A Day On A Porn Set: Real Housewives of South Beach

It’s hard to conduct an interview when Emmanuelle London is stripping in front of you.

The tall, exotic Adult Star was in the midst of taking her “Pretty Girl” still shots on the set of “Real Housewives of South Beach: An Adult Parody.” And as she shimmied off her underwear my next question for Carlos Cavero somehow escaped me.

Even once I remembered what to ask him, I did not hear a word the man said. Thank God for video.

MORE WORK THAN MOST PEOPLE WOULD PUT INTO GETTING REAL SEX

Cavero, whose Production/Management company Pleasure Dynasty Films is responsible for “Real Housewives,” looked more like a Kendall gym rat than a porn producer.  He would not remove his oversized mirrored sunglasses all day and wore nothing more than a white T-shirt and baggy shorts.

“You gotta stay comfortable on these sets. We were here until almost 2 in the morning yesterday,” he said as he pulled his shirt away from his chest. “This business, it’s all work.”

And so we learned.

When you go to cover a porn set, you assume you’re going to spend the entire day watching hot girls have sex. But there’s a lot more to it.

“We gotta get them to shoot the dialog first,” said Director Dana Dane – introduced to me as the Queen of Girl-Girl.

“They come here to do the sex. That’s the part they enjoy. If we do the sex first by the time they get to the dialog they don’t wanna do it. They’re tired. Whatever. So we get this in first.”

Awesome. Running dialog with porn stars. This seemed to me the equivalent of watching Wolfgang Puck do prep work. 

DADDY, WHY DOES MY PLAY ROOM SMELL LIKE YOU DO WHEN YOU COME HOME ON FRIDAYS?

The Female Talent dressing room was a case study in comical juxtaposition. Instead of using a bathroom or even a large bedroom, the producers decided to use a kids’ playroom. So as the girls lounged around half naked discussing implants and orgasms, Little Johnny’s Youth Soccer trophies and Tonka fire engines peered out from the shelves.  I wondered if those kids would ever know what their play room was used for.

London, Valerie Fox and Loni Evans seemed excited to see us. Not so much because we are all that exciting, but because sitting around a porn set gets pretty boring.

As girls tend to do, they used us as a sounding board to complain about other girls. Today’s target was the newbie-starlet they had worked with the day before.

“She was new,” London said as she flipped through her script, “so yesterday was terrible. ’ Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,uh,’” she moaned in high-pitched staccato.  “What IS that?”

“I don’t like faked orgasms at all,” Fox chimed in without looking up. “If I’m watching porn and the girl is faking her orgasms, that’s not wanking material.”

Evans demonstrated a proper faked orgasm as she got her eyebrows drawn on, then burst into giggles like a teenager describing her first kiss. Of the three, the October 2011 Hustler cover girl was the least explicit, even telling the other two to “be nice” when joking around with us in the dressing room.

“Outside of this,” she later told me, “I’m really very normal.”

The girls flirted with us for a while, in that overtly-sexual way porn stars can. It was the sort of thing that a guy who had not spent excessive time in strip clubs might mistake for a come-on. Fortunately, both Carlos Miller and myself have spent excessive time in strip clubs.

TIPS FROM AN EXPERT FOR THOSE STARTING OUT

“Pleasure Dynasty, even though it’s the adult industry, it’s very well organized. And it takes money,” Cavero said as he relaxed on a couch, sunglasses still on.

“I pay $500-$1200 for a house like this. The models are $1000-$1500 each. My photographer gets $300-$600. The director gets $500. And all these other people get $350. And that’s just for one day. I have $600,000 a year in production costs alone.”

Seems small compared to a Hollywood budget. But low-budget scenes can be made for under $2000 in Adult. With varying degrees of success.

“If you have a camera and a girlfriend and think, oh, I’ll make this. It’s porn. It’ll sell, you’re wrong. It won’t. You gotta be organized.”

Cavero is more workaholic than partier. That’s why he says he’s successful.

“You can have a lot of fun in this industry,” he said. “But I’m always working. I love the travel, and I’m always thinking about work.”

He says he does not hook up with any of the models. For that matter, from what Cavero and the models we talked to said the Adult industry is no more incestuous than any other workplace. Off-camera, anyway.

IF YOU’RE ON TIME, YOU’RE LATE. IF YOU’RE LATE, FLY INTO ROID RAGE AND CALL THE POLICE

As the interview wrapped up, a well-muscled man with a distinctively South African accent came up and introduced himself. He was to be the Male Talent for the day’s scenes.

Apparently this Male Talent had shown up two hours late and been replaced. Which meant he wasn’t getting paid (typically about $500 for a scene, or one half to one third what a girl makes) for the afternoon’s work, a fact he was not yet privy to.

A few minutes later he interrupted us again.

“Excuse me,” the ever-polite South African said to us before going ballistic to Cavero, “Carlos I need you to straighten something out…”

“No!” yelled Dana Dane as she chased him in the room. “Let’s take this outside. On the patio. Now!”

They left and we watched them argue until the man grabbed Dane.

“He grabbed me by the arm,” Dane later told as she showed me the purple bruise starting to form on her right biceps. “I looked at him and said ‘Are you really gonna do this?’ Then I just yelled for Dick.”

Dick was her cameraman and occasional Male Talent.

“Always good to have a big, giant Dick on set,” he said proudly.

Dick looked more like a regional sales manager from Cleveland than a porn star from LA.  About 6’3” and bearded, his beer gut and wedding band were more indicative the guy at the end of the bar bitching about his kids than a guy who banged porn stars for a living.

Just goes to show you never know who walks among us.

ONCE THREESOMES WITH PORN STARS BORE YOU, WHAT’S LEFT?

As we watched Emmanuelle London run dialog, Levi Cash, the new male talent, strolled onto the set decked out in Adidas shorts and a grey T-shirt. He also looked exhausted. Exhausted and bored.

“Hey,” he mumbled to us as he picked up his script. He then disappeared to an upstairs bedroom, presumably to rehearse his lines.

“That guy,” Cavero told us, “He works A LOT. Last time we shot with him he did two scenes with us in the morning, then had another two scenes to shoot that night.”

Which explained why he was passed out in the upstairs bedroom when I went upstairs looking for a bathroom.

“It’s over there,” he motioned with a limp arm. And went back to sleep.

I had never seen anyone look so disinterested who was about to have a threesome with two porn stars.

“I know this sounds horrible,” he told us later as he prepared for his scene, “but everything becomes a job after a while.”

Cash moved to South Florida from Western New York, working in mortgage sales. When that industry tanked he began dancing at La Bare in Ft. Lauderdale. One night an agent came in and asked if he’d be interested, and the rest was history.

“But even on my worst day here,” he admitted, “I come on set and mostly have sex with beautiful women. Beats corporate sales.”

He is now described be Dane and Cavero as “A-List Male Talent.” Probably because he can do things like shoot four scenes in a day.

CARLOS MILLER FETISH PORN

As I walked back downstairs, camera men were frantically ripping tapes out of their cameras and stowing them in bags.  Dana Dane was circling the set shouting “Put your tapes away! Hide your tapes! The Cops are here! Girls go back in the dressing room and stay there.”

This was probably the most aroused Carlos Miller got all day.

“They can’t take your tapes!” he announced to everyone. “And don’t let the cops in here, they can’t come in without cause! Don’t let them in!”

The porn crew ignored him. Apparently they didn’t know who he was.

The spurned Male Talent had called the police, attempting to turn them in for doing something illegal. Which they were not. But police sometimes confiscate tapes as evidence at adult shoots. And even if they are ultimately returned it negates an entire day’s work.

“I told them we weren’t doing anything wrong. We’re not shooting in public,” Dane explained. “The cops said ok. Back to work.”

HOW LONG UNTIL MUSCLE MILK STARTS GETTING PORN STAR ENDORSEMENTS?

Cash sat on the dock behind the Ft. Lauderdale mansion waiting for the girls to join him for the still shots of their girl-girl-boy scene.

What most people don’t know about porn is that every scene is shot twice. Once for still shots, then again for video. Which is why sometimes you’ll see something on the box for a movie and say “Hey, I didn’t see that in the movie! WTF?!”

It also means that if you’re an ambitious Male Talent like Cash, and want to shoot four scenes in a day, you’re going to have to finish – visibly - eight times.

“Your pops become less on a day like that,” he said. “You fuel up. Protein shakes, protein bars, you take supplements to help replenish your goods.  There’s a few other things that I’ll take, and I’ll keep that to myself.”

To listen to Levi Cash, being a porn star was more like being an endurance athlete than an actor.

NEVER AGAIN WILL I USE THE PHRASE “HAVING SEX LIKE A PORN STAR”

Even if you’ve seen people have sex in front of you before, on a porn set it’s more surreal.

We escorted Emmanuelle London, Loni Evans, Dana Dane, Cash and Dick the Cameraman out to the yacht docked behind the house to film their scene. Cash still looked like he’d rather be doing his taxes than having a threesome.

Because this is a somewhat family-friendly site, I won’t get into too much detail about what the photographer instructed them to do. But porn, as we learned, is a business. And the sex scenes are no different. It’s not personal. It’s just business. Almost robotic. And because these were still shots, there weren’t even faked orgasms going on. It was like watching sex on mute.

GOOD PEOPLE DOING NAUGHTY THINGS

Despite the inherent seediness of the industry, the people we met involved in Adult were all very friendly, very open, and very real.

The entire day we were on set, nobody bullshitted us. We didn’t encounter any egos. Nobody in Adult seems to take themselves too seriously, probably because they know that what they’re doing – while profitable – is completely ridiculous. Everyone was extremely professional, the complete opposite of mainstream filmmaking.

“People in the adult industry are real,” Cavero said.  “Everybody’s been through hell and back at some point. This is real people.”

All photos and videos by Carlos Miller

 

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