“We started the series with Justine Joli’s ‘Red Letters,’” co-founder Keith O’Connor told XBiz, “and we got a great response to the trailer — even though the movie won’t be out until July — so we decided to solicit fan email to be the basis of a monthly project featuring different stars.”
Both O’Connor and his partner, Anthony Simone, left Metro in February to found Defiance Films. Along with their third partner, Matrix Content’s Norman Bentley, the trio are putting together a company that regularly produces performer-directed material.
“I’ve never been in front of a camera, so what would I know?” O’Connor said, pointing out that performers Shy Love and Taylor Rain have put together Defiance’s “Red Letters” and “Ski, Bitch!” respectively, and that Lauren Phoenix will be directing her own fan mail-based vignette film in July.
O’Connor said that he comes up with a plot synopses and then has his directors run with the story.
The fan mail series, which will include Taylor Rain’s “Nasty Letters” and Paola Rey’s “Latin Letters,” will expand to include one lucky fan being flown to the set, all expenses paid, to read his or her letter along with the star off the film.
“But only if [the winner] is comfortable being on camera,” O’Connor said. He added that since the company announced the new contest, he has received dozens of letters from fans, mostly from the East Coast.
Defiance works out of eight offices on the first floor of a building in Calabasas, which also houses its shipping and receiving department. Editing and filming are done offsite. “As with the directors,” O’Connor said, “we are slowly discovering what works, and we will probably bring more things in-house as time goes on.”
