One-On-One with Steve Cruz

“In tough and changing economic times,” says Steve Cruz, “really creative ideas are born.” The star-turned-director is looking toward the second anniversary of his self-produced Hard Friction site in an increasingly difficult market for porn. Luckily, Steve’s best asset continues to be his versatility – both in front of and behind the camera.

“I remember the worst directors,” says Steve Cruz, without naming names when I ask him how he first learned to shoot. “[They] enforced a specific vision regardless of the model's abilities or natural chemistry, and often at the wrong time.“

“If the performers are making magic on the set, you roll with it. You have to know when to get out of the way, and when to drive them. As a veteran performer I understand their experience better than anyone.”

I met Steve in 2006 on a Raging Stallion summer shoot in Hawaii. He was hairy, dark and handsome – and at 34, late for a porn debut. Even then, his curiosity about camera angles and production schedules was beginning to betray his bigger ambitions.

Steve decided to do porn when a boyfriend suggested that it wouldn’t be that easy – because it gave him satisfaction to prove that boyfriend  wrong. Within a year, Steve had nailed Best Newcomer at the Grabby Awards, won Grabby and GayVN awards for his scene in Link: The Evolution, and been named Raging Stallion’s Man of the Year.

When Raging Stallion president Chris Ward put a camera in Steve’s hands in 2008, Steve didn’t miss a beat as he moved from working in front of the camerea to behind it. It helped that Steve was a longtime porn fan, and that he had an instinctive feel for what could make a good scene great.

“My favorite films were Jim French's early COLT movies,” says Steve. “There's authenticity between the guys, passion and style.”

In 2008, under the tutelage of Chris Ward, Steve shot Hotter Than Hell. It was a high-profile double-feature with the size, scope, and sets of a production from another era – one when a new director with a good eye and a unique creative vision could still secure a budget that matched his ambitions.

“I've learned almost everything from [Chris Ward],” he says. “I learned patience, and how to work with the best of what each model brings to a performance. He's taught me efficiency, and he reminds me to be flexible.”

After Hotter Than Hell, Steve moved to Falcon (“The first movie I was exposed to was a Falcon film,” he says. “I was a teenager.”) to direct Blue Movie, an homage to 70’s porn with wood panels, shag carpeting, and dirty older brothers in tube socks.

Blue Movie did well for Falcon and Steve got a GayVN nomination for Best Director, plus a deal with the studio. But if the business had changed a lot since the late 70’s, it had changed even more since Blue Movie.

At the height of the DVD boom, a studio with a big hit could expect to sell 50,000 copies at $69.95 each. In 2011, a movie that sells one-tenth that number of copies at half the price is considered a major success. As sales fell, budgets shrank.

“When I started it was a big deal to be an exclusive for one company, to make big movies, and to get on covers of magazines,” Steve says. “The economic crisis, the Internet, and piracy have  made everything more difficult. Gay porn magazines have folded. Bottom line – no one is making what they used to, and models make less than when I started.”

But Steve can’t afford the luxury of nostalgia. With Hard Friction, he and partner Bruno Bond focus on webcasts and one-off sex scenes rather than stories. Though Steve still shoots for both Raging Stallion and Falcon (Rugburn! and Indiscretion are his two latest), Hard Friction is a leaner operation. For another director, tight budgets and shooting constraints  might be a problem. But for an adaptable and innovative guy like Cruz, austerity is a virtue.

“In a live setting, guys are being themselves and real chemistry usually reigns supreme,” says Steve. “The multi-scene, single plot movie is fast becoming archaic and dated. Tastes and conditions are changing very fast, so you have to adapt to survive.”