Q & A

Hey Guys-- I just got back from a great lunch with John Rutherford from Colt--he is a class act with a great company! If you haven't been a Colt customer for some time, check out the new batch of award winning movies! Colt is on a roll and the quality has never been better!

Thanks for all the feedback on my new blog! I came in this morning with a bunch of emails from fans who had lots to say! One letter, from a man named John, had a bunch of questions that I thought would be of interest to a wider audience, so I asked him if I could run his letter, complete with my replies to points he has made. Enjoy!

Hi Mr. Ward-

My name is John and I just finished reading your BLOG for the first time. I definitely found it very interesting. I am mostly a porn fan, and I have written to you before about RSS, but I am also an amateur writer. For some reason, I have committed myself to writing a story that is set in the gay porn industry in San Francisco. I have never been on the set of a porn film. I always try to write about what I know, but I have always been fascinated by the porn industry, and somehow I ended up creating this story that might as well be set across the galaxy!

Reading your BLOG, there was some great info about where you live and the porn companies in SF, and my curiousity was sparked. I thought it wouldn't hurt to throw out a few questions about what I read. I know that you are super busy, but based on your response to my last letter, you seem to be a genuine and kind person, (not to mention a hot man), so however little you can offer in response will be appreciated.

Before I begin, I just thought you might like to know that the made-up porn company that I created for my story is based on Raging Stallion. It's completely fictional, but I imagined it with RSS in mind.

Anyway, here are my questions:

1) Just how often does the Dore Alley Street Fair happen? You said it was annual, and I always thought it was once a year like the Baltimore Pride festival, but it seems like it happens several times a year. Are there a lot of San Francisco street fairs like Dore Alley? Is it a typical pride festival, or is it more of a leather gathering? I know that there are a lot of porn booths- is it mostly an adult theme? Our pride festival here in Baltimore is very tame and family friendly, but I'm imagining that the Dore Alley Street Fair is more about adult fun. Sounds awesome to me, and I have no doubt that it beats any of our gay events, because they mostly suck. I guess I should get myself out to SF and find out for myself. There's no question that I'm going to have to visit before i finish my story.

CW: The Dore Alley street fair happens once per year--always the last weekend of July. It is the second of the four "High Holy Days" for San Francisco's gay community (The first is Gay Pride in June, followed by Dore Alley in July, then the legendary Folsom Street Fair in September, and finally the Castro Street Fair in early October). Dore Alley was always my favorite street fair--I remember one year when we were all fisting each other on the street at two in the afternoon! Dore used to be just for locals, but it's reputation grew until it became a kind of "mini-Folsom," attracting about 10,000 people (Folsom Street fair has a quarter million participants).

2) In the interview with yummy Jake Deckard, he was talking about the difference between working for RSS and other companies. He mentioned that "The sex is a bit more head on with RS, no endless hours on B-roll that's never gonna be used or even watched". Is it really true that other companies film hours and hours of guys fucking and then don't use most of it? That seems incredibly wasteful. What the heck is a "B-roll"? Just curious.

CW: B-roll in porn is the plot stuff. A-roll is sex and B-roll is all of the non-sex "acting" footage. The more plot a movie has, the more B-roll is required. Our movie "A Porn Star Is Born" had about 20 pages of dialog. Most RSS movies have "contexts" rather than "plots," so we do not spend much time on B-roll. Other companies often do shoot lots of footage that never ends up in the movie. At RSS, our directors also do all the editing (mainly, me and Ben Leon), so when we are shooting a movie, we don't waste time filming stuff we do not need. I think that RSS is the only company that has its directors doing the edits on a regular basis. This workflow saves lots of time and money. My view is that we should never film anything we do not intend to use in the movie.

3) Speaking of fucking and staying hard for hours at a time... I know that you don't want to ruin the fantasy for all us porn fanatics, but I've read that there is widespread use of ED medications in the porn industry to help guys keep it up. I realize you may want to take the 5th on this, but I was wondering if you can at least give me an best guess percentage of how much this is happening in the industry. Also, do the guys acquire their own meds and use them on their own without really letting their bosses & coworkers know? Or is it something that is often encouraged/condoned by the studios. I only ask, because I just think it's all fascinating. It's almost, but not quite like the steroids controversy in sports. It's just really interesting to me. Not to mention, if this is happening a lot less than I've heard, I can maintain my fantasy that these guys (like Jake) are just naturally, perpetually rock-hard!

CW: This is a good question. One think that a good director does it to keep his models hard! I often say that directing is all about "hard-on management." The first indication of a lousy director is one who can't keep his models naturally hard. Some companies--specifically the Eastern European ones--require Caverject--a chemical that is injected into the cock. We do not use caverject on our shoots--this is a prescription medication that is dangerous to use. We have heard stories of one company here in SF that uses this regularly. One way to detect if guys are using caverject is to see if they are ever shown without hard ons. It is really sad when companies use these drugs on guys. It puts those of us who do things the "natural" way at a real disadvantage. I think the honest dollar is still worth more than the counterfeit on.

OK, that's all. I know that you may not want to or be able to answer all my questions, so it's no big. There's no harm in asking I suppose.

Thanks for listening. I hope I didn't make a nuisance of myself. I promise not to write again for a while. :)

John

So guys--feel free to ask questions! I am happy to respond!

Chris