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Your movie Tight - in a
few words, what is it about?
Tight is a mockumentary about the
world's only all-girl porn star rock band.
How did the project initially come into being, and what was the
main inspiration for it?
I was looking for a follow-up to my Playboy TV series The Boy Nexxt
Door. I had always wanted to do a movie about a band and through my
work at PBTV and my previous Starz series Make Me a Porn Star
I knew a lot of porn stars and thought it would be an interesting twist to
combine rock stars and porn stars.
Monica Mayhem |
How easy/hard was it to
actually cast the film, to find porn stars who had the ambition and skills
to actually play in a band/make music?
It was very difficult casting the movie. Most agents don't care if their
girls have any talent aside from the obvious sex skills, so we had to go
directly to the girls. Finding a singer was easy and we had several
applicants before selecting Monica Mayhem, but guitar and bass were much
harder and we couldn't find a single drummer and had to create our own. Luckily,
Alicia Andrews was willing to spend two months with a drum
instructor. And my co-producer, Jason Danilak, had worked with a guitarist
- Layla Labelle - and bassist - Tuesday Cross - at his adult studio Real
Productions. Bree Olson as the
girls' manager - to what extent was she actually involved in the movie?
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Bree Olson (center) and the girls |
Bree didn't know the first thing about music (as evidenced by her Hollywood
Douche rap video!), so she wasn't involved in the selection of
musicians or the music itself but did consult on the band's image and had
some good ideas like the golden condom toss. The band threw condoms into
the crowd instead of guitar picks and drum sticks and Bree had the idea to
paint a condom gold and whoever caught it got to go backstage and party
with the band. Touring with the girls - what
was that experience like, and what were the girls like when the cameras
weren't rolling?
We joked that it was the 'tour from hell'. As shown in the movie,
everything that could go wrong did go wrong and the girls ended up hating
each other and fighting a lot. We hadn't expected the physical violence
that ensued or the emotional toll it took on a couple of the girls,
especially Layla who was very nearly having a nervous breakdown by the
end.
Any
good sequences that did not make the final cut you'd like to share?
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Tuesday Cross |
We shot this reality TV style over 39 days, so there's a ton that didn't
make the 2 hour movie (the disc features a lot of deleted scenes!). There
was one scene in Phoenix that we decided was too controversial even for a
deleted scene. The girls were behaving so badly I mentioned to Tuesday Cross that she was coming across as the nice one in the band.
Big mistake. Tuesday doesn't want to be seen as nice in any way. A couple hours later
I was walking across the motel parking lot and noticed a fire. When I got
closer I saw that Tuesday was burning the motel bibles. We had a couple Haitian cameramen who refused to film this so
I grabbed their camera but
in the end we decided not to use it. And I never again called Tuesday 'the
nice one'!
Layla Labelle |
Honestly,
what did you think about the girls' music?
Their performances are very inconsistent. One night they'd sound good,
the next they'd be awful. I liked the music (it was written by a Vancouver
band called The Crawl) but the girls never really made it their own.
I don't think they ever really lived up to their potential. Part of it was
the other demands we made on their time. Part of it was their own
laziness. Early on the guy who ran the rehearsal space we'd rented offered
to help Layla tune her guitar and she told him to fuck off. Later we took
them off-tour early to go back into rehearsal and he offered to help again
and they let him and the improvement was amazing. Overall the movie shows
the ups and downs of being a bar band.
As far as I
know (and I might be totally wrong of course), Tight
was originally conceived as a reality TV series. How did that evolve into
the movie at hand, and your thoughts about reality TV as such?
We did do a TV series version and had tons of interest from major
networks like MTV,
NBC and VH1, but in the end each decided their
advertisers wouldn't support a show about porn stars so we went the movie
route instead. Based
on your experiences filming Tight
- could you ever be persuaded to make another documentary/mockumentary
about a touring rockband (pornstars or no pornstars)?
I now own a MMA television network called Aggression TV so wouldn't have
time. But I might consider doing a similar show with mainstream musicians.
Porn stars? Never!
One
of the films Tight is
almost invariably compared to is This is Spinal Tap - at all a fair
comparison, and why (not)?
I think it's a fair comparison. Both are funny movies about a band formed
exclusively for the movie. I'm not sure how they filmed This is Spinal Tap,
but Tight was done as real as possible. What can you tell us about
audience and critical reception of Tight
so far? The response has been amazing, much better than I had expected.
Reviews
have been very positive and most people who see the movie love it. I had
the opportunity to watch it with a real audience at the Vegas Cine Fest,
and the response was great. Let's go back to the beginnings of your career:
What got you into filmmaking in the first place, and did you receive any
formal education on the subject?
I started in advertising where I wrote and directed TV commercials. Later
I owned an ad agency and it was there I was approached by an adult company
looking for ways to market themselves. I came up with the idea for a TV series which became
Make Me a Porn Star and aired on ITV
channels in the UK and Starz in the US. What can you tell us
about your film and TV work prior to Tight?
Following Make Me a Porn Star I produced and directed a
television doc called Sexability about the sex lives of the
disabled. Then I did The Boy Nexxt Door which became a very
popular series on Playboy TV. Any
future projects you'd like to talk about?
I am in the process of launching a
MMA network called Aggression TV and
have several original series in production, all with a MMA theme. Going through
your filmography, one can't help but notice a certain porn-theme popping
up every now and again. A fair analysis? And would you at all like to
elaborate on it?
Definitely a case of typecasting! When you do a certain type of series
and it does well, other networks want you to do something similar and
that's how it happened. I really don't have a one-track mind, honest!
How would you describe yourself as a
director?
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I'm very collaborative and enjoy the creative process and what each
person brings to it. Until Tight
I would have described myself as a
director who gets along with his actors but Tight
was definitely trying (Alicia called me 'evil' one memorable night). I'm a night owl so my
greatest claim to fame may be the fact I've never shot a second of footage
before noon. Actors and crew definitely like that better than the usual 5
am call times!
Your
favourite movies? ... and of course, films you really
deplored?
My favorite movie is The Usual Suspects. Honorable mentions to
Tombstone, Serenity, Aliens and The Fly.
Of course I'd be remiss
if I didn't pick at least one mockumentary so I'll give the nod to Best
in Show.
As for films I really deplored, I have a stupidly huge DVD collection (approx. 1500 titles).
I watch these in alphabetical order and
sort of hope I die before I have to watch Saving Silverman again.
Your/your movie's website, Facebook, whatever
else? Our official web-site is www.facebook.com/tighttv.
The movie is available
at amazon, See of Sound and most other on-line DVD-sites. It's also on vod
through the Gravitas and Availtvn systems. Anything else you are dying to mention and I have
merely forgotten to ask? You are very thorough! Thanks of the interview!
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amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Shaun Donnelly at adultvideouniverse.com
