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BROWN BAG PRODUCTIONS ANNOUNCES COMPLETION OF �MOYST�

Hart Williams, President of Brown Bag Productions, announced today that the long-awaited digital �film� production of MOYST was ready for distribution. The film contains any number of innovations, not the least of which is the introduction of �ALPHA� the first entirely synthetic actress to star in a feature film.

ALPHA THE FIRST ENTIRELY SYNTHETIC CHARACTER IN FILM

�Alpha wasn�t possible when we began this project,� Williams states. �Originally the computer interface consisted of our producer, Pepper Parrish, holding her nose and trying to sound like a computer.� Quite a switch to a high resolution 3D character who sounds very much like a human being. �Alpha carries the narrative, along with Richard [O�Steele � Brown Bag�s discovery as the male lead]. The real drama of the film lies in the tension of their interaction,� says Williams. �But she�s completely computer generated. Her body, her voice, her personality, the whole nine yards.� [It�s no accident that �Gertie� -- the other virtual actor who appears at the end of MOYST -- is named after �Gertie the Dinosaur� � the first popular animated character in film, created by Winsor McKay in 1914.]

CLEAN, WHOLESOME, ALL-AMERICAN PORN

The MOYST website states (www.moyst.org): �Our intent is to bring you something a cut above the ordinary. There are no spitting scenes; no cursing scenes. No things go into places that they weren't designed to go into. There is only boy-girl sex contained in this movie. If this is not to your liking, there are 5000 other filmmakers who will be glad to sell you any sexual variation that you'd care to name. CLEAN, WHOLESOME ALL-AMERICAN SEX: THIS AIN'T YOUR DADDY'S PORN!�

MOYST DESIGNED TO EXPLOIT DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

�When we began this project in the fall of 1997, it was to take advantage of digital video technology. But by the time we were finished, it was the animation that really made things zing!� says Williams. As a writer, screenwriter, journalist, critic, and worker-on-sets (including camera assistant, gopher, continuity, stills, set design, gaffer, grip, transportation captain, security, etc.) Williams was intimately involved in the so-called �Silver Age� of porn in the 1980s.

�The thing that always bothered me about porn was our complete inability to do any post-production. Even the titles were cheesy,� Williams recalls. �The acting was wooden and story and music seemed to disappear from porn altogether.� 

In a chance meeting with Glen Savage, the two found they had a mutual interest: an interest in using the new digital technology to create a new, much less expensive kind of porn film. In November of 1997, they traveled to LA to shoot the initial five segments of MOYST against a blue screen in a small studio in West Hollywood.

DIARY OF A PORN SHOOT

For the story of that shoot, RAME -- the rec.arts.movies.erotica newsgroup -- has archived Williams� hilarious �Diary of a Porn Shoot� on its website at http://www.rame.net/library/misc/hart/, and the debacle of their disastrous submission of a half-hour initial test film to the so-called Erotic Film Festival at the World Pornography Conference in Hollywood in 1998 at http://www.rame.net/library/misc/wpc.html, where the series was written for the amusement of newsgroup denizens as it happened. [Sample: �As Mark Twain said: Reality differs from fiction in that fiction has to be believable.�]

Several false starts and a world of technology later, MOYST is complete. It may be the first feature film created entirely on a Pentium III PC. �The economies that this opens up are incredible,� says Williams. �There�s no excuse for slapping together a gonzo piece of crap in not much longer than it took to tape it with a cheap video cam � although that�ll still be done.�

A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO A DIFFERENT DEMOGRAPHIC

�We�re going after a different market niche,� says Producer Pepper Parrish. She ought to know. During Larry Flynt�s famous �conversion� at HUSTLER, she was the first writer, male or female, to come up with short stories that met Flynt�s new requirement for �religious porn,� writing �No Thunderbolts� [JUNE 79] and �Dream Come True� [JULY 80] for the estimable magazine.

�MOYST� is a parody of computer games, a market that�s larger than motion pictures at $7-9 billion a year and 60% of whom are over 18 years old, according to CBS� �60 MINUTES II.� �It really plays out like a computer game,� says Parrish. �We really took the time to try and make it believable, and not just some actor randomly tapping on computer keys.�

Williams adds: �When I left the business in 1988 -- mostly because I didn�t want to watch everyone die of AIDS in a business that didn�t seem to care about testing � my old friends from high school and college would always bring conversations around to porn, and then, after admitting that they like to rent a porn tape occasionally, ask me why they were all so crappy.� Williams says that he would ask them what THEY wanted to see. �MOYST� is based in large part on their suggestions and complaints. �I think there�s a large audience out there who don�t want a lot of bizarre circus acts, and who don�t want saxophones and romantic goop either. This is, in large part, what normal people out there in the heartland asked me for.�

That and �Porn is a very forgiving medium,� says Williams. �This was going to be my first film, and I knew that I�d make mistakes. There would be glitches. But in porn-�I thought�perfection isn�t required. So I could pretty much go with my instincts.�

INITIAL REACTION DISAPPOINTING ... NOT!

�I knew we were going to take some flak from �traditional� porn people,� Williams says. �An old friend saw it and called it �off the wall� and �some guy f***ing around on a computer,� which kind of shocked me. But several other veterans of the biz with a combined tenure of nearly 75 years in the business LOVED IT!� Porn, says Williams, for all its �outlaw� image is actually a very conservative place. �Not just conservative,� says Williams, �but LITERAL-minded in spades! Just look at the �money shot�: lookie! ORGASM! Whee!� Well, I haven�t broken the conventions, but I surely bent them,� he continues. �I mean, sex is more metaphor than it is literal. Otherwise why would we sell so much more lingerie, candles, incense and erotic books than ceiling mirrors and kleig lights?�

�In one scene, the couple turns into clouds and merges together,� Williams says. �I�ve experienced that sensation in lovemaking. But porn is scared to death of that kind of thing.� He adds that �big budget� porn usually means more lights, more expensive lingerie and more makeup. �But it�s still literal-minded as well. I used to joke that I was providing service for lay gynecologists, but it was more true than funny. �The problem,� says Parrish, �is that the basic �formula� hasn�t changed in decades. �BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR� was the last porn film to play with �radical� techniques like simple solarization. We go a lot farther than that.�

TEST AUDIENCES LOVE THE FINISHED PRODUCT

�We�ve tried to make MOYST a celebration of human sexuality and less a festival of gynecological closeups,� says Parrish. And they expect a certain hostility from �old line� pornographers.

�We�ve tried it on our target demographic,� says Williams, and, without exception, they LOVE it. They have never seen anything like it. The biggest problem we�ve had has been getting our preview tapes back!�

WHAT�S �MOYST� LIKE?

According to Williams: �We started out trying to make a simple little �Alice in Cartoonland� piece, with some compositing and a pleasant story and ended up making �Fantasia� instead.

�I�m very proud of this film,� says Parrish. �I�ve never seen anything remotely like it.� Adds Williams: �I wanted to make a film that if you hit the Fast Forward button you�d get lost because every frame would be important. And I think we succeeded in that.�

SYNOPSIS

When computer game reviewer Mark Stubbs receives a new game beta from Ray Gun software, he isn�t particularly surprised. But when the game begins by addressing him personally to tell him that they hope his experience will be �different, really different� he takes notice.

His guide, Alpha, reminds him that he hasn�t been very kind to their games lately, and invites him to watch the game demo. He likes what he sees, and before long, he is immersed in the virtual world of Moyst Island trying to discover the keys to the mystery of Moyst.

But Alpha has a special surprise that Ray Gun has failed to tell Stubbs about ...

About the Filmmakers:

�        PEPPER PARRISH is better known in science fiction circles under her real name, under which she�s written several highly regarded short stories and a novel for TOR books. She is currently completing a science fiction novel set in the California desert near Edwards Air Force Base.

�        HART WILLIAMS has been a free-lancer for nearly 30 years, having written for THE WASHINGTON POST, THE KANSAS CITY STAR, THE OREGONIAN, THE SANTA FE SUN, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, THE EUGENE REGISTER-GUARD, NEW WEST, LOCUS and other �straight� publications, in addition to two erotic novels for PLAYBOY PRESS, articles, short stories, interviews, etc. for OUI, THE LOS ANGELES FREE PRESS, ADAM, PLAYERS, HUSTLER, VELVET, VIDEO X, ADULT CINEMA REVIEW and many more. Between 1984 and 1988, he saw over 32 porn teleplays produced, including the 1985 runner up for XRCO�s Video of the Year, �The Other Side of Lianna.�

�        KENJI is a legendary figure behind the camera. In neary 25 years in the Business, he has worked for virtually everyone who�s anyone in the business, from Gerald Damiano and Al Goldstein to Henri Pachard and Hal Freeman. Famously jealous of his anonymity, he has turned down lifetime achievement awards from major organizations because he refuses to attend awards shows. His special talent with a camera is evident throughout Moyst.