Flesh leads the way, again

February 12, 2011
For an informed view on connected entertainment in the UK & Ireland, visit Cue Entertainment 

The first week of February witnessed the launch of a successor to the original “Lovers’ Guide”, a sex education video for adult couples that has spawned more than a dozen follow-ups and TV documentaries over the years. “Lovers’ Guide – Igniting Desire” is the first Full HD 3D Blu-ray title authored in the UK, a disc “The Times” describes as the “Avatar” of sex instruction.

Its arrival is a milestone in the progress of an innovative series, which began in 1991 when the BBFC granted the VHS an 18 certificate and allowed the legal public sale of adult sexual activity on video for the first time.

Although some sources attribute the victory of VHS over Betamax to the availability of adult content on the winning format, this rewrite of history is apocryphal. Sex sells, however, and the biggest-selling non-fiction title in the UK on VHS will forever be the original “Lovers’ Guide”, which sold 1.5 million copies and went on to be the foundation of a successful international franchise.

Optimum Releasing is the UK distributor for the Blu-ray 3D disc that marks the 20th anniversary of the title, and parent company Studio Canal + will look after the rest of the world. Original producer and creator of the brand Robert Page recalls the furore it engendered at the start: “People were quick to attack what we were doing. There was opposition from Mary Whitehouse, of course, and from critic Frank Kermode, who called it ‘cheap, nasty porn dressed as sex-ed’.”

Optimum Releasing Senior Product Manager Ellie Davies explains that there were reservations at first but it soon became an exciting project to work on: “When the VHS was first released, it was terribly controversial. Now, it is a much-loved brand and a recognised trade mark.”

Even 20 years after its first release, people remain wary about adult sex education on video and the retail trade has welcomed “Igniting Desire” cautiously. “Not all the supermarket chains have taken it, but it is available on-line from every major e-tailer and specialist stores,” says Davies.

Page is very enthusiastic about the 3D release despite the complexities of production: “Watching it in Full HD 3D is more immersive and less voyeuristic than the 2D versions, where you are almost a fly on the wall. The 3D engages you in a direct and involving fashion; it’s much more compelling.”

He says, “I really believe that this 3D version provides an extraordinary big-screen experience in the home. ‘Lovers’ Guide’ is for people to watch and learn, and it brings the message to a new group of people in a whole new way. I don’t deny that it is popular, and of course it is erotic but it is not pornographic.”

Page is full of praise for the way Optimum backed the project to bring it to market despite the fact that the budget for the live action shoot and editing was “quite high”.

Technical problems led to frequent retakes and the shooting ratio approached 40:1. Page says, “We had difficulties with the video, even though we used the absolutely brilliant Red One camera. The pictures were great but there were problems keeping the cameras in step – one would go faster or lag behind the other, they would end up out of sync and we would have to reshoot. Given the content, it was tough on the performers.”

There were human errors too, as Page recalls: “We recorded over a fantastic 3D tracking shot down a bar. We lost it completely, which I thought was impossible. I expected a message saying ‘Do you really want to record over this?’ – but there wasn’t one. It had gone forever.”

Page says that 3D is such new technology that they were feeling their way all the time during production. “Was it William Goldman who said ‘In Hollywood, no-one knows anything’?” asks Page, who believes that saw is true today of 3D: “Luckily, we had this terrific guy called John Chalk who edited the final film and made sure the stereoscopy was right. He ensured that things didn’t pop out in front of the screen too much.”

Late last year, the edited masters arrived on the desk of The Pavement MD, Andy Evans. He realised that authoring must be completed before Christmas to have any chance of getting through the supply chain in time for pre-Valentine’s Day sales.

He says, “We had two weeks to create the Blu-ray 3D title, so we called everybody together and set some ground rules from the start. We built the disc as close as possible to a conventional Blu-ray title, with standard menus, to give us the best chance of delivering a professional product within the time scale allowed, including testing and verification.”

Evans commissioned the Hollywood testing company BluFocus to ensure that the Blu-ray 3D disc met the correct specifications, a step that he considers as an important insurance policy: “Within 48 hours, the content owner has a certificate in hand to say the disc meets the Blu-ray 3D specification. In these early days that is a great confidence builder.

“BluFocus pointed out some issues that were more to do with players than with our authoring, we sent them a revised disc image, they gave us the all-clear and it went straight to replication at Sony DADC. There was no time for a ‘version two’. There would have been nothing worse than releasing this high-profile title only to discover compatibility issues with some players.”

In the light of their experience with the title, Page and Evans have some words of advice for independents that seek to release 3D titles of their own. “Discuss the project with everyone involved, even before you start shooting” tops the list.

Page says, “The art of editing for 3D is a whole new ball game. Dissolves look different, and it all has to be taken more slowly. One of the critics of the Blu-ray 3D version wrote, ‘Each of the sequences is a sort of lock-step’ and he had a point. The unrelenting rhythm is partly the consequence of the slower pace required for 3D and I’d like to find ways out of that strait-jacket in the future.”

The rapid cutting that adds pace to a 2D production is unsuited to stereoscopic 3D viewing, and Disney has announced that it will always release a separate edit for 3D versions of its products. Evans says, “If there’s a nice shot of a mountain you want to watch it for longer, as James Cameron proved with ‘Avatar’. Floating islands and blue people weren’t a lot of use as a manual for making this film. Cameron can build anything in post, we had a little more difficulty.”

Evans underlines the dilemma of the two-SKU approach for independent rights owners: authoring becomes more expensive and replication charges double. With two product SKUs there are other cost issues – two AACS licenses are required, packaging costs increase, stock control and version identification is a problem. Evans says, “For an independent, the cost of making two versions can become prohibitive. And that is before you add the anaglyph (red/blue) 3D DVD and a different edit again to meet the Sky 3D regulations.”

Despite his reservations about production costs, Evans says that the 20th anniversary edition of “Lovers’ Guide” is a well-produced piece: “It is very nicely shot. They have thought about the 3D and have put a lot into it. Optimum is rightly very proud of it and any concerns I had about reactions from our other clients proved unfounded. They simply want to know that we have completed a Blu-ray 3D title, how long it took, how much it cost and when we can do one for them.”

At Optimum, Davies says, “There was a limited theatrical release, which helped to generate a lot of interest, followed by the Blu-ray 2D and DVD anaglyph 3D version, with his-and-hers glasses. The Blu-ray 3D disc was in the stores in time for Valentine’s Day and we consider it an alternative gift proposition for couples.”

Page has no doubt about the need to make the content available to a wider audience despite the two decades that have passed since the first release. “We have helped millions of people with their sex lives through our VHS and DVD titles. Apart from Mary Whitehouse, we’ve had nothing but tens of thousands of letters from happy couples,” he says. Fans write often that the film “has saved our marriage.”

Something Evans writes on The Pavement Facebook page echoes the VHS/Betamax legend: 

“Once again, flesh is at the forefront of a new format.”