Multimedia Pictures, Inc., the parent company for Notorious Productions, Desperate Video and Multimedia Pictures is developing new product lines and has announced a new publicity department being headed by Brandi White, formerly of Wicked Pictures. Jerry Landesman heads the company's sales force. Among its new projects, Multimedia has established a new website, PASSIONISLAND.com
On the Notorious Productions' front headed by co-owner/producer/director Jim Powers, look for a few new series - Hanz & Franz' American Anal Adventure, a story about two zany German tourists lost in America; in addition there's three other new series including Naughty Little Nymphos, The Babysitter and Boob-A-Poppin'
Yesterday, Multimedia Pictures began what is to be a four-day shoot of Babewatch 11 & 12. Babewatch 11 stars Jilly Kelly, Shasta, Farah, Bridgette Kerkove, Tina Cheri, Tease Nightly, Ashley Sage, Kianna Bradley, Jessie, Joel Lawrence, Billy Glide, Hershel Savage, Lee Stone, Benny Long and Adam Wilde; No. 12 stars Shasta, Farah, Bridgette Kerkove, Sunny Daye, Brook, Mirage, Jeannie Rivers, Joel Lawrence, Hershel Savage, Tyce Bune, Brick Majors, Voodoo, Adam Wilde and Chuck Martino.
While we were at the Metro Making Ends Meet Shoot last week, we talked to Joel Lawrence. Lawrence had been out of the business six years but has made a comeback in fine style. This is what he had to say.
Lawrence: "I was out of the business for about six years. I first came in around 1989-1990 and was in about a year and a half. I did reasonably well. The serious problem that I had is that my dad died from AIDS. As he was progressing through his disease, this fucked me up totally. After he died, I couldn't work. Then I got out of the business.
"I took his inheritance and put it into an escort agency in San Francisco....it was fucking incredible; six years of it. You have no idea what it's like to do that. What eventually happened is that the police didn't particularly care for what we were doing, even though we were TOTALLY legal and nothing was done that would compromise my deep respect for that particular set of laws. Ultimately nothing happened to me personally. It's funny. With the laws on prostitution, they don't really care; they're not really going to bust you. What they want to do is either make a headline, or if they feel you're coordinated with other stuff like drugs, then they come, take you out and you're gone. It's so hard to prosecute. I had a friend in New York who ran a place. She'd get a call from the cops, the cops would say we need a bust. Get all your girls to have false I.D. and have $2000 on them total. We'll come down at two o'clock. They do the bust but none of the girls actually get booked because they all have false I.D.'s. The cops take the $2,000 and put it in their pockets and the next day the agency is back in business. The higher ups get their headlines; the cops get paid off and it's the massage parlor business as usual. What kind of fucked up hypocrisy is that?
"After doing that six years my lawyer recommended that I had very good luck and should get out. I did that. I came to L.A. last February [last year] and did 122 scenes. I'm doing exceptionally well and this is by far the best period of my career. I've got lots of lead roles, and I feel, now, that my acting and sex has been more consistent than at any other time by a long shot. I'm really enjoying the work.
"I'm going to Prague twice this summer to shoot. I live with Cash Markman, I rent a room from him, and he's going to have me shoot something for him. Jim Powers wants me to shoot something for him. I figure at my age, 35, I need to start diversifying in the industry. There's an arc to the work of any actor or actress in the business. Basically you have to deal with that reality or end up shit out of luck.
"I think what makes a lot of money these days is locations. You get a nice house, live in it, rent it out, it's money maker. It's so hard to make money in production any more. The margins are incredibly slim. Unless you got great connections or have a library that goes back about 15 years with a production company, you can't make money off of production any more. It doesn't seem like it to me.
"I've never done so much work so consistently, and one of the things I've noticed is that producers cycle with you. They'll use you a lot for six months and then they don't use you for six months. You can't take that shit personally. It's business. They have to go on to the next guy. But that means you have to have a lot of broad contacts to be able to go through that cycle."
[Lawrence explains how he got his start.]
Lawrence: "My dad was a sex therapist. He had a Ph.D in education with an emphasis on human sexuality. He knew that I wanted to do this and turned me on to this guy named Ray who was directing a massage video. It was hardcore/softcore tape but was a pretty straight-up massage video. This guy Ray had a tantric way of jerking off. He's in this chair jerking off and his legs are locked up in a lotus pose. He comes, falls back and breaks his neck and becomes paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. The paramedics arrived with him bowlegged with cum all over him. What a motherfucking bad way to go. Can you imagine being locked in the lotus position like that? From that shoot on, I started doing amateur stuff in San Francisco. I worked with Cumisha Amado for my first boy-girl and worked with her a bunch because she was out of San Francisco.
"One of the problems was that when my dad was dying I moved back to San Francisco to be with him, but there's nothing there. It's hard to commute back and forth. I got stuck up there in the backwater and thought you know how much money you can make in an escort agency? This is serious fucking chump change.
"But porn is a family to me. It's a long time fantasy and I feel understood in the community. Sometimes I go in the real world and they don't understand me and I don't understand them. I'm insulting them without knowing it, and they're not understanding my head and the way I view social/sexuality. Porn is comfortable. I like it.
"I have a girlfriend who's outside the industry. She works in the mainstream, does movies and stuff like that. For the first four or five months she had an issue with it one way or another. But in the last two months, she's having me bring home my videos. We watch the scenes I'm in and we fuck watching them. She's all into it. Everything she sees in the video she asks will you do that to me? Right now I'm fucking her in the ass and coming on her face. When she sees me with two girls she asks do I want to be with another girl? I know women well enough to know that emotionally they can go off the deep end. If you put them in a situation where they might, you'll pay heavily for it. I've been patient but won't end up doing a threeway with her for another four or five months.
"Keisha introduced me to her. I love Keisha, she's one of my favorite people in the business. She's got such soul. She's an awesome woman.
