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Want A Closer Look At The 1980s Porn Industry In NYC?
By
Jen Carlson
Published Feb 15, 2012
Modified Feb 15, 2012
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Feb 15, 2012
Modified Feb 15, 2012
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We've seen New York in the 1980s, and things were looking pretty Mad Max, so it's unsurprising that in the dark corners of the city was a booming porn industry. Now, Barbara Nitke is aiming to bring it back, sort of. She tells us, "I have a campaign currently running on Kickstarter to publish a photo book behind-the-scenes of making porn movies in New York in the 1980's. A lot of people don’t know there was a porn industry here in NY back then." She sent along many photos that she took at the time, documenting around 300 porn movies with still photography. We can't publish them here, but you can see them all in this video (NSFW x infinity!):
She writes, "we shot real 35mm film on big movie cameras. Home video cassette players had barely been invented. There were no DVD’s, no home computers, no Internet. People went out to downtown movie theaters and watched sex movies on the silver screen. Our shoots lasted anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, with a crew of at least twenty people. We all put a lot of care into the script, the acting, the lighting, sound, editing—all the aspects of real movie-making. It was the Golden Age of Porn, and I was thrilled to be a part of it." As this author can tell you, having worked (as a writer) for the same industry, a lot of care is still put into some of these movies! But yes, even with the better quality films out there, it's nowhere close to '80s porn.
As for where this was all going down, Nitke tells us, "There was a studio in Corona Queens, aptly called Adventure Studios, where a lot of the movies where made. It was there from the 1970s and director Jerry Damiano shot there a lot, followed by another big name director of the period, Henri Pachard. We also shot a lot in a loft in the East 20s, and a midtown townhouse (reputedly owned by somebody who was in jail)."
Tagged
1980s
adult entertainment
barbara nitke
industry
kickstarter
Porn
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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