Scott Masters

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Scott Masters , pseudonym and Robert Walters , real name Warren Stephens (born before 1966) is an American photographer , director , film producer and entrepreneur .

Life

Masters grew up in Illinois where he attended college. In 1966 he came to San Francisco , California from Chicago . Many of the bookstores he visited there (including gay bookstores and sex shops ) were openly selling gay pornography at the time . Masters then opened a small business that bought gay pornographic magazines as a middleman for local booksellers. He also offered photo collections from photographers such as Bruce Bellas and Walter Kundzicz ("Champion Studio") and nude film recordings from the Athletic Model Guild .

In late 1967 he teamed up with Reuben Sturman to publish a magazine with the work of Walter Kundzicz. The first edition, entitled Champions All , was published in 1968. Masters moved completely from Chicago to San Francisco during this time, where he took a full-time job as an accountant for a printing company. He now began to work part-time with male models as a nude photographer in order to create additional images for his magazines. Although the US Supreme Court ruled that male nude photography was not an obscenity back in 1962, the United States Postal Inspection Service continued to view the depiction of a swollen or erect penis as obscene, citing federal postal law court orders. Even so, Masters continued to take both erotic and pornographic photographs showing individual models as well as couples and group scenes.

After the Supreme Court in 1967 further relaxed the rules on profanity, and further lower-level court orders further restricted the ability of state organs to confiscate same-sex pornographic material, Masters began to publish gay porn magazines from 1969 onwards. The first magazine of this kind was called Hard? . By the end of the same year, Masters was bringing out up to six new magazines a month. In total, he published more than 500 magazines with homoerotic photographs and gay pornography.

In 1970 Masters produced his first pornographic film, entitled Drilled Deep. It was an 8 mm film loop around 60 meters (200 ft) in length, which was primarily intended for peep shows . The then gay porn star Jim Cassidy starred in the film. In order to distribute his porn films, Masters founded the studio The Stephens Agency , but gave up film distribution as unprofitable in 1972. However, along with lighting technician and cameraman Jim Randall, he continued to produce porn film loops.

During this time Masters developed the so-called “West Coast Look” in gay pornography, a very stylized and planned way of staging pornographic films. Similar to a stage play, there was a very linear plot. Short intermediate scenes create continuity within the film and establish the theme, mood and the location of the action. The shot changes from the long shot to the close-up again and again, the scenes are well lit so that there are few shadows and details are clearly visible. The models were lavishly styled and made up for the recordings.

Also in 1972, Masters was charged with profanity in Texas . He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in prison with a three-year suspended sentence and a fine. The judge also suspended the fine after Masters told him he was paying a child to college. What he didn't tell the judge was that the young college student was his lover. Following his conviction, Masters reduced production numbers but continued to work in the porn film industry. By 1976 he had produced more than 100 pornographic film loops.

In 1973 Masters directed his first full-length gay porn film. The film called Greek Lightning was produced by Jaguar Productions and starred Jimmy Hughes. Masters often shot in real locations without permission, producing one of the best-selling gay porn films of the 1970s:

We did some rather audacious things. We shot on top of a train in Train Town in Griffith Park without a permit, while one of us was given one of the guards money and another of us was talking to another guard, just so we could get the shots finished. We knew we couldn't be there long. All we had to do was do our leger demain for five or ten minutes and be out of there. And we certainly couldn't pay for it.

“ We did some pretty bold things. We were shooting on the roof of a train in Train Town in Griffith Park without a permit while one of us gave money to a guard and another of us engaged another guard just so we could finish the shoot. It was clear to us that we couldn't stay there long. So we only had to keep the deception going for five to ten minutes and then leave. There was no way we could have paid for it. "

- Scott Masters

Masters deeply disliked this type of filmmaking. After Jaguar Productions later drastically re-cut the film, he vowed never to make a porn film again.

In the same year he founded the gay softcore porn magazine In Touch (now In Touch for Men ). After two years, however, Masters gave up the management of the magazine, but remained its owner.

Nova Studios

Masters founded the film studio Nova Studios in 1976 , at that time still under the synonym Robert Walters , with which he sold porn films in direct sales and through adult bookshops. The first film he produced for Nova was titled Tubtricks. Masters doubled the length of the film loops produced by Nova to 400 feet (120 meters), bringing the runtime of the films to nearly 20 minutes. After the success of the film, Masters continued the series of long film loops with the also very popular titles Kept After School, Beached, Tricking, Hot Lunch, Jocks, That Boy Next Door and Down on the Farm .

In 1980, Masters began videotaping much of the film loops from his time before Nova Studios, as well as early Nova material. Without his knowledge, however, his lover had already licensed much of this material to a large number of other customers. As a result, Nova Studios' financial situation deteriorated significantly as this material (often of poor quality) flooded the market.

Masters tries to keep Nova Studios afloat financially by starting to make sound films . In 1981 he shot It's the Life, his first porn film with a sound track. However, filming went so bad that Masters ended up shooting a large part of the footage without sound. It wasn't until 1983 that he released the first film with a sound track. In the meantime, Nova Studios had lost significant market share. Masters also began dubbing some of the older film loops in 1981 , adding music, narration , and asynchronous sound effects to bring them back to market and generate additional income.

In 1984, Masters hired Chet Thomas to edit some of the late Nova films. But later that year, Masters Partner embezzled all of the company's bank balance and disappeared along with the original negatives from Boys Town, Nova's latest film. As a result, Masters found that taxes for the company had not been paid for several years. In view of high tax demands and further debts of 60,000 US dollars, he sold the license rights for the films of Nova Studios to the company LA Video. In 1986 Nova finally stopped the production of gay porn films.

Work for the Catalina Video

In 1987 Masters was hired as production manager at Catalina Video , founded in 1978 by William Higgins . Catalina had already taken over the distribution of Nova Studios films since 1982. Against the background of the difficult financial situation of Nova Studios, Higgins and Masters had concluded an agreement: Catalina acquired the rights to the not yet released film Boys Town and Masters was able to sell the remaining film rights from Nova to another distribution company. Catalina also hired him as a production manager, where he would occasionally write and direct screenplays. Masters sold virtually all of the remaining licensing rights to LA Video. which, however, went bankrupt a few years later, which meant that the rights to practically all of the Nova Studios' material could no longer be used.

Due to the big changes in his life, he stopped using the pseudonym Robert Walters and from then on worked under the name Scott Masters.

The first film he produced for Catalina was The Bigger They Come (1987). For the first time, Masters shot a pornographic film in a film studio instead of using a real location. His next film Down for the Count was the debut of porn actor Jon Vincent. For Catalina, he is also hiring Chet Thomas again to edit the film, with whom he had already worked at Nova.

While at Catalina, Masters became friends with director John Travis, who had worked for Brentwood Studios and Falcon Studios since the early 1970s . In 1988 Masters recruited him from Falcon and Travis directed My Best Buddy , his first film for Catalina, that same year. Travis had struggled with morale at Falcon, but the collaboration between himself and Masters was pleasant and his productivity increased significantly.

In 1989 he also hired Josh Eliot for Catalina. The company was growing and wanted to open a second studio in San Francisco. Although Eliot was originally hired to head the new location, he quickly became one of Catalina's most sought-after directors. In addition, Masters is partly responsible for the career of gay porn director Chi Chi LaRue . LaRue had come to California in 1987 and accepted a position in Catalina's sales department. From there he was promoted to the advertising department and was looking for a possibility to work as a director, but Masters refused him. LaRue left Catalina in 1989 and moved to InHand Productions and Vivid Video . After Christian Mann had succeeded Mike Merrick as studio president of Catalina, he brought LaRue back there, who was shooting Billboard with Joey Stefano there as his first film . LaRue states that Masters forced him to learn how to direct, which laid the foundation for his career.

The change in management at Catalina meant that Masters significantly reduced his work there. Although he was still managing the production, he had less and less influence on the casting decisions. When Merrick finally bought Catalina, Masters decided to leave the studio.

In 1991 he met Matt Powers, a newcomer to the porn business, whom he used as an actor for the film Lifeguard on Duty . The two were in a relationship for a while. In the same year Masters discovered a number of other porn actors, such as Lex Baldwin, the brother of the heterosexual porn actor TT Boy . Although Masters was against producing the film, Baldwin was cast in Powertool 2 , the sequel to Jeff Stryker's debut film Powertool. He also spotted Cody Foster , whom he cast for Malibu Pool Boys , and Blade Thompson, who first appeared in Behind the Barn Door .

Studio 2000

In 1992, Masters founded Studio 2000 with director John Travis , who had left Catalina with him . After contract disputes arose, Travis began working under the name of John Trennel. In 1999, Masters announced that he was planning to retire, but soon returned to the porn industry. He and Travis hired Jan Novak, who made films with European actors for Studio 2000 for the international market. Novak later moved to Bel Ami .

In the 14 years that Masters was co-owner, Studio 2000 films won multiple awards including the Grabbys , Gay Erotic Video Awards, and GayVN Awards . In April 2006 Masters sold the Studio 2000 film studio to David McKay and financier Trace Wendell , but remained there as a consultant until October 2006.

In 2000 Masters was honored with a GayVN Lifetime Achievement Award. He has retired and lives in California.

Works (selection)

as director:

  • Drilled Deep , 1970
  • Kept After School , Nova Studios
  • Beached , Nova Studios
  • Tricking , Nova Studios
  • Hot Lunch , Nova Studios
  • Jocks , Nova Studios
  • That Boy Next Door , Nova Studios
  • Down on the Farm , Nova Studios
  • The Bigger They Come , 1987, Catalina Video
  • Down for the Count , Catalina Video, (with Jon Vincent as actor)
  • Lifeguard on Duty , Catalina Video, (starring Matt Powers )
  • Malibu Pool Boys , 1991, Catalina Video (with Cody Foster as actor)
  • Behind the Barn Door , 1991, Catalina Video, (starring Blade Thompson )

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Jerry Douglas: Behind the Camera: Scott Masters, Part 2 . Manshots, November 1997
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Jerry Douglas: Behind the Camera: Scott Masters, Part 1 . Manshots, November 1997.
  3. ↑ United States Supreme Court , MANual Enterprises v. Day , 370 US 478, 1962
  4. ^ A b Thomas Waugh: Hard to Imagine . 1996; Barron & Dienes: First Amendment Law 1993.
  5. ↑ United States Supreme Court, Redrup v. New York , 386 US 767, 1967
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Rex Hardesty: Nova Studios, Part Two: The Final Years. Manshots, August 1997
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h Rex Hardesty: Nova Studios, Part One: The Pre-Sound Years. Manshots, July 1997
  8. ↑ Jerry Douglas: Gay Film Heritage: Jaguar Productions, Part 1 . Manshots, June 1996
  9. ↑ Chi Chi LaRue : Making It Big , 1997.
  10. ^ John W. Rowberry: Adam Film World 1993 Directory to Gay Adult Video . Knight Publishing, Los Angeles 1993.
  11. ↑ Doug Lawrence: JC Adams New Production Chief at Studio 2000 . Adult Video News, July 2006
personal data
SURNAME Masters, Scott
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pseudonym, Scott; Walters, Robert; Stephens, Warren
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer, director, film producer, and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH before 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Illinois , United States