Veronica Hart

The second disc of the new DVD release of Cecil Howard's Neon Nights features rather long new interviews with Jamie Gillis, Eric Edwards, Veronica Hart, and C. Davis Smith (the film's cinematographer), each one with their own set of notable moments. There are notable moments I found from Veronica's 30+ minute interview:

I always had a real social conscious when I was acting, believe it or not, because I felt that I represented women, and I never wanted to present certain things in a bad light. Like I didn't want to portray "a woman getting raped and then enjoying it because we all know that women need to be raped". I mean I didn't want to put across negative values, and that was kind of tough. You know, because, it's gee, I'd really like to be able to pay rent or pay the telephone bill this month, and somebody's asking you to do something and you're not so sure if you should do it. I tried to basically make films-be in films-that I was okay with their message. A lot of people in our business just churn out whatever type of pornography without thinking of any kind of repercussion. Even as a filmmaker now, a director, and a producer, I try and associate myself with projects that I feel are socially responsible. I know it's funny because you say, "Socially responsible in an exploitive nature?"

Hopefully, in the films I've made-that I've directed-if it is a bad guy and he does have rough sex it's because he's an asshole and you know it. Or it's a game they're [presumably the lead characters] playing and they enjoy it. I did a film called Edge Play (2001), and that's where women live out their roughest fantasies-such as gangbangs or whatever-but they still are able to maintain control because it's a sheltered environment. So, I'm saying yes it's okay to live out your fantasies, but the woman should be in control. Don't think that if she has a rape fantasy she necessarily wants to be raped. Check it out with her first. Maybe she'd like to keep it a fantasy.

I did another film, actually shot on film, and it was called Taken (2000). It was that same thing. The woman does get kidnapped in it, and she does fall in love with her kidnapper. But what's the story really about? It's a story of basically telling guys to take care of your wife at home; even though you're married and have kids, she still needs love too. That was the message behind it. The way to do it was this kidnapping thing, and it turns out it was all a dream [...]

We used to be paid by day. Now, the actors and actresses are paid per sex act. So, when you're paying for a blowjob or for two people to be together boy do you shoot it. I mean you shoot it from 25 ways to Sunday. The thing that we've done better in the last 25 years is that we've perfected the angles. We know the best ways to shoot the angles of sex, whether it's the under or the up and over or the side we've got it down. And as result a lot of our films kind of went clinical. Maybe that's why gonzo did so well because it broke out of that [though one could argue that gonzo has now fallen into the same trap, just that it is also the lighting, costumes, boxcover concepts and designs, titles and circus act themes, etc. as well as angle that has become overly clinical]. But now a script, a good script, for one of our movies is probably 25 pages. Back when I was making movies we had 90 page scripts. So, the formula is pretty much changed. Before it was 15 minutes of acting with maybe 5 minutes of sex. Now, I'm lucky if I get 5 minutes of acting, set-up, and story for a 15 minute sex scene. So, it seems a little reversed. It was much more about acting back then, and now it's less so--depending on who you work for. There are directors who still like actors. There's Michael Raven, uh, Nic Orleans, James Avalon...myself of course. We're all still interested in doing movies. Movies, that's it. I'm not really interested in reality TV, reality sex. I might be interested in filming my guy [makes the motion of holding a camera while looking down] while we're fucking, but that doesn't interest me as a filmmaker. So, I think my days in the business are pretty outdated.

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What do you think of her take on the change from per day to per sex act and the effect it had on filming techniques? Plus, do you agree with my own personal assessment that the clinical argument could made for gonzo now? Her talk of socially responsible porn is in a storyline context, and for the most part so is her need to make sure that the woman is always in control to some degree. So, does that mean it's completely outdated?

Edited by - -Kelly- on Mar 7 2006