Porn Valley- I spoke this morning to Chris from Ramco. Ramco is the company that put out Clown Porn. Chris tells me a sequel is in the works Clown Porn: Crime Watch.
“We certainly had a lot of fun making it,” he says. When Chris mentions a sequel I’m of the opinion that you could only make one better to The Godfather. “Clown Porn is our Godfather,” he laughs. “We’re about half way shooting the next one and it’s going to be a takeoff on a bad cop series.”
Chris predicts that it’ll be ten times the movie that Clown Porn was. “That was the first movie we ever made,” he says. “And the training wheels are off. We’re finding our stride and we’re having a lot of fun.” Without giving away too much, Chris says Crime Watch will be a takeoff of Cops. “We’re going to do a bust on Charlie’s Angels among others.” Chris says he took into consideration a lot of the feedback from Clown Porn, and there was both good and bad. Asked what the bad feedback might have been, Chris said Adultfyi pretty much documented the Howard Stern take on it which was the prevailing attitude of those who didn’t get it.
“We didn’t understand it [Stern’s criticism],” said Chris. “We’re just trying to have a little bit of fun.” Chris says he and his partner Dave have an adult web background. “We got tired of making other people money and decided to venture out on our own. This is the first project we’ve done and the response has been incredible.”
The moment I lost it during Clown Porn was the blind date sequence where a girl in clown makeup shows up at the door and her date asks her, “Clarabelle- that’s Jewish isn’t it?” Chris said that was one of the throwaway gags they were debating whether to keep in or not. “Everyone has their favorite little moment,” he states. “Mime time seems to be a lot of peoples’ favorite. That happens in the final vignette.”
I extend kudos to Chris for such a well put together project.
“You were the first to mention- I think you called it exhaustively produced,” says Chris. “Thank you very much for that. We spent many a long night editing the hell out of that movie.” According to Chris, his partner Dave, whom he calls one of the slaves to the grind, just pushed back in his chair, literally, one day and said I’ve got it- Clown Porn. Within a week we had written a script. It came together so easily. Along with all the stupid jokes that you come up with when you’re growing up talking with your friends. This is sort of the culmination of all that.”
The thing that’s always cracked me up over the years is to hear comments from people to say that clowns scare them. “I can sort of understand that to a point,” says Chris. “My whole thing with clowns was what are they hiding? Essentially they were invented, I think, to entertain children. But that’s something we want to steer clear of with a ten-foot pole. But a lot of people think we’ve got a clown fetish-thing going on. That’s really not the case. It’s the sketch comedy combined with the porn. That’s our hard angle. But I think we’ve stumbled upon something maybe by accident. Clowns just generate a reaction be it good or bad. So that’s where we have the staying power to be able to get our message across.”
For now, Chris says the company will be milking the Clown Porn cow franchise. “It’s been good to us. We have several ideas for spinoffs. We’re going to continue to make comedy porn.” For this, I tell Chris, I applaud him. Anybody who can find the funnier side of sex and exploit it should be commended, I tell him.
“We call it pornomedy,” says Chris. The company was formed 8, 9 months ago and took that long to pull it all together, says Chris. “Dave and I do everything in house from the writing to the casting to the shooting to the editing. And everything in between. All the graphics- everything was done by the two of us. That kept the overhead to the minimum. Everything was done on a shoestring budget.”
Chris says the company has been successful to the degree where the profits generated from the first movie paid for the second movie. “It’s a new business story, basically,” he comments. “We formed the company with the sole purpose of creating sketch comedy-riddled porn. We feel we’re on to something. We’re not quite sure yet what it is but we’re going to die trying to continue down the same path. The stuff is really fun but it’s a lot of hard work and definitely worth it. We’re really proud of the first movie though I can’t watch the damn thing without noticing every single glitch.”
Stern being the exception, mainstream has also embraced Clown Porn. Maxim in it’s April issue Circus Maximus section, talks about the movie. “They just gave us love,” Chris is proud to say. “It was like your article. They just loved it. They plugged our websites, www.ramcoproductions.com and www.clownporn.net. “Those sites will basically get you to the store,” says Chris. “There’s a trailer on clownporn.net.”
And Clown Porn should have a good run because Chris has at least 20 more ideas for the franchise. “It’s everything from The Wide World of Sports to Fairy Tales to Musicals. Our number one asset here is our crazy, bizarre minds. We know that we can be funny and pull this stuff off.”
I ask Chris how female porn performers react to the notion of dumbing down in clown get up. “A lot of girls, flat out, won’t do it,” he replies. “We look for characters. Like Hollie Stevens and Jenna Brooks are perfect examples. We’re up front with what’s going on and what’s going to be expected of them. A little comic dialogue and all that stuff. They got it from the get-go. They thought it looked like an interesting project and both had a great time doing it. They’re both going to be back making appearances in the second movie as well. And we’ve been approached by a lot of folks who want to work with us because it looks like fun. Again, a lot of girls just won’t do it, but we’re looking for characters- people who can carry through with a sexual performance and a comedic performance. But the people basically find us. We kind of find each other.”
Clown Porn was shot in San Diego in what Chris jokingly refers to as the company’s little rat hole studio. “The first one we did a lot of casting and tried to cull the talent from down here,” he continues. “We wound up probably doing 50-50 through agencies and finds down here on our own. The second one, just because of the whole flake factor- we’re probably going more like 75% through the agencies. Again, a lot of the girls who are in this new one have approached us. Casting got a lot easier after the first one. That’s kind of where we are right now. We’ve succeeded with the first phase and now it’s maintaining the momentum.”