Steve Cruz was in Europe filming his directorial debut for Falcon Studios—a momentous point in his illustrious career—when the project was sidetracked and shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He joins the rest of an industry forced to be more creative than ever during a period of immense uncertainty.
Otillia Steadman, who is the world news operations manager for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York, published the article “Everyone Is Making Porn At Home Now. Will The Porn Industry Survive?” where she talks to Steve Cruz along with many other industry professionals on both sides of the camera about how the pandemic is affecting the industry and performers. In the article, Cruz shares how he was on location in Austria for the big-budget shoot (drones…ugh, we can’t wait to see it!!!) and had the sex scenes shot—but the studio had to shelve the project pending filming of the narrative elements to complete the story.
Falcon/NakedSword’s VP of Sales and Marketing Toby Morris was also featured in the article, and shared how the studio and performers have had to adapt to keep customers entertained—and coming back. (And also shares a potentially surprising stat about how a sizeable portion of consumers are still interested in DVDs, downloads be damned!)
Steadman also spoke with Lance Hart, who talks about how he has helped developed fresh content for his sites using performers quarantined together. “If you happen to be quarantined with roommates, or maybe you’re in a polyamorous thing where you’ve just got a whole bunch of people quarantined together…you’ve got a leg up right now,” Hart told BuzzFeed.
Also featured in the article is Michael Stabile, current communications director for the Free Speech Coalition (which organized an industry Zoom call featuring, among other performers, Kristofer Weston). Stabile co-wrote the hit Jet Set serial Wet Palms, a groundbreaking project that debuted in 2004; and also produced, wrote and directed the 2015 documentary Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story (among other highlights in the gay adult industry, including writing features like Falcon’s Cross Country).
“I don’t think this is the end. I don’t think this is a meteorite with some dinosaurs,” Stabile told Steadman. “I think it’s a really interesting time for the industry, where the entire industry rethinks things and decides to become more creative.”
Steadman spoke to many other voices throughout the industry, and the article is a great read. Check it out, and in the meantime catch Steve Cruz, Lance Hart and Michael Stabile’s work on NakedSword, Raging Stallion and Falcon!
Good content! I wondered why things seemed so different. Now I understand. I agree that some of us still like DVD’S and don’t care for the whole download thing.