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jaxton wheeler

Get To Know Legendary Film Director Jasun Mark

by Ryan Shea

For so many articles that I have done about people in the gay porn industry on Manhattan Digest, they have always been people who have performed in front of the camera.  As talented as a lot of them are (my hand definitely thinks so) all of what they do wouldn’t be possible without the people behind the lens.  Someone behind the camera who has done an incredible job at making a name for himself in the gay porn industry is Titanmen director Jasun Mark, who has worked for huge studios ranging from Jake Cruise to Fratpad to Cocksuremen.

I have been a fan of Jasun’s work for years, not to mention that he himself is pretty easy on the eyes.  I also have gotten to know him personally and on top of being a fantastic director he is also a very intelligent human being who has a keen eye on what is going today, both in and out of the industry.  I recently sat down with Jasun to discuss it all, from how he got into the industry, his meteoric rise to where he is today, people he still wants to work with and where he sees his future.  Take a look.

So Jasun, how did you get involved in the adult industry to begin with?

My first actual paying job was as an HTML designer for a Canadian porn site called Bedfellow, but I really feel like I got my “real” start working for Fratmen and Fratpad. They hired me as a video editor and graphics guy, but before long I was taking part in production and marketing and just about every aspect of what we were doing. Fratpad was a crazy 24-hour cam circus, and while it was 24-hour stress and work, I loved it all. A lot of people copied what we were doing, but Fratpad really was the first and I think best-ever cam house. My first feature I directed on my own was a documentary about our shoot in Australia called “Fratmen Going Down” and then I started shooting a lot of the fun at Fratpad. Those Jack-Off Races were mine. I’m honestly really proud of how well all that stuff turned out, considering I really didn’t much know what I was doing.

I left Fratpad after about 4 years because I wanted to direct hardcore and I knew I was never going to be able to do that where I was. Leaving Fratmen was hard… it was like a close knit family there. But I knew when it was time to leave the nest. I’m still in contact with everyone there, and we’re all still friends. There was no bad blood leaving. I took a job with Jake Cruise… He was starting what was at that time called “Jake’s Men” which was essentially JakeCruise.com without Jake. That, of course, is what was eventually re-named CocksureMen. That was a total dream gig… I was basically allowed to do whatever I wanted. I spent four years learning how to direct on the job while shooting content I actually wanted to see. I’m very proud of the work I did there.

But the brass ring for me was ALWAYS a job working for Titanmen. Titan had been my favorite studio since the 90s and it was always a dream gig. Getting the call from Brian Mills asking if I wanted to come hang out on set and shoot some bonus content for the new François Sagat movie was like getting called up the Big Leagues. I still have to pinch myself that this is all real.

Anytime someone has the desire to enter an industry, there are usually inspirations that drive that particular passion.  Did you have any yourself prior to joining?

It’s funny, when I was studying film and even when I was in high school wanting to become a film maker, I was divided between whether I wanted to do children’s horror movies, science fiction or porn. When I was in elementary school I was already writing scripts. Sadly I came from a music family so my begging for a movie camera was laughed off as a silly dream and I was forced to take cello and bassoon lessons, which in itself explains why “children’s horror movies” was on my want list, probably (laughs). But by the time I was in high school I was writing a lot more porn-ish scripts. Most of which were about teenagers stuck in small towns escaping to a city that tried to eat them up but the protagonist always ended up making the city his bitch.  I guess my musical background was always there. When I was in high school I recorded an album of songs for my Canadian Literature class that had a song called “Stand Up” about football players checking out each others dicks in the shower. So I guess I was always a bit of a sexual shit-disturber.

What I’ve always loved about making porn is that you’re getting people at their most primal and personal. I can make all the comedy or Sci-fi movies that entertain people [Jasun Mark worked on the Gay Film Festival darling “Birthday Cake” and the Sci-Fi Zombie Web Series “Project: Phoenix”], but porn is what really gets under people’s skin. I’ve heard from so many young men that they were scared, lonely gay teenagers who thought they’d never find a place to fit in until they saw those Fratpad Jack Off Races where instead of getting called “faggot” for expressing sexuality, there were a bunch of guys standing around cheering. One guy told me that after he saw that he knew everything was going to be OK and he was going to find a place where he’d fit it. So I guess the “Ricky/Kent Jerk off race” was my best “It Gets Better” video.

Credit to: Jasun Mark
Credit to: Jasun Mark

Your work has been primarily behind the camera, was there ever a thought of performing in front?

Honestly, no. I’m um… well, I’m not physically what a porn star should look like. I’m pretty short and stout and I just can’t be arsed to work out enough really look good on camera. When I was doing marketing for Jake Cruise, I did actually stand in for Jake doing some massage videos where I was fully clothed and I did one scene with my friend Adam Russo for Nasty Daddy just to see what it was like to be a performer. But I never really considered being a porn star and no studios have asked me. I’ve always wanted to be a film maker. I never really seriously considered performing.

You have worked for high-profile studios like Jake Cruise, Cocksure Men and of course Titan.  Do you have a particular favorite scene that really resonates with you to this day?

Oh man… that’s a hard one. I’ll choose that Ricky/Kent Jack Off Race from my Fratpad days. From Cocksure Men I think I’ll choose the 3-way with Dean Monroe, John Magnum and Devin Draz. I was chatting with Dean the other day and he told me that of all the scenes he did in his 20-year career, that’s one of the few that he still jerks off to. From Titanmen… Almost too hard to nail down. Maybe the opening scene from Nightfall where Thomas is lured from out behind his computer by Alessio Romero. Or the one with Hunter Marx and Damien Stone in Bad Cop. There’s also one coming out this coming Christmas with Jesse Jackman and Eric Nero where I finally got to put some of my cinematic chops on display. I’ll admit that it’s going to be fun to show people I can do more than just shoot good video of hot men fucking…

Credit to: Jasun Mark
Credit to: Jasun Mark

What about performers, anyone in particular that stands out for one reason or another?

I’ve been so lucky. I got to work with some of the best gay porn stars going. François Sagat, Dean Phoenix, Dean Monroe, Arpad Miklos, Allen Silver, Jesse Jackman, Johnny Hazard, Adam Herst, David Anthony… the list goes on and on. I’ll tell you this… François is one of the most unappreciated geniuses I’ve known. And I grew up in a family of university professors. He’s fascinating and disarmingly nice but surprisingly modest and shy. He’s an enigma, but I’m so proud I got to work with him and still stay in touch with him.

Coinciding with that, is there anyone you would like to work with both in front and behind the camera?

There are a few guys I’ve wanted to work with.  I regret I never got a chance to work with Kennedy Carter, but I’m so proud of how well he’s done post-porn. I wish I’d gotten a chance to work with some of the greats like Leo Ford or Anthony Gallo. Guys currently working… I still hope I can get a chance to work with Jaxton Wheeler. Behind the camera… I’ve worked with Joe Gage and Brian Mills… so I guess my only remaining idols are Kristen Björn and ChiChi LaRue.

What is your take on the industry today?  Do you find the word “gay porn star” to be a bit of thing of the past?

Not at all. I think it’s easier to BE a gay porn star now so the term is a bit watered down. I also think that as porn performers become more accessible to us, they lose a lot of their mystique. Now you can friend and follow your favorite porn stars on Facebook and Twitter and interact with them in a way you never could in the golden age. But we still have huge stars like Jesse Jackman, David Anthony, Trenton Ducati, Adam Russo, Rocco Steele… I mean the list goes on.

As far as the state of the industry… I think we’re still at a cross-road much like the TV and music industries. The digital age has meant some HUGE changes to how people access and consume content. 20 years ago, production companies had people by the balls. You had to buy things how they chose to sell them. Record labels ruthlessly monopolized record store shelves, TV schedules were chosen for us along with programming. Now that people have broken that model and can consume content in their own ways… it’s evened things out in ways we never thought of before.

Now a tiny artist like Justin Bieber from a tiny town in remote Canada with NO industry connections can use Youtube and become the biggest pop star of a generation. Small home-made porn sites like Sean Cody could totally buck the system and sell his content only online on his own self-hosted, cutting out DVD retailers altogether… and that revolutionized how gay porn was DONE. Look at how the guys from Where The Bears Are have been able to skip the middle man and get their fans to fund their series season by season. Independent Radio shows didn’t really exist before iTunes launched Podcasting. Now even the major players are diving into that. None of that would have been possible in the 90s and most of that wouldn’t even have been possible until about 2005 when we got Podcasting and Youtube.

Even making a movie on a very tight budget is possible if you’re willing to do the work. Digital film making has made budgets almost unimportant. People ask me how much I had to spend on all the digital effects in Nightfall and Dick Danger and the answer is “nothing.” It just meant I stayed up very late for a couple weeks and did it myself. Now you just have to be willing to work your ass off.

All of this means that the porn industry has had to constantly reinvent itself and adapt to a new digital age where we’re putting out a new scene every week instead of a new movie every month. We have tighter budgets and more competition for people’s attention on Twitter and the blogs. We have to have a well-designed and easy to navigate site, we need to have a good social media presence AND we have to have good movies. I find it all exciting but yes… it’s not as easy to get rich making porn as it was maybe in 1997.

Credit to: Jasun Mark
Credit to: Jasun Mark

What do you have planned for 2016 that your fans can be excited about?

I have some amazing stuff in the works. the really sad thing is that I can’t really talk much about it. Titanmen has a pretty long turn-around time for our movies because we all like to polish and perfect and do all the work we can to make them their best possible and THAT means other studios that turn their stuff around in a week or two can easily copy what we’re doing and release their crappy knock-off the same week you release yours. I think starting this Thanksgiving with my Dad/Son movie Like Father Like Son you’ll see exactly where we’ve been going… more stories and scripts and characters. More hot setups and more developed ideas. Let’s get back together in April and you’ll see just how hard we’ve been working. I can tell you that Like Father Like Son is the most story-driven porn movie I’ve ever directed. You can already see the trailer and people are going ape-shit for it. So looks like I struck that primal nerve I was talking about.

Ultimately, what is your biggest goal for yourself moving forward?

I used to say “to be lead director for Titanmen” and I’ve been letting myself bask in that glory for a bit. But now my job is to pick up that mantle and run with it. Titan has a very proud history and I know just how much responsibility my job came with… so I guess my goal is to live up to the standards of what came before me.

Official Site

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Titanmen Official Site

Filed Under: LGBT Tagged With: adam russo, anthony gallo, brian mills, chichi larue, cocksuremen, david anthony, francois sagat, hunter marx, jake cruise, jasun mark, jaxton wheeler, jesse jackman, joe gage, kennedy carter, kristen bjorn, leo ford, rocco steele, sean cody, titan men, titanmen, trenton ducati

Get To Know The Handsome & Intelligent Dirk Caber

by Ryan Shea

Dirk Caber, Manhattan Digest

Sometimes when you take one big one, you gotta get the other in there as well.  What do I mean?  Well after interviewing megastar Jesse Jackman for Manhattan Digest a couple of months ago, I was curious to know more about his other half.  I am talking about the uber sexy and devilishly handsome Dirk Caber, who has been partnered with Jesse for quite sometime now.  Being part of one of the gay adult industry’s super couples, they have drawn quite the following on their Facebook and Twitter pages, spotlighting many moments in their lives but also having a separate viewpoint in what is going on in and out of the industry.

I have been a big fan of Dirk’s for quite sometime now, even meeting him before a movie premiere back in May right here in New York City (loved the kilt btw).  So I wanted to sit down and get to know him more.  I recently sat down with the Boston hairy lad to discuss his take on his time in the industry, how he views being seen as a “daddy” in many scenes, his relationship with Jesse, and how music is playing a vital part of his life outside of the camera.  Take a look.

Dirk Caber, Manhattan Digest
Credit to: Dirk Caber

Hi Dirk! So first question is super important- Chipotle or Moes?

I presume we’re talking about Moe’s Subs & Italian Sandwiches, the chain in New Hamprhsire? If so, the answer is NOT Chipotle!

Hehe. Now that is out of the way, let me ask you about your humongous success in the adult industry. How did you get your start?

I got involved in the BDSM scene in NYC many years ago, about the same time I started taking my physical health more seriously, lost a bit of weight and discovered that under that fat was muscle. Through the S&M world I made a number of good friends worldwide, one of whom turned out to be Paul Wilde, at that time director of the ROUGH line at Titan. He said that it was rare to find someone who knew their way around a length of rope and a flogger who also looked the part, and if I were interested, he’d he happy to have me at Titan. It took about two years for me to finally feel confident in myself enough physically to say “Let’s try it”, and even then figured I’d make one or two films and that would be the end of it. Four years later now, and some sixty films for some dozen studios, and I’m still going strong, much to my deep astonishment.

Many men (and women) start at a young age in their early 20’s. What made you start later on in life?

It’s when the possibility was first raised. First of all, as fat as I was in in my 20’s, I had an impossible time getting anyone to even think of me as physically desirable, let alone actually have sex with me. I certainly didn’t see myself as any sort of sexual being in those days; I was an intellectual and an artist, resigned to what I expected to be a fairly monkish life. I spent those days expecting a fairly ascetic future and hence working on other aspects of myself; this part of my life didn’t bloom until much later.

A lot of your scenes revolve around you being the “daddy”, especially your recent series with men.com. What’s your take on that? Do you embrace it?

It does make me chuckle. But then, I myself have always been attracted to more mature men; I generally dated guys ten years my senior. Even now at 43 I still find fit men ten and even twenty years older than me sexy; the key difference is that I’m now at a point where I can look at a guy appreciably younger than I am and still see a man and not a boy. I have one friend who’s in his mid-sixties now, still fit and viable and full of sex appeal. His take on aging is to keep yourself up physically, stay young at heart, and don’t do anything too stupid to yourself. The first and last I can take care of myself, but having younger friends certainly helps with keeping me young at heart too. Might be a daddy with silver in my beard and chest hair, but I’m certainly no old man!

You are partnered with the incredibly sexy and very smart Jesse Jackman. How did you guys meet?

Everyone thinks we met on set or something like that. We didn’t; a mutual friend, not in the industry, introduced us during Folsom weekend in San Francisco. He figured we’d make good friends, but I don’t think had any expectation that we’d hit it off THIS well, especially considering that we lived 850 miles apart at that point, he in Boston and me in Chicago. We’ve now been together for almost three years and lived together for well over a year; we’re going as strong as ever.

I’ve had his take on your relationship within the industry, but is it hard to maintain a healthy one when you are having sex on camera with other people?

It all depends on your own confidence in the relationship. Both of us were already in the industry when we met, so it’s not like it was a later conundrum to have to deal with. We’re both highly sexual creatures, and we both understand sex as an expression of affection beyond just the “one and only”. We have sex with each other as partners, we both have sex with friends outside of that, often together, sometimes separately. I indicated when we first formalized the relationship that I’d a few friends with whom the relationship was more than amicable, it was sexual, and I wasn’t prepared to lessen those connections merely because “I gotta boyfriend now.” It’s because Jesse and I know full well that we come first in each others hearts that fucking around with someone else we’re close with and trust becomes essentially as un-threatening as having coffee with them. We have only one rule, as I’m sure he mentioned as well: “Never bring home anything you wouldn’t want to share.” If you think about it, it’s really amazing how applicable that is on so many levels to a relationship. Beyond that, the whole trick to staying connected is to communicate (always my challenge, quiet guy I tend to be) and to stay absolutely honest with each other.

But that’s just the open relationship aspect. Going back to the industry, the misconception everyone seems to hold is that this is what we do, that we daily go into the office (the ‘orafice’? LOL), fuck some other guy, and walk home with our paycheck. In fact neither of us is in the studio more than a couple times a month at the most, and sometimes not at all for months at a go. If that paucity of extraneous sex were the biggest challenge our relationship were burdened with, we’d consider ourselves very lucky indeed.

Finally, we’ve all seen porn couple after porn couple split as one retires or one’s career outpaces the others. Indeed, colleagues warned me and Jesse against getting together, as they’d seen how jealousy, not necessarily sexual but in fact also professional, so often can ruin such relationship. I know only a few porn couples well so my expertise here is admittedly limited, but those I know tend to be, like us, relatively stable, and I think for the same reasons we believed we’d be successful. Porn is not a long-term avocation, and hence not something which as a commonly-held bond for a couple can be counted on more than a few years. Jesse and I recognized far more shared interests and commonalities, from the importance of our families and “day” careers, arts, fitness, and friends to a shared nerdy geekiness, senses of humor that are either cracker dry or kneejerk whiplash puns, passions for music, gadgets, and sci-fi films. And knowing that porn is an ebb-and-flow prospect, we do enjoy taking turns supporting the other when one’s on the wax and the other’s on the wane. It makes us even more of a team.

Dirk Caber, Manhattan Digest
Credit to: Titan Men

Speaking of the industry, what is your take on it now? With the evolution of web-only content seeming to exceed DVD sales, do you think the overall landscape of it has changed?

Decidedly! And in more ways than we really have space to delve into here. Nearly all the older larger studios have had to revamp the way they actually produce content as well as how they release it to keep up with the change of technology and hence how we consume our porn. This is hardly the first time this industry has undergone such growing pains; studios had to retool themselves with the advent of videotapes when people started watching at home instead of in theaters, and again when DVD came along and people could more easily fast forward through non-sex content, for instance.

Also, now that we’re more able to afford a camera and some lights to film and post to the internet for general consumption, it’s no longer just a few large studios producing content using equipment and dissemination resources beyond the means of any smaller pornographer. This leads to the springing up of smaller studios already based on the newer internet-based and single-scene-oriented studio model which has become so predominant today; many are coming to produce truly polished content certainly coming to approximate what the larger studios have always been able to produce. Conversely, this ability to afford the camera and the ability to post online has caused an explosion of free online content. Some of these home videos are okay, of course, but much of it might be characterized as “two fat guys out of focus in a badly lit room fucking on a flowered duvet.” At the moment I know there’s a lot of motion in the world that, irrespective of the quality of the content, if it’s there for free, why pay for it somewhere else? The problem is that this means less revenue for the studios, which means less production and less incentive for performers to be at the top of their game. When, as I suspect will happen, there’s a backlash against the cheap free content online and a desire to return to a more polished product, I hope these studios are still around and able to oblige.

Who did you look up to in the industry growing up?

I’ll confess I didn’t pay it much attention. At the time I would have written that off to “not being a sexual creature”, but I now understand that it’s more than that. I need more than just the visual stimulation to find a situation hot; I need the smells, the tastes, the physical contact, the connection. Porn is essentially limited to a visual medium, meaning that much the same way I can appreciate when a woman is truly beautiful without feeling any urge to get her undressed, porn usually left me tumescent. That said, I’d met a few porn stars with whom I’d made a connection, rarely sexual, but which certainly have left a positive mark on me. Mike Dreyden was my boyfriend for over a year and is still a treasured friend. Through Mike I met Alessio Romero who when I later entered the industry was such a help and support and is also a very close friend. I had a splendid conversation one night outside of View Bar in NYC with Alex Baresi who I think is still one of the sweetest men ever. Heh, I’m thinking hard, and I know I’ve got further industry friends whom I’d met before I started and while they were current, but because I know them now outside the industry, I forget that that’s how I first came across them.

Are there any active stars that you would love to do a scene or two with?

Let’s see, in ten minutes how many can I think of, no particular order? Among my friends I have yet to work with: Samuel Colt, Rogan Richards, Brock Rustin, Seven Dixon, Marcus Issacs, Tomas Brand and his partner Logan Rogue (together!), Ale Tedesco, Hans Berlin, Draven Torres, Jaxton Wheeler, Boomer Banks, Felix Barca, Paddy O’Brian, Paul Steele and his pup Aleks Buldocek, JR Matthews, Jake Bolton, Yohann Banks, Seth Fornea (if he ever actually wanted to do porn), Cutler X and his partner Adam Russo, Isaac Jones, Damien Stone, Austin Wolf and his partner Tyler Wolf, Boyhaus, Dolf Dietrich, Cylus Kohen. Guys I don’t know yet or only know virtually and would love to work with: Alex Marte, Kris Irons, Justin King, Kip Ryker, Marco Wilson, Edji da Silva, Frank Valencia, Rok Rangel, Jean Franko, Dani Robles, David Benjamin, Brock Hatcher, Ben Statham, Josh Long. And alas, I think some of these guys are “retired” now, but I’ve really wanted to work with Heath Jordan, Kyle King, Byron Green, Jon Galt and his partner Vic Rocco, Josh West (again) and his partner Peter Axel, and Derek Parker. It’s a source of sadness that I so often shared a set with Wilfried Knight and yet never got to actually work with him. And of course this doesn’t include all the great guys I’ve worked with already and would happily work with again.

Besides the industry, what else are you working on now that our readers should know about?

I’m always working on music; now that I’ve finished a few others there are two large musical projects I’m just about to undertake about which I’m particularly enthused. I’m still hunting for more regular work beyond my freelance music income. I’ve had a few health issues to address, mostly things that happen to guys my age and nothing like what my partner has been through in the last several months, but things which have still required a little attention. I’m still adjusting to living in Boston and making friends here, but I’m happy to be back close to my parents and siblings and nieces and nephews. Planning some travel, to London and Berlin with my buddy Dolan Wolf in September, and possibly a return to London with Jesse in November. Other than that, Jesse and I are happily building our life together.

Dirk Caber, Manhattan Digest
Credit to: Dave Ouano Photography

What are you ultimately hopeful for in the future?

I’d presume there will be a day when I’ll be happy to hang up my pornographical laurels, hopefully before they begin to wilt, and return to a civilian life. I’ll stop worrying about maintaining my abs, and allow my torso to resume the “muscle bear” shape it gravitates towards; I’ll be able to concentrate completely on music as my total life and keeping my family and man close. Maybe that day is next month, maybe it’s ten years from now—I’ve no idea at the moment. Meanwhile I’m enjoying what I’m doing and guys still seem to enjoy watching. I’m not getting younger, so I may as well do it while I can.

Official Site

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Filed Under: LGBT Tagged With: alessio romero, dirk caber, jaxton wheeler, jesse jackman, jr matthews, manhattan digest, mike dreyden, paddy o'brien, rogan richards, samuel colt, san francisco, seven dixon, titan, titan media, tomas brand

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