CANOGA PARK, Calif. — The set for today’s high-stakes shoot at first glance looks like lots of others that unfold on any given day in the San Fernando Valley.
After all, the cramped warehouse is one of the same non-descript locations that hosts scores of porn shoots every year. Factor in four half-naked girls prancing around in various stages of makeup and the large crew moving furniture and the first scene for HoloFilm Productions feels akin to a major feature getting underway.
That’s where the similarities end.
On this Sunday afternoon in early August, adult industry Internet pioneer Brian Shuster, XBIZ Award-winning director Manuel Ferrara and an elite group of performers and camera wizards are making history.
They’re setting up for the world’s first Synthologram™ porn scene produced for Virtual Reality viewing by HoloFilms, a studio founded by Shuster that is developing Holographic, Synthologram and Holographic Avatar technologies to create content for Virtual Reality.
The Vancouver-based Shuster is the 2015 XBIZ Industry Pioneer Award recipient and noted technologist who launched XPics Publishing in 1995 and the virtual world, Red Light Center, in 2003.
It’s been his vision for more than 12 years to bring Virtual Reality porn to life. In baseball terms, today he’s finally rounding third base and heading for home plate.
His film crew, which features both adult industry and mainstream entertainment experts, is huddled around what Shuster proudly says, “is the only camera array in the world right now shooting Syntholograms.”
Shuster created the term ‘Synthologram’ to describe the technology that allows the viewer to be inside the sex scene with the girls “freely walking around and viewing the entire setting and people in stereoscopic 3D all within a 360-degree sphere.”
But to capture the footage properly is a tall order. For starters, the post-production work required to enable true 3D vision in the 360-degree dome can exceed 30 grand per minute.
So it’s on Ferrara, Shuster & Co. to make every minute count this afternoon. The primary objective is to leave with enough great footage for the demo reel that will become the foundation for the forthcoming Public Awareness Campaign. That campaign will showcase new explicit holographic scenes and ask fans to crowd-fund the production of this revolutionary porn that is also theft-proof.
The campaign, titled #GivePornAHand, will open to the public Sept. 15.
The ultimate goal of the campaign is to open a studio that produces this kind of VR porn and develop content at a rate of two scenes per week.
“This will be the first time to stand up and be counted if you’re in support of porn,” Shuster says.
Given the gravity of today’s situation, Shuster left nothing to chance, hiring Ferrara to direct and perform with an A-list cast led by 2015 XBIZ Female Performer of the Year Anikka Albrite, August Ames, Karlie Montana and Adriana Sephora.
Ferrara, who shared the 2015 XBIZ Award for Director of the Year honors with his significant other Kayden Kross for his work on “Misha Cross Wide Open,” adds instant credibility to the day’s proceedings as a bankable star and proven director. And it doesn’t hurt that porn girls universally enjoy performing with him.
He’ll shoot the quartet of beauties first in a tease and masturbation sequence before a planned sex scene later with Albrite and Ames.
While he’s lining up the opening frames, Kross is building part of the set herself, armed with a staple gun, standing on a stepladder and hanging a row of sky blue drapes.
Albrite can’t help but comment on Kross’s initiative.
“You’re awesome,” Albrite tells her. “You do everything: mom, supermodel, porn star, handyman.”
As the afternoon rolls on the first frame begins to crystalize. Each of the four girls will be standing in front of black couches exactly the same length from the camera array in the center of the makeshift living room. The camera array represents the viewer’s perspective.
“He’ll be sort of king for a day,” Shuster suggests. “Four hot girls all trying to get your attention. Like as if the viewer is standing there right in the middle.”
The difference between this shot and other 3D VR shots is this one is holographic and the viewer will be able to see the total depth all the way around and above him.
“And that is insanely better and it’s insanely expensive,” Shuster notes. “This stuff that we’re doing today is our ultimate demonstration of what a Virtual Reality porn can be.
“We just wanted to assemble the best of the best. The best performers and the best director.”
As we inch closer to go time, Ferrara instructs the girls to start out with sexy dancing. Then all at once, he wants them to turn around and twerk for the camera.
“Don’t be afraid to talk to the camera but try not to all talk at once,” Ferrara tells them.
Finally, it’s time to shoot and everyone except for the four girls must clear the room because the camera array will record the entire 360-degree field of vision. It even means the director himself has to leave.
With Ferrara now positioned a few feet outside the room where his girls are, he asks the 20-something people in the warehouse for quiet and shouts “action!”
A few minutes later the moans start slowly and build to orgasmic screams. The rest will be part of porn history.