INTERVIEW
It’s week and a half later on a Thursday and Alex rings me, he says to come down for an interview the following Tuesday and gives me the address even though I already have it on the business card, which is now lying on the coffee table in the living room under a few magazines and piled up cereal bowls.
“I’ve got two other guys coming down,” he says, obviously trying to not get my hopes up. “And… you know, they’re more experienced so I don’t want you to get your hopes up.” I knew it! “Do you now Huang from the film school?”
“Huang? No. Don’t think he was in my term,” I reply, knowing that I’m obviously not going to get the job at all.
“Huang? No. Don’t think he was in my term,” I reply, knowing that I’m obviously not going to get the job at all.
“Yeah he was in my term, well he’s coming down, as well as this other guy. But even if you don’t get it, it should be a laugh man. Ya know? Visiting a porn company.” I resign to the fact that I’m not really an editor but yes a visit to a porn company could be a lot of fun. It’s something to write about. Maybe I could put it in a blog.
“Sure, it sounds like a lot of fun. I’ll just be myself, do my best. Whatever happens it’ll be worth coming down.”
“Exactly.”
“So should I bring anything with me?” I start thinking about getting a CV together or something.
“Oh, yeah just bring, like, your CV and do you have a showreel? I know the other guys do.” Fuck. A showreel? I do not.
“I’m sure I can put something together over the weekend.”
“Cool man. Well I’ll see you here next Tuesday at Eleven.”
“See you then buddy.” Damn, a showreel. I bet these other guys have a load of amazing work on theirs. What have I edited? My term two film Gun Death Kill is a two minute action sequence, and Men In The Forest IV: Kingdom Come (With The Thunder) may sound like gay porn but is actually an silly action spoof made over the summer with my friends. I guess I could include the films I directed too; my third term Time Travel documentary and my hitman based grad film.
Over the weekend I manage to edit together a basic showreel, showing clips of my work from the film school and some of the cooler action moments from Men In The Forest IV. I bash out a CV, which basically says I went to film school please give me work. This is my first proper interview for a media related job and I want it to be as perfect as possible, even if I’m not the most qualified.
Tuesday. 11am. I manage to find my way to Fulham and I’m steadily making my way towards where I hope the studio is. I’ve made myself a little map, drawn on some scrap paper but it feels like I’m in the wrong area. All around me are houses. Row upon row of terraced houses and I make my way over the street to the road which this porn studio is supposed to be on and it’s just a simple street, with houses either side. I start to think, fuck, this place is just inside someone’s house. They’re not legit at all. They probably going to gang rape me. What the hell kind of porn studio is based in a semi-detached house? I’m looking for number forty-one and I start looking at the houses; twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven. The road takes a turn to the right up ahead and I start to see a large entrance in the corner. Right on the corner between houses thirty-nine and forty-three is an enormous entrance to a courtyard of offices. I’m headed for unit two and as I’m about to buzz the number two button on the keypad, next to the giant gates, a friendly security guard walks up to me.
“Who ya lookin for mate?” he says.
“Oh, um… Relish Films?” I say wondering if they go by a pseudonym here and I’ve just got them in trouble.
“Yes mate, unit two, just round to the right over there.” He points to a corner of the courtyard. “Here for a casting are ya?”
“A job interview.”
“Yes mate, have a good time.” He winks as if he gets that I’m being subtle and I clutch at my shoulder bag, which contains my showreel, CV and a copy of Bret Eason Ellis’ American Psycho just to boost my confidence. Just like Maverick and Goose boost my confidence in the bedroom, I find that Patrick Bateman’s apathy is a great trick to overcoming any kind of worry or nervous encounter in the real world.
I knock on the door of unit two, which has the same RELISH logo on it that was on the business card. I hear a “Come in!!” and I open the door to be greeted by Alex wandering out of his edit suite.
“Hey man, how’s it going?” he says shaking my hand and leading me inside.
“Yeah, good, it’s weird that this place is right in the middle of a street filled with houses!”
“I know, right?” The office isn’t quite what I was expecting. It looks like an office. Not a porn haven. Sure there are DVD’s lined up in a row on the wall and a couple of posters here and there but mostly it’s just a room with a bunch of desks and computers. I see a woman behind a desk on the phone, some other guy tapping away at a computer and someone obviously designing a DVD cover on Photoshop.
A very tall man gets up from his desk and heads over to me.
“This is Hazza, he’s the boss man, or one of them. Hazza this is Rick.”
“Hey Rick good to meet you.” He shakes my hand and starts peering into the edit suite, which I can hear porn noises coming out of. “So how about you me and Alex go next door and we can have a chat. Do you want a tea or coffee or something?” If anyone asks you if you want a Tea or Coffee I urge you to say yes, it like a prehistoric ritual which helps create a personal bond. They are giving you a gift, you are accepting their gift and subconsciously engaging in some kind of mutual exchange.
“Yeah a coffee would be great, please.”
“Speedy, make us a couple of coffees and we’ll be next door.”
“Sure.” Alex wanders over to the kitchen area of the office and I wander back outside with Hazza and we head to unit one.
Hazza walks with a swagger, browsing through a clipboard in his hand. His messy hair almost comes down to his eyes and I can tell he doesn’t cut it too short to hide the small, bald spot at his crown. I was surprised at his accent, for some reason I had assumed that it would be a bunch of guys from east London with cockney accents but Hazza spoke very elegantly, much like myself.
Inside unit one are stacks of boxes containing what I assume to be porn DVD’s, I even see a few boxes labelled VHS and I’m wondering who in the hell is still buying VHS? It may be porn but still, have some dignity. We walk up some steps and into a small meeting room. I’m still not entirely sure where this studio I was expecting is exactly.
“Take a seat,” Hazza says and sits down himself. I sit in front of a few sprawled out DVD’s of theirs. “So yeah, this is what we do.” He grabs Paparazzi and Maids in Britain 2. “It’s not the hardest porn in the industry, we like to think that we cover that middle ground. Don’t get me wrong this is hardcore pornography, it’s just a little light hearted. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.”
“No, I like that, I love some of your titles, who comes up with them?” I ask, really thinking that I could do much better than a lot of these.
“Oh either me or whoever decides to write something. Is that something you can do, do you think?”
“Oh definitely, I write a lot actually. So, I’d really look forward to writing porn!” Writing porn? Is there really much to these films?
“So let me tell you about the job.”
“Sure,” I interject, wanting to let him know he had my full attention.
“It would be part time. Basically Alex needs some help in the editing room. He’s finishing off Porno Pads 2 right now but we’ve just shot The Cockwell Inn and that needs placing on the timeline, maybe a some kind of rough edit, so when Alex is ready he can get on to that right away.”
“Sure, sure. That’s no problem.” Alex walks in with our drinks and sits with us.
“Fantastic, well done Speedy.” Hazza takes a sip of his coffee. “I was just telling Rick about what kind of stuff we do basically.”
“Cool, cool,” Alex says, giving me a smile.
“So Rick, tell us a bit about yourself, I know you’ve just come from the film school but what…”
“Yeah, yeah, um… I love my action films. My graduation film was about this sociopathic assassin who gets involved with his next target.”
“Nice,” Hazza says, taking another sip.
“I’m originally from Cambridge, moved to London after going to University in Wales, doing Media Practice, became an extra in films and TV and then got into the film school and now I’m here.”
“Wow, yeah, that’s… that’s pretty concise.” Hazza writes something down on his clipboard. I smile. “And… we edit on Avid, I take it you know… Avid?”
“Yep, they have Avids at the film school and I actually edited this forty minute silly little short film on an Avid this summer. So… I’m well versed. Oh actually I have my showreel which has clips of my stuff on it.” I reach into my bag and pull out the DVD.
“Ah great, we’ll take a look at that.” We continue to talk and discuss editing, Avids, Final Cut Pro and their differences until Hazza decides they should let me into the editing suite for a test run.
As we arrive back in unit two Alex and Hazza grab Huang from the editing suite. I recognise him immediately and we say hello. I’m placed in front of one the Avids, a two-monitor unit with a project bin open called Huang and Alex tells me to open my own bin and create a new sequence. I suddenly realise that when we were editing Men in the Forest IV, Joe opened all the projects, created bins etc, while I did most of the actual editing and I have absolutely no idea how to do what he’s asked.
“Uh… Alex, where’s the… how do you open a bin?” I decide that honesty is the best policy and he shows me where to click and finally I see the content ready to be edited.
I’m told I can start anywhere within the scene and just edit as much as I can within twenty minutes. So I decide to take a look at what Huang has done. I click open his sequence and press the space bar. He’s edited about thirty seconds of the intro. A woman’s washing machine has broken down and a guy is fixing it. Unbelievable, that storyline is still being used? Classic. He’s not even managed to edit any sex at all. Surely these guys know we can edit normal stuff, they want to see if we can edit hardcore porn. I quickly browse through all the content available for editing and start my sequence with a shot of the woman lowering herself on top of the plumber’s massive erect penis. This is without a doubt the strangest thing I have ever done. I feel lost; I have no idea how I’m going to edit this sequence together. I take a breath and try to treat it like any other film. She’s just sat on a large penis. I look for a close-up shot of her face for some kind of reaction but don’t find one so choose to cut to a close-up of the penetration. I stick with that for about ten seconds and then cut back to the medium shot where the woman is bouncing up and down with much enthusiasm. I see in the footage that this woman’s husband comes home and joins in during doggy style so I briefly cut through the first position and get them into doggy, again looking for that elusive reaction shot to his huge member being pushed inside her. Again I’m let down and have to make do with this mid-shot. As I lay the shot into the timeline, Hazza pops his head round the door.
“Lots of close ups, ok?” he says, smiling.
“Okey dokey.” I smile back. He leaves and I browse through the uncut filmed footage for the inevitable close up of the action. Listening to the cameramen film the footage is pretty funny; between the moans and groans of the porn stars I hear from behind the camera, “Move ya arm out the way” and “Jimi are you shootin’ hard or soft mate?” and then a reply from Jimi, “I’m shooting soft but I need to move, my knees are killing me like this.”
I cut to the shot of the husband walking in and his immortal line, “Wha’s goin’ on?” The two culprits, also in the wide shot keep fucking. The camera wobbles and I hear, “One more time Jay. Guys, when he comes in yeah… maybe stop fuckin’ and look at ‘im. ‘Cos ya know, he’s just caught you guys at it, right?” I hear a chuckle from the actors and they go for another take. “Still rollin’ Jimi?” I forward the footage to the next entrance and play it. The husband walks in.
“What’s all this?” he says as the two other porn stars stop fucking and stare at him.
“Oh, hi honey,” says the wife.
“What ya doin’?” he asks rather sincerely but she looks at him blankly. “Playin’ around are we, well… ya best make room for me buddy.” He strides over to them and undoes his trousers. “Gotta teach you a lesson about commitment.” I lay the shot down on the timeline a little confused about exactly what lesson he’s teaching her about commitment but also impressed that he managed to get through what little acting was needed and get his penis out so damn quick. I move the scene on and she’s sucking on her husband’s cock whilst being taken from behind by the plumber. I find that I’m reaching a nice pace, cutting from close-up to mid-shot, even finding a couple of shots of some actual expressions and I find that editing hardcore porn on a Tuesday morning at eleven-thirty in the morning really wakes you up. Better than that cup of coffee earlier. My editing speed increases and I find myself actually looking forward to this double penetration position coming up when Hazza and Alex walk through the door.
“How are you getting on?” Hazza asks as I drop another close up into the sequence and turn to him.
“Hold on a sec, I’m just reaching a crescendo,” I say quickly marking some in and out points on a close-up shot of her face from earlier and dropping that at the end of my sequence.
“Come on buddy times up,” Hazza says shooting a smile at Alex.
“Look at him man, we’re going to have to drag him off!” Alex says as I stand up and move away from the computer.
“I really wanted to reach that double fucking position,” I say as Hazza sits in my chair and rolls the sequence back to the beginning.
“The DP? Yeah it’s a good one, well let’s see how much you got done.” He checks the timeline. “Just over three minutes, that’s not too bad, and you managed to get a couple of positions in there too.”
“It was actually a lot of fun. I feel like I want to finish it!” I wonder if I’m being too enthusiastic but it’s actually how I feel. Holy shit; I just edited porn!
I’m sent on my way with a hearty handshake and I’m feeling pretty good as I walk back to the large gate and as I pass the friendly security guard he sees me beaming from ear to ear and takes a drag on his cigarette, gives me a smile and a slow nod as if to say, “Yes my son, you give ‘em one for me.” For the duration of the twenty-minute walk to the underground station and the other hour on the tube to Archway I’m ambushed with images of giant penises and gaping vaginas flashing in my head. It doesn’t help that the only thing I have to read on my journey is the extremely graphic and sexually disturbing American Psycho.
To be Continued....
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