Porn Valley- Master of the porn P.R. universe and one of the partners in X Play, Jeff Mullen [pictured left] was on KSEX Tuesday night with Jew Hefner. Mullen and Hefner discussed Not the Bradys XXX, www.bradysxxx.com.
An instant phenomenon, the movie reached number one status this week on the sales charts; and Mullen, who directed the project [under the porn name Will Ryder], said, yes, there would be a sequel.
Hefner was wondering how long it takes to bring something like this together. Mullen said there was five weeks of pre-production and several weeks to shoot it. It was finished this past January.
"But we sat on it due to legal hurdles," Mullen explains. "The law got changed to alter the parody usage law. We had to find out how it affected us. Then we elected to put it out."
Besides directing and writing the script, Mullen also composed the music and plays the keyboards.
Noting that Not the Brady's is doing far better than you'd ordinarily expect an adult feature to do, Mullen said it's all about proper marketing.
"And talking louder than anybody else," he adds. Mullen suggests that the movie is not just for the porn fan.
"This is also for the girl or guy who normally doesn't buy porn."
Mullen said the recent write-up in the NY Post helped a lot and that Entertainment Tonight's Insider was running a piece on it Wednesday night. www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=24684.
"This puts our product to the guy in Dubuque," says Mullen who's company X Play shot it for distribution by LFP.
"X Play creates more movies for Hustler than anyone," declares Mullen. "And we have a ball doing it." Mullen said his company has reached the point where it funds its own projects.
"We finally got smart and rich enough," he laughs. Hefner wondered if Marcia Brady might be seen drinking a Coke during the movie. Mullen said it's not likely that a mainstream concern would do a product placement deal with an adult movie.
"There's a brick wall between us and the rest of the world," says Mullen. "And they think we're a bunch of creeps."
Mullen's partner in X Play is Scott David.
"His role is that he makes love to all the girls- just kidding," says Mullen. "But he was responsible for getting the movie made."
And Mullen detailed an all consuming line item check list of everything from permits to insurance, required to bring something like Not the Bradys XXX together.
"Fuck movies take a lot of administrative work," states Mullen who noted that David was also responsible for the look of the female performers in Not the Bradys. Hefner thought that the dead-on resemblances were the most convincing aspect of the feature.
Hefner was also of the opinion that there's a lot of shitty porn out there right now. And, according to Mullen, a lot of shitty companies making it.'
"They should be ashamed," he says. "Some people learn and get better. Others keep putting out the same old shit."
Hefner thought there was a lack of good gonzo and good features coming out and wasn't particularly impressed by Operation Desert Stormy.
Mullen seemed surprised to hear that but at the same time gave props to those adult companies who raise the bar.
While Hefner felt that Not the Bradys was funny and did the trick, Mullen accepted the compliment graciously.
"I'm not writing for the Seinfeld show," he concedes.
Mullen is also a product of 15 years in the music busioness and just produced a concert at the LA County Fair that featured acts such as the Ohio Players, Heatwave, The Brothers Johnson and Rose Royce. Mullen laughed about how he took a 19 yar-old girl with him.
"She's not getting it," says Mullen. "Here's this gorgeous girl in a sea of middle aged people. And she's pulling out a novel. I just drove her back to her apartment. There was no need to stop off at my house."
Mullen, who grew up in Milwaukee, said he considers himself a musician first before anything else. Early on in his career Mullen was influenced by R&B great Alexander O'Neal and later wound up us a keyboard player for The Backstreet Boys.
"I didn't think they'd make it," he laughs. And Mullen says to this day he's continually reminded of it.
"They joke to me about you fucked up."
Mullen also recalled writing musical scores for director Roy Karch back in the Eighties.
When Mullen saw that the music business was tanking, he collaborated on his first project with David, titled Web Chicks Gone Crazy. After that fiasco, David and Mullen decided that one of them had better learn the adult business. And so Mullen went to work for Scott Taylor at New Sensations.
Mullen said he basically fell into promotions and marketing, knowing nothing about it but convinced Taylor he had all the answers.
"I was bold in the interview," Mullen says. "I told him I didn't want anyone telling me what to do. I wanted complete autonomy and I didn't work Fridays. He said, okay."
Two years later Mullen left New Sensations but extremely grateful to Taylor for the opportunity. According to Mullen, his and David's goal was to become proficient at marketing while making movies they could promote themselves.
Asked if he was ever going to make a movie that wasn't a parody, Mullen didn't give a definite century when that was going to happen. Instead he looked to the next project ready to come out which is the J Ho movie starring Rene Cruz.
"She's everything I love in a woman," he says. Still, Mullen didn't sound too enthusiastic about spending $300,000 of his own money on projects with gravitas.
"I like beach movies," he laughs.
Asked if there was any award that would mean the most to him, Mullen thought he'd like to win one for Best Music.
"That would be the most rewarding- but if I had to lose to anyone, it would be Eddie Van Halen." Which is what happened at this year's AVN awards.
Mullen said he was also pulling for Paulina James to become the next Best New Starlet and wouldn't mind seeing Sunny Lane get it for Female Performer of the Year as well as crossover star.
"She's my friend- I want her to win."
With Mullen admitting that the success of Not the Bradys XXX came out of left field, he recalls how he and David were on the cusp of bombing out of the business.
And that's when he came up with the Britney Rears idea.
"No one wanted it," says Mullen.
Eventually he worked out a deal with Mark Hamilton who was at Hustler at the time.
"He said you own it, we'll distribute it- it became the biggest selling movie of the Larry Flynt empire that year. We looked like geniuses."
Then when it came time to pitch the Bradys project, Mullen said Hustler's Drew Rosenfeld told him they had to have it as well: "You can't go with anyone else."
Mullen said at some point in time he'd love to do a project with New Sensations.
