“This is our biggest release ever,” Raging Stallion co-owner Michael Brandon told XBiz. Brandon is a multiple-GayVN award winner who produces all the company’s content from a four-story building in San Francisco's Mission District.
“Passport to Paradise” is being sold at RagingStallion.com as well as BuyGay.comfor four more weeks at a reduced price.
“We pre-hype to our fan base,” Brandon said. “It makes them feel special because they are special.” Back-to-back parties in New York on May 7 at Splash and San Francisco, May 14 at Mezzanie, allow the cast to meet the fans.
“One of the reasons our star has risen is that we are very fan-interactive,” Brandon said.
Revealing that sales have always been better on the Internet, Brandon maintained that a month of meet-and-greets with the cast at L.A.’s Micky’s and a special “Passport” screening at West Hollywood’s Tomkat Theater, along with the coming events in New York and San Francisco, function not only as a sales booster but also as a way to give the cast a pat on the back for a job well done.
Ward is optimistic about the public’s reaction to “Passport,” shot in a mansion in Sonoma County. “This is the finest film of my career and I am proud of it,” he said. “I have been waiting for years to make high budget films.”
In the meantime, the five-year-old studio has become a gay powerhouse, with a stable of contract players viewable on its paysite, Rear Stable, and last year’s award-winning “A Porn Star Is Born,” also directed by Ward.
Brandon told XBiz he is currently in pre-production on four movies and the company employs a full-time production designer. As a performer, Brandon takes particular pride in selecting performers with the right chemistry.
“Casting is 90 percent of a good movie,” he said. He sees if the performers “click” and then tries to keep them apart until the shoot day. “We try to capture the animalistic nature of the performers meeting each other for the first time. Then we film it. If they’re ready to keep going, we film that, too.”
Brandon looks forward to hosting the San Francisco “Passport” event, with guests Manuel Torres, Pete Ross and Ivan Andros. “We’ve finally arrived at the point where we can concentrate on promoting the films, rather than just making them and moving on.”
