The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In Porn

Ming Fei Hong

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Lights, Camera, Lots of Action. Forget the Script.

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The pornographic movie industry, in response to the Internet, is focusing even less on narrative arcs these days. Savanna Samson, an actress, says she favors scripts with more dialogue.

By MATT RICHTEL
The New York Times
Published: July 7, 2009

Source Link HERE

The actress known as Savanna Samson once relished preparing for a role. “I couldn’t wait to get my next script,” she said.

There’s no reason to look at them anymore, she said, because her movies now call almost exclusively for action. Specifically, sex.

The pornographic movie industry has long had only a casual interest in plot and dialogue. But moviemakers are focusing even less on narrative arcs these days. Instead, they are filming more short scenes that can be easily uploaded to Web sites and sold in several-minute chunks.

“On the Internet, the average attention span is three to five minutes,” said Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment. “We have to cater to that.”

Vivid, one of the most prominent pornography studios, makes 60 films a year. Three years ago, almost all of them were feature-length films with story lines. Today, more than half are a series of sex scenes, loosely connected by some thread — “vignettes” in the industry vernacular — that can be presented separately online. Other major studios are making similar shifts.

The industry’s interest in scripted scenes has waxed and waned in recent decades because of changes in technology. In the early 1970s, movies with loose story lines, like “Deep Throat” and “Behind the Green Door,” won a mainstream audience, and others tried to copy their success, selling plot-centric movies to couples watching at home with the VCR technology introduced in 1975.

The falling cost of hand-held video cameras gave birth to a generation of pornographers with little interest in drama beyond a clichéd plot involving a pizza delivery boy, said Paul Fishbein, president of the AVN Media Network, an industry trade publication.

Mr. Fishbein said plot came into vogue again in the late ’90s with the boom of the DVD. Big studios, he said, figured plots would make their films more appealing to women and encourage couples to bring them into their homes — whether on disc or pay-per-view.

Plot-centrism was in full bloom in 2005 with the release of “Pirates,” about a ragtag group of sailors who go after a band of evil pirates.

That movie, with a budget of more than $1 million, had special effects (pirates materializing from the mist), and, yes, lots of sex. Two years later, the movie’s studio, Digital Playground, spent $8 million on a sequel — a remarkable sum in an industry where the average movie costs $25,000, according to the director of the two movies, Ali Joone.

But interest in DVDs has fallen sharply, Mr. Fishbein said, because the Internet has made it easy to watch snippets of video.

Mr. Fishbein estimated that pornographic DVD sales and rentals in the United States generated $3.62 billion in 2006 but had fallen as much as 50 percent since then. He says the slump has made some companies reluctant to share sales figures, so his estimates are getting rougher.

The big studios, like Vivid and Digital Playground, have turned to a subscription model, charging monthly fees for access to their Web sites and advertising the frequency with which they add new clips.

Mr. Joone said that of Digital Playground’s 60 productions this year, roughly 30 had little or no plot, up from about 10 two years ago. At Wicked Pictures, which averages one production a week, one-third are essentially just sex, twice as many as a few years ago, said the company’s president, Steve Orenstein.

“The feature is not as big a part of the industry today,” Mr. Orenstein said. But he says he still plans two to three bigger-budget releases each year, including the recently shot “2040,” which is about the pornography business of the future. Mr. Orenstein described the movie as “an almost Romeo-and-Juliet story between an aging porn star and a cyborg.”

In lieu of plot, there are themes. Among the new releases from New Sensations, a studio that makes 24 movies a month, is “Girls ’n Glasses,” made up of scenes of women having sex while wearing glasses.

“It’s almost like we’re back to the late ’70s or early ’80s when the average movie was eight minutes and just a sex scene,” Mr. Hirsch said, sounding wistful.

Some in the industry would prefer their sex with a little more character development.

Ms. Samson, for example, said she took her acting seriously and used to prepare studiously for her roles, like the character she played in the 2006 movie “Flasher.”

She said she played a psychotic who, because of the way her mother treated her, “had an obsession with flashing and doing things in public.”

“I used to have dialogue,” said Ms. Samson, whose given name is Natalie Oliveros, and who is one of the industry’s biggest stars.

“Getting it on in one hardcore scene after another just isn’t as much fun,” she added.

 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

I guess these "gonzo" websites are hitting the major companies hard.
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

Ronnie bobby ricky and mike tell Savanna how we feel about that
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

who the fuck wants to follow a plot to a porno?

back in the day when porn was on vhs i would fast forward that shit until the sex part

thats whats wrong with alot of these websites they have hour long videos with only like 15-20 mins of actual fucking, i say cut out all the bullshit and jump right to the action
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

I guess these "gonzo" websites are hitting the major companies hard.

Is she still a contract broad with VIVID VIDEO? Turns 42 in October.

She was featured on that series PORNO VALLEY in 2003/2004.

http://www.showcase.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?Root_Title_Id=96158
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391680/
http://worldofwonder.net/productions/porno_valley/
http://worldofwonder.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savanna_Samson


Her husband's a simp (he was featured on the show).
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

I don't mind this at all. When I first started watching porn I hated the dialogue. Now that I'm kinda board with porn I like to see different themes and shit.

That's why I like what the dudes at 40oz Bounce are doing.

logo.jpg



They always got some spoof type shit going on in their porn. Nothing wrong with some funny dialogue in porn.

:cool:
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

1 star
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

I don't mind this at all. When I first started watching porn I hated the dialogue. Now that I'm kinda board with porn I like to see different themes and shit.

That's why I like what the dudes at 40oz Bounce are doing.

logo.jpg



They always got some spoof type shit going on in their porn. Nothing wrong with some funny dialogue in porn.

:cool:

Same here, a lil skit is funny before the skeet. :lol:
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

Some late 70's porn and 80's porn had the best scripts and actors and actresses but when u young and watching that shit all you do is fast forward through it. It's a couple of movies I did watch all the way through which were Taboo, The Chameleon and some other 80's porn movies. Savanna is the type of woman who looks like she would never do porn, that is what makes her hot to me.:yes::yes::yes::yes:
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

This chick is out of her mind. Scripts are OK but I've never bought porno because of the script. I prefer gonzo videos and answer this, when was the last time a sex scene only lasted 7 minutes? Excluding Lex "Capt. Pullout" Steele. :rolleyes:

Back in the day of VHS the fast forward button was your best friend. No one was interested in that corny dialog and its less important today.
:smh:
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

I got something for that stubborn bitch:

rcl_ffwd.jpg
 
Re: The New York Times: Savanna Samson Leading Push To Bring Back Scripted Dialog In

Boo! I like a little setup pre-sex just to set the scene, but a plot is not needed. I always ffwd through the old VHS shit too.
 
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