Porn flicks rage in '99

While Hollywood is fretting about a downturn in production and the flight of jobs to cheaper markets such as Canada and Australia, a certain niche of the entertainment world isquietly flourishing - porn.

This summer, grips, gaffers and best boys of mainstream movie-making are marching down Hollywood Boulevard in an effort to save their jobs. But in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, where the bulk of the world's adult films are made, stagehands willing to stretch a boom over a couple in bed have noproblem finding work.

It's not an industry that civic leaders embrace, and many people find pornography morally offensive. But the Valley's adult filmbusiness plays an increasingly large role in the region's economy and is having its most prosperous year ever, indicators show.

In July, one out of five shoots was a porn film, even though these productions cost just a fraction of a Hollywood release, according to the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., whichoversees the granting of film permits in the area.

And though major studios are trimming the number of features they produce annually, adult video producers are stepping up production. This year, the industry is on track to release 10,000 new titles, according to trade publication Adult Video News, upfrom 8,950 last year - an X-rated milestone that probably won't make it into the mainstream trade magazines.

Powered by the explosive growth of the Internet and shifting social mores, the San Fernando Valley's $4-billion porn industry has proved seemingly impervious to the bean-counting, cost-cutting culture seeping into Hollywood. "You may not approve of the product, but the adult filmindustry is an amazingly large business," said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Economic Development Corp. "Given the distress inthe entertainment industry, the success of the adult segment is awelcome anchor in the wind."

A crasser, darker side of Hollywood, the adult film industry makes its staggering sums quenching lust - often with youth. There's no getting around the fact that porn is a business that transforms apple-cheeked young women, many only one or two years out of high school, into buxom sex workers. It's a business with little oversight, no unions and serious health and safety risks.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan wishes the industry was headquartered somewhere else. Although he may not be planning a war on adult businesses like his counterpart Rudy Guiliani waged in New York, he is "ashamed" of the porn industry, he said.

But porn is entrenched here for a reason. Close to Hollywood, the Valley's adult video industry benefits from the busloads of young starlets coming to town, the entertainment infrastructure and the easy morals of the region.

"Why would we want to leave?" asked Greg Alves, vice president of hard-core producer Metro Global Media Inc. in Van Nuys. "If I need something printed, I can go to a printer and they'll do it, noquestions asked. If I go just 30 miles from here, they'll say, 'Hey, I don't do that.'"

Home to the world's largest community of porn stars (around 1,600) and 50 of the 85 top porn companies, the Valley has earned the nicknames Silicone Valley and Valley of Sin. Though nobody knows exactly how many local jobs porn creates, economist Kyser estimates the number between 10,000 and 20,000.

The industry has been based here amid the aging strip malls and countless cul-de-sacs since the mid-1980s, when the home video revolution opened up huge opportunities for porn.

Today, the Valley is full of signs of prosperity - if you know where to look. Jenna Jameson, a 25-year-old actress with a tattoo below her belt that reads "heartbreaker," races around the Valley in a $90,000 Mercedes. She and other top female performers - with stage names such as Jenteal, Sky, Asia and Lexus - earn as much as $5,000 per sex scene, compared with the $500 a scene typically paid tomale performers.

The insatiable demand for new titles is driven by men, who watch the movies to see their favorite female stars. An evolving trend among top producers is more couple-friendly porn, graced with plot,shot on 16mm film and often costing more than $200,000 to make.Still, 71 percent of sex videos are watched by men by themselves,according to Adult Video News.

Though the business is rapidly evolving, 1999 wasn't a perfect year. Adult video sales and rentals leveled off to $4.1 billion last year, down a touch from $4.2 billion in 1997, partly becauseporn is available via the Internet, cable TV and digital versatilediscs.

And while the proliferation of new titles - 175 to 200 releasedeach week - may be a dream come true for skin-flick junkies, itmeans lower prices for producers. A common refrain is that the glutof adult product, much of it amateurish, has dragged down pricesfrom $70 per new release five years ago to $40 today.

Still, there are few flops in the adult world. "You have to try really hard to lose money in this business,'"said Steve Orienstein, president of Wicked Pictures.

09-10-99