Tag Archives: Falcon

The Memoirs of Fred Bisonnes

Two must-own books: Bare Essentials 1 (narrative, 360 pages) and Bare Essentials 2 (gallery, 368 pages). Both available on Amazon. “Even if you’re not familiar with his work”, writes Mark Harvey in the introduction, “you’ve seen his work -a lot of it (…) He created the definitive style of homoerotic photography in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s (…) He has been tangential to much work recognizable from the world of later 20th century gay culture -from The Advocate and Advocate Men to Falcon Studios…” Essential for us pornographers, all indebted to Fred and his legacy: we’re all dwarves standing on the shoulders of trailblazers and visionaires like Fred. Essential and well documented for the history buff (priceless are Bisonnes’ memories of Jim French, John Summers, Chuck Holmes and the early The Advocate days). Last but not least… photo-rich for the fans, who’ll happily walk down memory lane along with Sky Dawson, Casey Donovan,Todd Baron, Leo Ford, Tim Kramer, Dick Fisk, Kurt Marshall, Jim Bentley, Bill Henson, Tony Bravo and so many more. Thank you, Maestro.

In memory of John Travis

Director John Travis is gone (for the AVN obit, click here). From his early days at Brentwood, Falcon and Huge, to his Catalina blockbusters in the mid ’80s, to the co-founding of Studio2000 in ’92, Travis has helped shape gay porn like few others. He is… he was the golden age of porn. With lofty budgets, large crews and even bigger production values.  We stand on the shoulders of giants –even when we forget them (and it happens all too often). I learned my trade from Kristen Bjorn, Gino Colbert, George Duroy. And yes, I was lucky to work for John as a PA on a Jeff Stryker’s production (“JS Big Time”, ’95) and as a Production Manager for VCA’s blockbuster “Stryker’s Underground” (’97).

109748_aa

Much of the  online ‘amateur’ wave of the 2000s stemmed as a reaction against what Travis (and Studio2000) stood for: beauty vs reality (or pseudo reality), the ‘studio system’ and its aesthetics (the ‘star system’, the formulaic scripts and the Hollywood-style cinematography/decoupage) vs. no aesthetics at all. And yet, where’s porn today? I remember each and all of Travis’ lush productions, I don’t remember, nor care for the majority of fungible online porn ‘loops’ produced these days –with little money, 0 skills, 0 ambitions and little imagination. Thank you, Jim (John’s real name). For the memories and the beautiful dreams.

The most innovative gay porn studios of 2014

Cybersocket Magazine (November 2014) takes a look at “some of the most innovative gay porn companies. These studios and websites have all managed to thrive in a crowded and rapidly changing porn industry and they’ve done it by refusing to remain the same. They’ve all continued to evolve and to experiment (rather than to simply churning out more of the same) and they’ve all remained focused on the quality and creativity of their work”. In addition to LucasKazan (thank you!), Cybersocket features BelAmi, CockyBoys, MenatPlay, Nakedsword and Falconstudios.

Will_Dario_6087 copy 2

On porn and romance

“Men romantically connected present an incredible image”, writes a fan on our Facebook page. I agree. Historically though, porn and romance have seldom mixed. While one can find a few rare exceptions as early as back in the 70s (Tom DeSimone’s “The Idol”, for instance), Falcon waited till 1988 for its very first love story with “Touch Me” (FVP 60). After many, many years of casual sex, predatory sex, acrobatic sex –but hardly any intimacy at all (and certainly NO kisses). “Touch Me” paved the way for the many love stories of the 90s and yet, to this very day, ‘raunch’ far outsells (and outnumbers) them. What is it about our fantasies that privilege casual play, abuse and gay-for-pay over a romantic connection? Yesterday it was Jeff Stryker, today it’s online properties like HazeHim or SausageParty or Baitbus… Wondering…