* FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE * FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE* 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.
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