Our Artistic Vision

Truly erotic films take the time to let viewers get inside a character’s skin. They make viewers feel the same sensations that the character feels. Like the heat of a partner's skin, a hand on the back of the neck, or even the smells of sex. We want to create erotic films that evoke far more than merely a vague sense of being turned on.

Some people believe that erotic films are necessarily romantic or soft. But for us, great erotic films portray the
intensity and feelings that exist in many kinds of sexual encounters. And our erotic films activate all your senses to create this effect.

When we talk to our friends of both genders, the most exciting moments were not about sexual penetration.We remembered our feelings when someone gripped our hair, or the way someone looked at us. When shown on film, such simple activities generate an powerful erotic charge if the viewer feels they're in that moment too.

Women shouldn't have to choose between erotic films and ones that show real, intense genital sexual activity. A perfect fantasy sexual episode would show it all, and erotic pre-penetrative moments make the rest of sex infinitely hotter.

Our Principles

Sexual energy is healthy and life-affirming.

Everyone, and women in particular, deserve more outlets for sexual energy (in or out of a relationship).

People enjoy sexual feelings best when surrounded by a rich environment of other feelings.

Getting turned on is a perfectly reasonable and legitimate reason for anyone to watch a film.

What Kinds of Films Do We Make?

We make erotic films that are fascinating, engaging, energizing, and most of all sexy. As the film’s credits scroll at the end, we want the viewer to be filled with sexual energy.

Naturally, most people are familiar with the idea that watching a certain kind of film could be sexually arousing. Many people enjoy feeling weepy during heart-tugging dramatic films, frightened during thrillers, or happy during feel-good Hollywood movies. Why should seeing a film to feel sexual energy be any different?

There’s a need for a new kind of film that bridges the mainstream movie industry and the so-called porn industry. Neither one fully engages the legitimacy of creating sexual feelings. The mainstream movie industry tends to sanitize sex scenes so they won’t overly sexually stimulate the viewing audience. In contrast, the porn industry provides sexual images plentifully and cheaply, leaving no time for the psychological/emotional context that fiction could provide.

So if our films aren’t mainstream films or porn films, are they so-called "art films”? Perhaps, since that term is often applied when films bridge two or more established genres, in this case of mainstream classical film and porn film. However, most art films don't share our goal of creating sexual energy.

Blue Artichoke films prioritize the sexual relationship. We fill out and color the characters the right amount so that you can understand how they think and feel about personal situations and their relationship with each other, but not so much that the film becomes a “character study” at the expense of that sexual jolt.

We also allow our stories to bring up other related but non-sexual feelings. For example, a film about people working together (such as our film Matinée) would naturally bring up feelings about wanting professional respect, fear of failure, and feeling judged by co-workers. Our films recognize and integrate these emotionally important themes into the film to make the sexual charge even better.

Some people are going to say that our films are, in fact, porn films. In some ways they are, and in some ways they aren’t. It’s really difficult to define porn, but what most people definitely mean is that porn's goal is to turn you on. Also, porn focuses on explicit sexual acts, particularly penises entering vaginas. Porn doesn't care about emotional or aesthetic experiences, or about character and narrative. Porn implies real sexual acts, rather than actors pretending to have sex in Hollywood movies. Porn sometimes exploits actresses who are poverty-stricken women with few life choices. And porn uses style clichés like genital closeups, terrible lighting, slapdash sets, and low-quality video.

By these standards, our films have only one thing in common: the goal to turn people on. However, nothing else in that list describes us. We're not very pornlike. For instance, our films included interesting characters/story, don’t need to show “real” sex every minute of the film in order for the sex to seem engaging and real, look rich and well-made (unlike most porn), and of course only involve cast and crew who truly and wholeheartedly want to participate for artistic (and not primarily monetary) reasons.

We call our movies "erotic films". This seems to reflect the purpose, aesthetic, and effects of our films. At some point we may invent a better term that captures the idea of extremely sexy film which is beautiful yet designed to arouse. Yet we’re also still fond of the phrase “porn for women,” and our cast and crew need to be aware that outside individuals and/or the media might use the word “porn”, particularly because it looks titillating in print.

More and more films are starting to crop up in this erotic area between independent film and porn, most recently Michael Winterbottom’s “9 Songs” (2004), John Cameron Mitchell’s “Shortbus” (2006), and the art-film compilation “Destricted” (2006), all of which have attracted significant critical acclaim. This “crossover sexuality” movement first started among primarily-European filmmakers in the early part of the decade, such as Catherine Breillat’s “Romance X” (1999) and “L’Anatomie De L’Enfer” (2004), “Y Tu Mamá También” (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001), “Intimacy” (Patrice Chéreau, 2001), “Baise-Moi” (Virginie Despentes and Coralie, 2000), “Lucía Y El Sexo” (Julio Medem, 2001), “The Piano Teacher” (Michael Haneke, 2001), “Ken Park” (American artist Larry Clark, 2002), and the films of Lars von Trier’s spinoff erotic production company Innocent Pictures (“All About Anna”, 2005).

How We Turn People On

Characters and Stories

While the characters both aren’t cookie-cutter, they’re basically good people. People identify more with characters when characters are basically decent people, no matter their flaws or intense sexual needs. And stronger identification leads to a stronger sexual response when you see a character experiencing sexual pleasure. While you can decide to do this with one porn character and keep the other character a mystery – for example, a main female character has sex with a faceless man in a club – the biggest erotic charge results from actually switching back and forth between identifying with each character in a scene.

Our films explore men's psychology and motivations, not just the women's. This creates a richer and more entertaining experience and adds information viewers use to identify with male characters and feel invested in whether or not he's sexually satsified.

Male and female characters are intensely involved in some kind of a relationship, but they don’t necessarily end the story as a couple, or expect to do so. Stories can be meaningful without being lovey-dovey and overly feminine-traditional. Sexuality for women doesn't need to be bound up with monogamous romance.

Note: Blue Artichoke's founder, Jennifer Lyon Bell, developed these character and emotional aspects in her masters’ thesis for the University of Amsterdam.

Actors

For realistic erotic stories, actors playing the main characters must seem like real people. It’s a challenge to find the right actors for a project like this because the acting standard, both in and out of bed, is high. Mainstream adult actors and actresses aren't known for their believable acting. Fortunately we've been able to find very believable actors who can portray sexual feeling while integrating it into the rest of their character's emotional life. Some actors are professionally-trained, some are non-actor artists such as dancers or performance artists, and some are regular individuals with a natural flair for acting and collaboration.

Lead actors and actresses need to be comfortable as actors, comfortable as sexual beings, and comfortable together. Finding actors and actresses who connect with one another onscreen has worked well. Future films may have real-life couples who are trained actors/actresses or real-life couples with natural acting talent. In all cases, we want actors and actresses to be attracted to each other. Rehearsals should be exciting and explorational.

To make conversation natural, actors don't need to follow the written script exactly. The rehearsal plan includes time to work together to adapt scripts to each actor's natural speaking rhythms.

The realism in Blue Artichoke films is enhanced by actor styling, such as hairstyling, makeup, and costume. We’re trying to reflect the aesthetic of independent film, not porn. Most people of both genders would like to see a lightly fictionalized real-looking style. They want to see attractive people one might actually meet in day-to-day life.

People can relate better to women wearing interesting clothes and underclothes, whether they be cotton boy-cut panties or La Perla lingerie. When you see a nice skirt being slowly pulled up her thighs, you’re more likely to imagine feeling the same happening to you. The same goes for styling the male characters’ outfits: comfy jeans or a turtleneck sweater are attractive clothes that also feel familiar enough to touch.

This styling needn’t be expensive. It's usually quite the opposite. The aesthetic clichés of traditional porn have made sex unbelievable to many viewers. The big hair, the heavy makeup, the stiletto heels, and the spandex outfits rarely provide a sexual jolt to modern viewers and only serve instead to visually suggest that porn sex must be a big fake act. In contrast, we want to put our actors and actresses in attractive, touchable versions of real-life outfits.

Shots and Editing

Sex scenes in porn tend to lack very simple shots that portray intensity and connection in regular feature films. For those people interested in the technical terminology, we believe that “shot-reverse shot (S/RS)” and “(emotional) facial reaction shots” help to make the viewer feel a part of the action.

Shot-reverse shot (S/RS) shots go back and forth between the faces of the two persons involved in a conversion or sexual interchange, often from an over-the-shoulder perspective. While it seems awfully simple, this basic technique helps the viewer understand how each character feels about what’s being said/done by the other character on a moment-by-moment basis.

This technique not only improves the non-sex conversations, but also the sex sequences. In real life, most couples "check in" visually with their partner from time to time to see if their partner is getting more aroused, and to enjoy their partner’s reaction.

Also, facial closeups during sex scenes are very powerful because they show every little thing the character is experiencing, and these shots lend a sense of intimacy and immediacy. However, in most lovescenes, even in porn made for women, the camera lingers on the face of the woman, rather than the man, in sex scenes. While some straight male viewers might appreciate the familiar sight of women front-and-center like their real sexual encounters, it’s not enough for most straight women. Women need to see how much pleasure the man is experiencing and to hear the changes in his breathing because men are their sexual partners in real life. The male and female characters’ faces are thus both equally important.

Editing should serve the story. Shots should be shorter and snappier than in most porn films, which tend to be quite draggy. And while we're big fans of exploring the physical textures of the lovemaking scene (sheets, skin texture, hair), we won’t add shots of unrelated objects for artistic purposes. There is more than enough opportunity to create a mood within the framework of the story. Shots of sexual activity are short by traditional porn standards because shots of sex can start to look boring and monotonous if they go on too long. Explicit sexual images a couple seconds long pack an enormous sexual wallop, especially when presented in the context of the character’s other thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Attitudes About Sexual Communication

We also treat sexual communication differently. Most traditional lovescenes, both in Hollywood and porn, assume that participants magically know how to please their partner. That's an appealing fantasy, but not the only appealing way to approach sex. Most porn films demonstrate this magic understanding by portraying people so highly aroused that they moan and shout through every minute of the sex. In contrast, the sexiest scenes in any film are those in which there is some subtle communication – a few words, or an intake of breath – that shows that while the character might have enjoyed the preceding moment, this moment is even better. This communication type subtly opens up the viewer to the state of mind of the character.

Style and Production Quality

The style needs to radiate the impression that these are high-quality, unique films. To some extent, this means understanding the technical aspects of filmmaking and financial investment in great filmmaking equipment, professional lighting, on-location sets, careful sound miking and mixing, and a lush music soundtrack. This also means finding experienced professionals willing to work collaboratively to achieve the tone and style we want.

Traditional porn films tend not to prioritize film style. Every film of ours will have its own visual style. For example, for our recent film Matinée, we were inspired by Julio Medem’s (2001) “Lucia Y El Sexo” with its intense hazy light and textural feel. The final style then evolved from a collaboration between Jennifer Lyon Bell (the Director), the Director of Photography, the lighting technician, and the Art Director.

In developing a style, it seems wise for us to continue to avoid the techniques of the porn genre, since they may put viewers in a frame of mind where they stop believing in the story and start impatiently waiting for sex scenes to begin. For instance, a typical feature of porn is the handheld shaky camera look. While this technique is used all the time in independent films to stunning effect, such as in Lars von Trier’s gorgeous “Dancer In The Dark”, we'll avoid this filmmaking style.

Silence is just as important as music in Blue Artichoke films. While musical scoring sets a mood and can help to visually smooth out a scene's editing, we also incorporate segments of background silence in order to emphasize the impact of the sexual sighs, breathing and other sounds while still allowing them to remain subtle. In contrast, porn’s typical constant drone of excitement (“yes, yes, yes, do me baby", butt-slapping, etc.) ring false for most filmgoers these days, and doesn't reflect the sexual give-and-take nonverbal communication that many people love. The mixture of silence and sexual noises like breathing and cries impart a sense of realness to the sexual noises when they do occur.

Conclusion

The most important reason we make erotic films has nothing to do with money, but because we want to make films that we would really like to see: erotic films that take the time to let viewers get inside a character’s skin, and films that make viewers feel, or seem to feel, sensations that the character feels, and films that are beautiful and turn us on.

Jennifer Lyon Bell, Director and Owner
Blue Artichoke Films