Porn Valley- I spoke to Big Bob at Dane Productions, www.daneproductions.com, this week on the occasion of the company’s 10th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Dane rolls out the big spread at LA Erotica this weekend, and Bob sums up the company’s state of affairs, thusly.

“We are here and we’re still in business,” Bob declares merrily.

“We’ve survived a lot of bad things over the past many years,” he concedes. “There was a lot of pirating, our product was taken from us and there was a lot of animosity. But we’re still here. We’re surviving and we’re still doing new releases.

“We have a tremendous inventory and a catalogue of 175 titles,” he continues. “We also distribute for other studios [Summer Haze, Omnique Erotia, Ricardo Santini, Dave Pounder, Daydream, Camel Toe to name a few] and we’re satisfying customers needs.

“They’ll call me and say, what else do you have besides Dane,” Bob goes on to say.

“And I try to have some product to give them that’s a little different and at a price they can afford which they can make some money on. They keep coming back to me and buying it. The difference between our sell-through product and other companies’ sell-through product is my warehouse man, Eddie. He’s been with us for four years, now. He packs everything individually- the way people want it. They want certain genres, certain types and he’ll pack it exactly the way you want it. Whether it’s a dollar item or a ten-dollar item, he handles it all the same, and he’s very good with the customers.

“We really care for the customers. We depend on their support. We don’t mind spending money as long as we feel it’s going to do some good for our customers and for us. We try to please the customer and give them exactly what they’re looking for. That’s the way a company stays in business- you listen. You tell customers a price, that’s the price you give it to them for. You don’t come back a week later and say I can’t do that price any more. If you commit to a price, you give them that price. Even if it’s mistake and you lose a few cents, you lose it. Because in the long run it’s going to pay you dividends and they’ll come back and buy again from you.”

Such as LA Erotica and the Expo in Miami several weeks ago, Bob’s always taking the opportunity of going to events and shows to get the name Dane out there.

“Because we’re not a large company, we’re a smaller company,” he reasons. “But we’re a company to be reckoned with. We have good videos- they’re shot very well. We don’t skimp on the shooting costs. We hire the best people to do it for us. We hire good performers and we try to do the best we can and it seems to be working. And we’re still here. In this business, ten years is saying something because a lot of companies come and go within a year. Ed, the owner of the company is a good guy to work for. He’s decent. He treats the help right and we all wear five or six hats because of the fact we have to. Things are tough. It’s not easy out there- people know this- it’s a hard, hard row to hoe right now. It’s a tough situation but we are surviving and hopefully we’ll be here another ten years.

“We’re going to the show this weekend- we have a very large booth [Dane’s partnering with OSK Productions] and we have a very beautiful young lady signing for us, Caren Cann, who’s in our new video, Black Candy Asses 5. By the way, she’s a Mensa- a brilliant woman- she’s a very bright girl and unusual girl and still going to school. She’s very into education and she’ll be signing for us those three days. I hope fans will come out to see her.”

Bob explains that the owner of OSK, Mark, travels from city to city, shooting in a hearse.

“We distribute him also, by the way,” says Bob. “And that should be a lot of fun. because the nice thing about doing this, last year we had a problem bringing our product in and out of the place. Now we don’t have to worry about it- we just put everything in the hearse. Because most people don’t want to ride in the back of a hearse, that’s for darn sure.”