We've had accidents on set, as well.
There are lots of sex accidents that happen.
Some are minor, a scuffed knee,
or someone being too vigorous with a blowjob,
and kind of biting a little bit,
and sometimes guys get s**t on.
I didn't decide to be a porn director.
I wanted to be a filmmaker.
I just wanted to make films,
always wanted to make films.
I was at the London Film School, graduated from there,
and a colleague of mine
was working for this company called Relish,
and he said, "Come along for an interview
to be an assistant editor,"
and I was like, "At the porn place?!?"
He said, "Yeah, come along.
You probably won't get it, because lots of other people
are coming with more experience,
but it's good to have an interview
fresh out of film school,"
and I said, "Okay, makes sense."
I went down and spoke with the bosses there,
and then they had me edit for 20 minutes,
hardcore porn, which... if you're not
used to that kind of thing at about 10:30 in the morning,
it really wakes you up,
and I had a sneaky look at what the previous guy had edited.
He'd edited all of the acting bits
leading up to the sex,
in this scene that we had to work with,
and I figured they know that we can edit just normal stuff.
I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna start at the blowjob,
and just work my way forward from there."
About 20 minutes later, one of the bosses, Harry,
comes in and says, "Okay, Dick, how are you getting on?"
And I say, "Whoa, whoa! Just hold on.
I'm just building up to a crescendo.
Let me just put these clips down,"
and they drag me off the computer, send me home,
and a couple of days later,
I get a phone call from my friend saying,
"Do you want the job?"
Two weeks within working there,
I was behind the camera, shooting stuff,
but there's this moment where you look up past the camera,
and you see two people just going at it in front of you,
and it's just like, "This is the weirdest job
I've ever had, or ever will have,"
and you just go back to the screen, just concentrating here,
'cause you're just slightly removed,
and you're just concentrating
on getting everything in focus.
[MARYANA] So what was your first film?
The first movie that I edited for them,
was called The Cockwell Inn.
It was about a pub called The Cockwell Inn,
and the first movie that I went filming with them on,
was called Fresh Off The Bus -
this very gonzo, kind of fake reality.
'Let's pick a girl up, we bring her back here,
we give her a makeover, and then sex happens.'
Very simple kind of stuff,
and I was always on at them about,
'Let's do a storyline, let's do some action.'
I kinda like action films,
I wanted to... you know, girls with guns or something,
but for a long time, they're like,
"No, we can't do that. Let's just stick to this."
[MARYANA] What actually is the job of a porn director?
I think mostly, my job entails telling people what to do.
I'm just a normal director for the first half of the day.
We're usually dealing with a script
and acting and dialogue,
and I'm just telling people where to go,
what to do, 'Let's do it like this.
Can you do it a little differently?
Maybe if you're feeling like this...'
I'm also cameraman for these things,
and lighting as well, so cinematography,
and then the second half of the day
is when we're shooting the sex,
and directing that is a little different.
The less I have to say, the better the scene is.
If they're two professionals,
they know exactly what they're doing.
I don't really need to say a whole lot.
I might just say, "Wait, just bring that leg down here,"
or, "Sorry, can you just go back to this position?
Just do that again,"
because you need to get into weird positions
where you're opening to the camera.
So you're not doing it for you.
You're doing it for the camera,
so that you have to sort of open your body up,
make sure that you're not hiding anything,
and a lot of guys will get... they know that,
and they'll sort of put their arm here,
and that looks awkward.
So I'll have to say "Just put your arm down,"
'cause you don't wanna look like a teapot
when you're sort of doing it,
but you'll probably see it now,
when you watch any porn scenes.
You'll see the guy sort of with his hand here
like this, and like this.
But yeah, it is all about opening up for the camera,
instead of enjoying it yourself, really.
But occasionally, I'll have to say,
"Can you make more noise?"
It's really weird if the performers
aren't making a sound at all.
It just gets a bit creepy, and everyone's like,
"Oh, my god, this is too much like real sex.
Can you make it a bit fake please?"
[MARYANA] Does size matter for a male porn star?
Only a bit.
It needs to be big enough
that you can actually get into these positions,
and show... you need to show all these positions
and show penetration.
So if you have a small penis,
you just can't get into the positions
that look good for camera, and that's it really.
[MARYANA] What is usually the atmosphere like on the set of a porn film?
It's very relaxed.
It's very... especially the team that I work with,
we have fun,
but we are very serious
when it comes to new people that we're working with.
We have a meeting at the beginning,
where we go through everyone's dos and don'ts,
and we tell everyone that you are in charge,
the model is in charge.
They can stop for a break at any time.
They will often make, on average,
more money per scene than guys do,
and we've been working together for so many years now
that it's like a little family
that you go to work with.
So I think, when models that we're working with
for the first time come on set,
they can see that it's this nice, relaxed atmosphere,
and it's a pleasant place to be around.
[MARYANA] Can you talk me through any funny moments you've had on set?
Early in my career,
I got hired by a
rubber fetish company,
and that was in Hastings, I think.
Big studio, lots of rubber everywhere, costumes,
and all these contraptions,
and the guy who owned the studio,
he got into this inflatable coffin thing,
naked, with a gas mask on his face
that he was being pumped oxygen in,
and there was a hole for his penis to come out of,
and his wife was dressed in a rubber nurse's outfit,
or something, and she takes out this little wallet
and unzips it and opens it,
and then takes out this metal rod,
and grabs his c**k,
and just starts putting it down his penis,
and I remember just kind of...
yeah, doing everything that you're doing now,
just kind of, "Oh!" Like that,
and she's doing this,
and then she puts that down,
and I'm like, "Ah."
And then she pulls out an even bigger one,
and just works her way through
this entire wallet of metal rods, until the guy came,
and they were like, "Okay, great. Thank you very much,"
and I'm like, "Okay, good.
Alright, thanks. No, I won't shake hands,"
and I went home, and that was probably
the weirdest filming day,
'cause I didn't understand the sex act
that they were doing, so it's tough to direct.
We've had accidents on set as well.
There are lots of sex accidents that happen.
Some are minor, a scuffed knee,
or someone being too vigorous with a blowjob
and kind of biting a little bit,
and sometimes guys get s**t on.
[MARYANA] Why do porn film always have pun-based or funny titles?
What's the deal with that?
I think it's a little old-fashioned, these days,
to have pun-based porn titles.
You see less of them.
Even when I started,
there were starting to be less of them about.
So these days, instead,
if you're doing some kind of parody of a movie or a TV show,
these days, it'll just be the name of the TV show
and then 'triple X'.
It's like 'the triple X version of this'.
And I think that's just to get people...
it grabs their attention a bit more
if it is the actual title,
but I miss the kind of pun-based movie titles,
because it makes people laugh,
and you share the DVDs around,
like, "Oh my God, have you seen this?
Oh my God, look at these titles."
So I miss them, but they don't
tend to be around these days too much.
One of the earliest compilation videos
that I edited together...
I pitched it, 'Let's do a compilation
of all the scenes that end with a cum shot,
where it gets in the girl's eye,'
and we called it Catcher In The Eye,
for those literary fanatics out there.
We've done...
we did a Power Rangers parody called Power Bangers.
I didn't come up with that title.
I didn't think it was great. Movie was great.
Yeah, we did a Star Wars parody called Hand Solo.
That was mine.
It was almost like we have to do this parody,
just to use that title, Hand Solo,
and we worked in some jokes
about him just constantly masturbating as well.
[MARYANA] How do you actually come up with the ideas for them?
I watch a lot of movies,
a lot of Netflix, a lot of TV, a lot of YouTube,
and I'll just think of ideas, but I've always done that.
I've always written scripts.
I've always written little movie ideas, short films.
So my brain is constantly thinking,
"Oh, that would be good.
Oh, we could do a twist on that,"
or, "Oh yeah, we could do you something like that."
I remember talking to some people
and they had no idea that porn films
could be actual films with storylines.
They had no idea that that kind of thing existed.
Back in the 1970s, '80s, that's pretty much all you had,
is, like, storyline porn films,
but as digital filmmaking rose up,
I think we got a lot of just sex stuff.
Like gonzo, here's reality,
here's this, you can just see sex.
It's kind of real, and there's something...
quite real about that,
that I think people like,
but there's also Spider-Man versus Superman porn films,
and Star Wars porn films,
and all these ridiculous things which... super-sexy,
but also super-fun to watch...?
I don't know, costumes, locations.
Did a Game Of Thrones parody.
Who doesn't wanna see that?
[MARYANA] What do you think about
porn damaging young people and in a way setting unrealistic
sex standards and expectations for them?
I think porn has always been there,
and porn will always be here,
and young people do see a lot more of it these days.
I think you can't get away from that,
because it's so accessible.
But I think it's really important
for young people to understand
that we're shooting fiction, and it's heightened.
Porn, by its definition,
is something that is designed to turn someone on.
So when we are filming sex, it isn't real sex.
It's strange positions,
that are designed to be titillating in some way,
and it's important for young people to know
that you shouldn't have sex like they do in porn films,
because you might get looked at a bit weird.
So I think it's up to us as grown-ups
to teach people that porn is fake.
I think that's the message really.
If you're having sex with someone,
especially for the first time,
you don't wanna act like a porn star.
[MARYANA] Do you think your job has changed your view on intimacy?
Starting in the industry, like, 15, 16 years ago,
I think it definitely boosted my confidence a little bit.
Just being around sex a lot,
it did just kinda give me
a confidence boost in some way,
especially having a job telling people
what to do when they're having sex.
Even though it's not real sex, it's just work.
I'm just there. They're doing that.
I'm moving lights around to make sure everything's lit nice,
and I'm holding the camera, and I'm changing focus,
and I'm just concentrating on keeping everything in focus,
and I'm moving around, and I'm getting all the great shots,
and my back is hurting, and I have to not wobble the camera
'cause I just wanna get it all in one shot.
I don't wanna tell them,
"Just do that again, let me just do this one more time."
I just want them to concentrate on that,
and so my feet are hurting,
and my lower back is hurting,
and my shoulders are hurting,
and I'm like, "Just keep going, keep going, keep going,"
and then we get it done,
and I'm like, "Ah, done!"
And that's not the same
as watching people have sex in a room,
in some kind of intimate way.
It's the complete opposite. It's just work.
[MARYANA] I was wondering about platforms like OnlyFans, for example.
Do you see them as a threat to the porn film industry in any way?
No, OnlyFans isn't a threat to the industry.
The industry always changes, especially with technology.
The porn industry will be the first thing to change,
and there's nothing wrong
with the industry evolving in some way,
and what OnlyFans has done,
is given the models themselves, guys and girls,
their own platform, so they are in control
of their own content.
Before platforms like OnlyFans,
models were relying on companies like us to book them.
But if they didn't get booked,
then they don't have work,
and now they can work for themselves a lot easier.
It doesn't involve building an entire website.
Before lockdown, we were always asked,
"Can you find new people, new models?"
And it was always a struggle to find new models.
But since lockdown,
there are so many new models in the industry,
and I think what OnlyFans
has allowed models to do,
is to just dip their feet into that world,
and create an account,
and do as much as they're comfortable with,
and because they're in control,
and they're in charge,
and they're making decisions about what they're doing,
it's been a bit of an eye-opener for some people, I think,
and I've been really surprised
about how many people are okay and comfortable
with showing their bodies online.
It's been really interesting to see that.
[MARYANA] What does your family think about what you do?
My mum, when she is asked what I do by her friends,
she now just says, "Oh, he makes porn,"
in a kind of funny, kind of dismissive way.
[MARYANA] Last question is,
is Dick Bush your real name?
Yep. Dick Bush is my real name. Well, Richard.
[MARYANA] Do you think your parents set you up in a way?
Yeah, I blame them completely.