Continued:

Brennan: Well, imagine this. We moved into this big building and built some sets on the fourth and fifth floors before the building was completely renovated. The guy who started the Latin Connection ran into our landlord on the street and asked if he could video tape a movie in the building. Our landlord told the guy ?Yes? as long as he didn’t use the sets that belong to the Latino Fan Club. Then, a few months go by and we rented the competition’s video and saw OUR sets being used in their video! I mean, what kind of pride could this guy have?

Ross: You mean, the first time you found out about what happened was the day you popped one of their movies in the video machine? No one told you ahead of time?

Brennan: No one told me. At least, no one was aware of it.

Ross: Did you contact these competitors to tell them “Naughty, naughty”?

Brennan: Oh, yeah. And the director Lamont said, “Well, I asked if I could use the building.” But, the landlord told me that he warned director “Lamont” not to go near the LFC sets. I asked Lamont why he would want to use someone else’s sets, but he had no answer for that. Then, I helped some other people get started in the business, like Salsa's director Francisco Franco.

Ross: That was confusing to me.

	Left: Brian Brennan being abducted by 'Panther' (left in picture) and Raven at an LFC Club Party a few years ago...

Brennan: It was confusing to me, too, because he kept making new names for his company seems like about every six months (laughs).

Ross: There was another name, but I can’t recall it.

Brennan: Sun Films.

Ross: That’s it. I thought that Sun was actually LFC. That worried me because the production quality was not up to the LFC standards that I was accustomed to. I wondered what was going on up at LFC. In Sun’s video credits, Francisco Franco acknowledges the Latino Fan Club as if it’s an LFC production.

Brennan: At the time, Francisco, being a friend of mine, wanted to get started in the business, and I tend to be very open and trusting. He had some wonderful ideas, story ideas, and the best titles that I wish were mine! Like “Hip Hop and Hard” and “Hot and Horny Homeboys.” He had wonderful titles!

Ross: Is he still in business?

Brennan: Oh, yeah, now as 'Big City Distributors' and he has a business partner. They also distrubute the old Latin Connection videos, which went out of business about five years ago. ?Francisco Franco? has again undergone another transformation and is now ?Ron Rico? I believe. Early ?Sun Films? were ?presented by? the Latino Fan Club, but not LFC productions. So this caused some confusion, too. He wanted the Latino Fan Club name on his product because I had already built a name and it would help sell the video. We no longer work together, although his website sells our product. (laughs).

Ross: He used a lot of the same guys that you’ve worked with, and it’s interesting that he could not get the same performances out of them that you were able pull out of them.

Brennan: Actually, I think the quality has improved a little, and they’ve made some tapes of Cubans. They’re always finding good looking guys, but I’m not sure they know what to do with them. I shouldn’t say that I suppose, but that’s my feeling.

Ross: How do you cast your videos? Is there a specific formula that your use? What do you look for when you have a title and story? Do you just use whoever is available?

Brennan: Most directors start with a really solid script. All the detail is there, what the characters are like, their characteristics, what they look like, then they cast the video. I start with a very general idea of what my next video might be about, something that I’m interested in, like one video might be about bicycle messengers, or superheros, or college guys. I keep the idea very general. Then, a lot of the characters come from new models that we meet. Today, a lot of the new models are referred by other models we’ve used. So, seeing what they look like and getting to know their personalities helps. Some guys are very extroverted. Some are very shy. Some speak better than others. Then, I start to develop the details of the script. It’s not a solid, written script, but I start to formulate what the movie is about based upon what the models bring to me. And I ask them for ideas, as well. For instance, Juan Carlos did one sex scene in which I didn’t really feel he was good as the “sex object”, but he had a personality just right for our new video “Boyz n the Crib.” I told him he could be an undercover policeman, and his forceful personality was perfect for that role.

Ross: My impression of the models that you work with is that they come from a variety of backgrounds, not just the streets. Is that a fair assessment?

Brennan: Yes. At the beginning, the easiest place to find young, good looking, hot, sexy men who were willing to get naked and jerk off in front of a camera would be the young men who hustle at gay bars or hang out around the Port Authority, boys who are out there in the sex profession to begin with. So, you know exactly what they’re all about. But, now, it’s all kinds of guys from all different walks of life, and for all different reasons. Now, we have professional working people, college students, and guys who are doing it because they’re curious about some aspect of it. It’s more interesting in that respect.

Ross: Most of your performers appear to be unabashedly bisexual. Some even appear to be straight. Do you ever have a problem as a director getting a performance out of a model that you really need for a given video? Do models ever place a lot of limits on you in terms of what they will do sexually?

Brennan: The scene is always limited by the limitations of the models. I don’t push it. I don’t say “Look, in this scene, this has to happen. So, I have to decide who are my best models to do certain things.

Ross: I’m sensing a lot of respect for the models needs and/or preferences.

Brennan: Yeah. Now, when I start to work from a real script, with a specific story, with specific things that need to happen, I have to be more careful in casting, and make sure that everyone is comfortable doing what they need to do.

Ross: That’s something that comes across very well in your videos, that everybody seems comfortable, aside from the occasional erection problem.

Brennan: Yeah. That happens too much. Well, it happens more I would want.

Ross: For the most part, everyone seems to be at ease, and I think that makes your fans feel comfortable. That draws us in in a way that keeps us buying your videos.

Brennan: Yeah, the rhythm of the scene, whether it starts fast or slow, is important. I don’t rent that many gay videos from LA, so I don’t know exactly what’s happening right now. I kind of gave up on that. But every once in a while, I’ll see something new from LA, but it seems like they’re all saying “Here are the rules.” For example, when the guys start to have sex, you never see a limp dick because the men always have erections in their pants. When the pants come down, there’s a full raging hard-on, and the sex is so frantic– like they’re so horny that they have to get to that orgasm as fast as possible! To me, real life sex is not always like that. Maybe it is sometimes, but LFC does it differently. Another thing LFC offers is variety. Young. Older. Thin. Muscular. It’s not all bodybuilders together. Maybe one body builder and then maybe one little boyish type.

Ross: That makes it more interesting.

Brennan: I agree. I really don’t care about rules that LA seems to have. I like to see a guy with a soft dick when he pull his pants down so you can see the foreskin, then it’s more interesting to see it grow hard.

Ross: One of the directors that I used to really enjoy is Chi Chi La Rue, but if you take a look at some of those videos, the California stuff, I get the impression that they’re producing their videos from an assembly line.

Brennan: Almost. I think the problem is that they’re doing too many.

Ross: I’m surprised she hasn’t burned out, yet. But, it’s working for her. There is a market. I was wondering if, once a scene is underway, do you use a special technique to help the performers get going. I’ve heard about fluffers. I don’t know if that’s a myth.

Brennan: We never do that. We never have. Sometimes, when we have a few guys together for a scene, one guy who identifies himself as heterosexual, we’ll put on a straight porn for him to watch, and that usually gets him hard. Males, whether straight or gay, once their dick is hard, they can enjoy sex with another guy or a girl. It doesn’t really matter.

Ross: For the most part, are the families, the friends, the girl friends of the models aware of what their loved ones are doing? Have you heard any stories about families finding out?

Brennan: We always tell guys who are going to do porn for the first time to make sure they won’t have any regrets about doing it. We always ask “Are you going to have a problem with your family if they find out about it?” We’ve had a couple of situations where vindictive queens who just want to start trouble tell the guy’s girl friend or his family. Sometimes, the family says “Big deal.” Sometimes, they ignore it or sometimes they get very upset about it. So, we tell them that after they make the porn and it’s for sale in the stores, we don’t want them to have a big problem, a big family crisis. We’ve had situations lately where a guy’s girl friend finds out. Usually because the guy wants to make some extra money, he’ll do a photo layout for the magazine which is level one. Level two is where he does a porn by himself, and level three is where he does a scene with another guy. That’s like the worst for some people. A girl might tell the guy that she heard he’s doing porn. He may admit to doing nude photos, then hope she doesn’t find out anything more. We do warn the guys of the possible consequences.

Ross: Do you sense a change in this country concerning attitudes about sexual behavior, sexual orientation? I mean, we brag in the U.S. about being so modern and forward.

Brennan: We’re still behind a lot of other countries; other cultures, in that respect. Let’s see if there is some kind of conservative Bush backlash. Someone in the new administration was saying yesterday that they would start by repealing all the laws that have to do with gay rights. If so, there’ll be a real fight, a civil war. People won’t put up with that.

Ross: Bush can’t be that stupid.

Brennan: We can’t go backwards. I hope he’ll just ignore us. I don’t know. Let’s just hope for the best. There are all these forces, these religious groups. Small towns could start passing ordinances to undo the progress made.

Ross: Well, look at what Giuliani has done here in New York.

Brennan: Yeah. Hopefully we’ll progress when he’s out.

Ross: Who has been your biggest star?

Brennan: Freddie Mac. He’s still around. I heard that he still looks terrific.

Ross: I heard that he’s a bartender now.

Brennan: That’s what we heard a couple years ago, but I don’t know exactly where he is right now. He’s around. He was a huge star. He was always number one. Romeo Castillo was a number one guy. Reynaldo De Leon was another. Reynaldo moved to Florida with his family. He got married and has two babies now.

Ross: What do you see in the future for your company?

Brennan: I want to get more young people involved. I’m always looking for creative, self-motivated people. What I would really like is to be able to oversee other people; independent producers whom I can trust to shoot scenes and maybe I would edit with them, but doing less. Basically, I’ve always done everything myself.

Ross: After fifteen years, you deserve a break.

Brennan: Well, I’ve gotten a lot of it out of my system. I have no regrets.

Ross: You don’t feel jaded, do you?

Brennan: No. I do feel a little “desensitized” about sex. For me, sex was always this exciting, mysterious thing. Today, sex is not as mysterious. Nudity was that special thing, that treat, that something that happened once in a while. When you see someone nude, that’s very exciting. I miss that now, as I see it everyday in my work. But I’m not complaining! So, that’s another reason why I want to get away from this, to get that spark back, to make sex more of a special treat.

Ross: Well, if you lay low for a while and have other people work for you, I can only imagine what you’ll come roaring back with in a few years.

Brennan: I want my videos to explore those erotic moments in life, that spark, the leading up to the actual sex act that makes it interesting and erotic. That’s where the personalities and the story line can help bring it all together.

Ross: That’s why stories always meant so much to me. They provided the lead-in, not to say that the sex was not important.

Brennan: That’s why I need to work with other creative people. I’m not a natural story teller. My New Year’s resolution was to slow my pace down a little more. M. Vic Mann would love for me to double the output. He told me, for example, that Big City Video is putting out a new release every week. I said “I don’t care” ( laughs) “How can they be any good at that rate? Anyway that hasn’t been the case.” I’m far more interested in quality than quantity.

***
To tell you the truth, I’d love to see more output from Brian Brennan and his Latino Fan Club, but if he feels that slowing down the pace will ensure even better videos featuring hot, horny, Heavenly Hispanic hunks, then so be it. When you purchase an LFC video, one thing is certain: Quality goes in before the name goes on.

Thanks for a great interview, Brian!