On the Set Report for AdultDVDTalk.com
By Saki (saki@sakivision.com)
Set visit and all photographs courtesy of VCA Pictures

It was another spur of the moment visit, just like my first trip to a VCA set a year before.  The e-mail from Steph late on Friday night asked if Lunacy and I wanted to go to a set visit the next day.  And, by the way, it was a Passolini set.  With my admiration of his movies and Luna's interest to visit a set for the first time, it didn't take much discussion for us to say, "You bet!"

So, armed with a scrap of paper, we arrived at the address, only to find no trace of the shoot.  A quick call revealed that we needed to drive around to the other side of this former meat packing plant and park in the fenced lot.  We were met by the production manager, who took us up several flights of stairs to the network of barren rooms serving as indoor set locations.

She introduced us to "Tony," as Passolini is known to his colleagues, and stars Chloe, Evan Stone, and a newcomer, Logan.  Among the the other people I recognized besides the stars were AVN's Mark Kernes, VCA director and classic adult star Veronica Hart (who was helping out with some of the filming), and pinch-hitting woodsman and crew member Anthony Crane, who was working behind the scenes as a grip and lighting tech.

Passolini has only directed a handful of movies, but they have been bona fide hits (DMJ 6, Café Flesh 2, New Wave Hookers 6, Bliss, and Raw).  Although emerging as one of VCA's star directors and defining the new look of VCA's features, he's anything but a newcomer to the business, having written a number of the classic Dark Bros. movies in the 80s.   Meeting him was like taking a big sledgehammer to my wall of director stereotypes.  He's definitely not Italian, nor is he an incarnation of his namesake, great Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini.  Antonio is someone you'd pass on the street and not give a first or second thought to.  And by the stories he tells about his wilder days (before settling down, both personally and into the directing role), he'd be a great person to hang out with at a bar all day.  If anything, if you wanted to fit him into a stereotype, you should look to his musical roots (he's scored quite a few adult soundtracks).  He looks like he'd be more at home in front of a keyboard or sound board rather than in the editing bay.

The shooting schedule was wrapping up this night, with a few short dialogue scenes and a sex scene with Logan and Evan.  Everyone was antsy because this was the last day of shooting, and the prospect of an early morning wrap wasn't appealing to anyone, least of all Passolini, who was amassing an impressive collection of empty cans of Red Bull and cigarette butts.  The biggest excitement was the pool going to guess the exact time of the wrap (wagering Red Bulls, I'm sure -- those little cans are expensive!).

Anyone who has ever been on a set knows that shooting a scene is excruciatingly slow.  And if you want to see sex, your best bet is to arrive late, since dialogue dominates the schedule and sex is usually shot last (since, ironically, it's the easiest on both the talent and the crew to complete).  So we thought that we would wait until late in the day before showing up, and catch the interesting parts.  But when we heard that there was still dialogue to go at 6 p.m., we knew that we were in for a long night.

Next: Setting the Scene
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