Source: Adult Industry News
By: Rich Moreland
By virtue of his thirty-six years in adult film, Jay Crew is living history.
He’s cameraman who began shooting porn in the mid-1980s and did a few years as a “stunt cock,” as he calls it, for male talent who had unexpected performance “issues” on camera.
Over his career, the business has gone through an evolution, Jay says, largely due to the internet. He remembers the 1980s as “the transition from [the] old adult [business]: shoot everything on film, [no matter if it’s] big budget or low-end loops.”
Though the internet altered the porn horizon, Jay kept shooting features.
“I’ve shot for all the big companies. The last big company that I shot with is Wicked and Stormy Daniels. I shot with Stormy for thirteen years.”
In that vein, I reference “state of the business” conversations I’ve had with performer/director Dick Chibbles and Evil Angel’s John Stagliano. Dick claims the art of porn is fading away; John says it’s getting artier. I ask Jay what he thinks.
He’s with Dick on this one.
Scripts are the key, Jay clams, and recalls that “the big companies that are no longer around” often had scripts “anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five pages. Or, if [it was] a good show, you’re sitting there with a fifty-five page script. You have a story there. As a cameraman, you see the vision. You put effort and creativity into it.”
Sadly, that is in the past for the most part. “[Now] I’m shooting things that are six pages long. The scenario is just so small. The sex is however they want it. That’s where the world is right now,” Jay says.
“They call these things movies. That’s not a movie. [At Wicked] we would do two-disc sets because the movie was so long. You got all the BTS (behind the scenes) and all the other stuff that goes on. Those were movies. We’re just cookie cutting [these days].”
Jay brings up the technological advances that drove filmmaking in the 1980s and 1990s.
“There was VHS and Betamax, DVD and high resolution. There was all this conflict and confusion that was going on during that time and I thought the industry was just going to explode,” he says.
Along comes the internet and the rise of piracy that had a huge impact on the business. Porn was suddenly free to everybody.
“All of a sudden everything’s getting ripped off and then 2007-2008 everything died,” Jay recalls. The Great Recession hit the industry.
So, where are we today?
It’s an online business that has minimized film, Jay implies.
“As you can see at this show, it’s all about the girls standing in front of a screen, talking to people. That is the world now because the viewer isn’t satisfied with looking at the beautiful art of the movie,” he laments.
“The DVD gave you the chapters so if you wanted to skip all that and go right to a scene. Now you’ve got [everything] live, I can talk to a girl,” Jay says. She’ll do what you want “because it’s your request.”
The reality, of course, is money. “They [girls] will give the fan what they want as long the coin drops. It’s [about] how much money can she make that day,” he declares.
“So, if you’re not camming or you’re not doing content, or you’re not doing some kind of driving on your social media to create an income revenue for yourself, then you’re not doing it right.”
Where does this leave Jay? Well, he’s still moving forward.
“I’m shooting between fourteen to eighteen days a month [and] two to three scenes a month performing,” he says.
Not bad for a man who’s been around for almost four decades in an industry that demands a sacrificed soul here and there.
Incidentally, Jay Crew uses his real name for his camera work. “I want to be known or recognized for the work that I do. I’m proud of what I’m able to do and the art that I’m able to put out. I’ve never called it porn. I’ve always called it adult.”
A little of the industry’s old days is still around.
