecting enjoyment during a sex scene is the most difficult new maneuver to master. We'll follow the transition from still to action photography and action in a later chapter.

We have spent some time discussing a girl adult film star. What about the women who work in adult films, but aren't stars?

The young, gorgeous women who work in adult films are referred to as 'working girls.' They appear in the films to earn money. The girl adult film star earns more than the working girls. The working girls would like to move up the food chain and become adult film stars.

We have now considered the girls who can cope with having sex in front of the video camera. The girls learn to fuck and engage other girls. Now we have to consider the matter of variety. The viewers would soon get tired of just watching a girl adult film star fucking a guy in front of the video camera.

One, rather simple, step in the path to becoming an adult film star is the use of different sexual positions. However, flipping front to back is just one small trick to adding spice to an adult film.

Another step includes adding angles and orifices, blow jobs and anal sex.

The blow job quickly becomes a favorite with many girl adult film performers. They can earn their money without having to have a larger, heavier male on top of them. Oral sex saves wear and tear on the girl's body. Of course, the actress does have to take the guy's cum in her face (called the 'money shot,') but many girls feel the trade off is worth the mess.

Anal sex is not a favorite job for many girl adult film stars. On the plus side, a girl tends to get the most intense orgasms with anal penetration. However, a lot of preparation is required, and the girls who don't normally perform anal sex find themselves sore after an anal sex scene.

Perhaps we can never get enough of the girls, but where do the adult film guys come from? Where, like busty and sexy women, can directors find fit, handsome, and endowed young men?

Some of them are struggling actors who need to pay the rent. Some are guys who just follow a girlfriend who gets into adult films. However, once they get into adult films, many men discover, to their chagrin, that they don't make the same money the girls do.

The adult film guys don't make the same money as the girls; however, they have to perform a job that's in some ways more difficult than what the girls have to do. When it's time for a scene, the guy has to get wood (an erection) NOW! When it's time to finish a scene, the guy has to come, NOW! It's difficult to tell if a girl adult film star is faking (those who fake don't last long), but a guy can't fake an erection, nor can he fake coming.

And the crew filming the action can’t fake it, either. Where do the grips and cameramen and sound engineers come from? Why do they do what they do, and how do they do what they do?

We have already talked about the director, who runs the whole adult film production.

Now, let's look at the camera operator. Camera Operator has to be a great job, you get to watch sexy girls fuck right in front of you, and you get paid for making the action clear and exciting!

Actually, watching sexy girls fuck tight in front of you isn't the skill a camera operator gets paid for. The camera operator records a fast moving scene that happens exactly once. The camera operator has to keep the scene on camera, tilt the camera, pan the camera left or right, zoom the camera in or out. If the camera operator misses a key angle or flubs the recording in any way, it's a major disaster. The performers have worked themselves up to project the best sex they can, and the camera operator lost the moment. Now the scene has to be re-shot, and the performers have to again prepare themselves. If the adult film camera operator screws up very often, that camera operator starts filling out applications at the Clown Burger Barn!

Discovering the camera operator’s job is a little more complicated then it seems might not be surprising, but you’ll be surprised to learn that the simple job of the grip isn’t so simple. A grip moves the lights around. Of course, the grip must position the light so there are no shadows. Unless, of course, the director wants some shadows for artistic effect, then the grip has to move the lights to get the desired effect. Also, a grip has to set up scaffolding if the director wants an overhead shot. A grip does a lot of heavy work that has to be done just right and quickly.

What about the job of make up artist? Just make up a pretty girl and then sit back and relax, right?

Wrong! The job of make up artist is so critical that girl adult stars who are under contract have their choice of make up artist written into their contract.

Why is the make up artist job so difficult? The make up artist usually makes up the girl adult star and the working girls as well. A few minutes after making up a girl adult film star, the girl is back. She has cum in her face and her hair. She has to be made up for the next scene and NOW!

Isn't there an easy job, somewhere in the adult film industry? So far, it seems jobs in the adult film industry are more difficult than outsiders imagined. Well, yes, there's one easy job. And the job is easier and more enjoyable still if you really understand how things work in the adult film industry. The job is that of viewer.

If you want to be an educated viewer of adult films, just sit back and follow us! Time for our behind the scenes visit to the Anatomy of an Adult Film!

Chapter 1: Introduction and History

Adult films are motion pictures, including both film media and video media motion pictures, with the purpose of promoting sexual arousal in the viewer. Adult films usually feature explicit depictions of sexual activity (hardcore) or simulated depictions of sexual activity (softcore.)

Adult films first appeared shortly after the creation of the motion picture, back in the early 1900s. The original adult films were simply film versions of pornographic still pictures.

Modern adult films began to appear in the late 1940s. The early films were shot mostly using the newly available