we've had accidents on set as well there
are lots of sex accidents that happen
some are minor a scuffed knee or
or someone
being too vigorous with a [ __ ] and
you know kind of biting a little bit
and
and sometimes guys get on
[Music]
i didn't decide to be a pawn director i
wanted to be a filmmaker i just wanted
to to make films always wanted to make
films
uh i was at the london film school
graduated from there
and a colleague of mine
was working for this company called
relish
um
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 come in with more experience but
it's good to have an interview fresh out
of
the film school and i said okay makes
sense
i went down and
spoke with the 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
and 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 going to start at the [ __ ]
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 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 with him working there i was
behind the camera shooting stuff
but there's this moment where you 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 because you're just
slightly removed and you're just
concentrating on getting everything in
focus
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 coquelin
and the first
movie that i went uh filming with them
on was called fresh off the bus this
very gonzo uh 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 kind of like
action film so 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
what actually is the job of a porn
director um i think
mostly my job entails
telling people what to do like there is
just i'm just a normal director for the
first half of the day we're usually
dealing with 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 so 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 i
the less i have to say the better the
scene is if 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 well 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
not 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 just put your arm down
because you don't want to look like a
teapot when you're sort of doing it but
you'll probably see it now when you when
you watch um any porn scenes you'll see
the guy sort of with his hand here like
this and
like this um
but yeah it's all about opening up for
the camera instead of enjoying it
yourself really but occasionally
uh i'll have to say can you make more
noise um it's really weird if the
performers aren't making a sound at all
just gets a bit creepy and everyone's
like my god this is too much like real
sex can you make it a bit like fake
please
the 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 it almost like
you need
just to show all these positions and
show penetration so if you have a small
penis you just can't get into the into
the positions that look good for for
camera
and that's it really
what is usually the atmosphere like on
the set of a porn film
uh it's very relaxed
um it's very
especially the team that i work with we
have
fun
but we are very
serious when it comes to
um new people that we're working with
we have a meeting at the beginning where
we go through everyone's do's 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 than guys do
and we've been working together for so
many years now that it's it's like a
little family that you go to to work
with
so i think
uh 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 to be around
can you talk me through
any funny moments you 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 was
being he was being pumped oxygen in and
there was a hole for his penis to come
out of
and his wife was dressed in like 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 just starts putting it
down his
penis
and i just remember just kind of
yeah doing everything that you're doing
now just kind of oh like that and she's
like doing this and then she puts that
down like oh and 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 um all right
thanks no i won't shake hands um
and uh i went home and that was that was
probably the weirdest filming day
because i didn't understand the sex act
that they were doing so it's it's
tough to
direct
uh and i've had we've had accidents on
set as well there are lots of sex
accidents that happen some are minor a
scuffed knee or
or someone
being too vigorous with a [ __ ] and
you know kind of biting a little bit
and
and sometimes guys get on
why do porn films always have like palm
based of funny titles what's 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 they were
starting to to be less of them about
um
so these days instead of if you're doing
some kind of parody of a 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 triplex version of this
um
and i think that's just to get
people
you know it grabs their attention a bit
more if it is the actual title but i
i miss the kind of pun based
movie titles because it makes people
laugh and you share the uh the
dvds around like oh my god have you seen
this have you said oh my god look at
these titles
um
so i miss them but they they don't tend
to be around these days too much
one of the earliest
compilation videos that i edited
together it was a compilate i pitched it
let's do a compilation of all the scenes
that end
with a [ __ ] shot where it gets in the
girl's eye
and we called it catcher in the eye
for those literary
fanatics out there
um
we've
done
uh 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 han solo
that was mine that was it was almost
like we have to do this parody just to
use that title han solo and we worked in
some some jokes about him just
constantly masturbating as well
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 script 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
something like that
i remember talking to some people and
they had no idea that porn films could
be actual films with story lines 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 um
digital
filmmaking
uh rose up i think we got a lot of
just sex stuff like gonzo here's reality
here's this you could just see sex it's
kind of real and there's something
quite
um
quite real and
about that i think people like
but there's also
you know spider-man versus superman porn
films and star wars porn films
and all these uh ridiculous things which
super sexy but also
um
super
fun to watch i don't know costumes
locations
did a game of thrones parody who doesn't
want to see that
what do you think about
porn damaging young people and
in a way setting unrealistic
sex standards and expectations for them
um
i think porn has always been there and
porn will always be here
and
and young people do see a lot more of it
these days i think that's you can't
get away from that because it's so
accessible but um but i think it's
really important for young people to
understand that we're
shooting fiction
and it's heightened and it's
porn
by its definition is something that is
designed
to turn someone on
so when we're filming sex
it isn't
real sex it's um
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
i think it's up to
to us as grown-ups to
teach
people
that um
porn is fake
i think that's that's the message really
like if you're having sex with someone
especially for the first time
you don't want to act like a porn star
do you think that 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
uh
sex a lot it did just kind of 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 you know
they're doing that i've i'm moving
lights around to make sure everything's
lit nice
um
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 because i just want to
get it all in
one shot i don't want to tell them i'll
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 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 it's just work
i was wondering about platforms like
only fans for example
do you
see them as threat to porn film industry
in any way no only fans 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 uh the
industry
evolving in some way
and what only fans 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 only fans
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 people to 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 only fans 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
there's
and they're in charge and they're
making decisions about what they're
doing
uh it's been
a bit of an eye-opener for for some
people i think and they've i've been
really surprised about how many people
are okay or comfortable
with showing their bodies online it's
been
it's been really interesting to to see
that
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 ho he
makes porn
in a kind of funny kind of dismissive
way
last question is
is dick bush your real name
yep dick bush is my real name well
richard
do you think your parents set you up in
a way yeah they i blame them completely
[Music]
you know sometimes i'll have a
photographer who's literally six inches
away from my balls and i can feel his
breath on my balls as he's taking the
photos and you know he's just trying to
do his job i'm just trying to do mine so
but if you can work with someone who
you're cool with um it makes that
scenario a lot easier for everyone