How holiday hotspot became ‘Silicon Valley of porn’…where your rental ‘may well’ have been used in a sex shoot
BREAKING the silence in an innocuous-looking city apartment is the sound of a hard-working couple in the throes of passion.
A loud “cut” is shouted and everything stops as camera equipment is pulled away, and the actors separate from each other.
The man lying on the bed is allowed to breathe loudly for a bit while the virtual reality camera positioned in front of his face is switched off.
Welcome to the hidden, booming sex industry in Prague, Czech Republic – which is best known for its stag do visitors but is fast becoming known as the Silicon Valley of the pornography industry.
The European hotspot has long been a favourite for Brits enjoying boozy weekend breaks, but in the very same holiday rentals booked out by tourists, a very different scene is playing out behind closed doors.
British porn actor Jonny Oblong, 38, jokes: “People may well find they’ve rented a flat where porn has been filmed.
“It’s not a case of if someone will meet a porn actor here, it’s when.”
The former English and PE teacher has moved to the city for a job in the adult entertainment industry – and he’s not the only one.
Americans, Italians and even Budapest actors are jetting in to film with Czech stars, who are the most searched for on tube sites.
For while Prague has led the way in the industry since 1993, entrepreneurial directors are increasingly turning to new styles of filming to stay at the cutting-edge forefront.
The Sun is on set with 100 Spire Media, who are pioneers of virtual reality porn, where watchers are able to fully immerse themselves in illicit rendezvous.
Married owners Samantha Rone, 30, and CZ Muse, 33, have cornered the market with their bespoke ‘rig’, which features fake ears to ensure it even sounds as though viewers are at the heart of the action.
CZ said: “We pioneered this style of filming and had to build everything from scratch. It was a lot of trial and error. The technology side of it is actually quite challenging to make everything look right.
“The girl or guy being filmed can only really get about 10cm away from the camera at any one point. While the performer under the camera will often have their nose touching the back of it.
“They can’t get far from it because otherwise it looks like the head is floating far above the body, which ruins the illusion of VR.
“The performer can’t breathe too loudly or say anything in response because that would take away from the watcher feeling like they were in it.
“I’d be happiest if I could put cameras in the performer’s eyes to make it perfect.”
Trial and error
The team have had cameras overheating, battery packs falling out and invested millions into their technology to get it as close to perfect as they can.
It’s taken years to become the go-to company for VR, but they also film traditional styles of porn.
In fact, they’ve even filmed content in a laundromat – a location that, for obvious reasons, wasn’t the easiest to get agreement to use.
It’s believed there are around 171million virtual reality users worldwide – making it a lucrative avenue for the porn industry.
“It’s very different to your classic porn as it’s for people who want to feel a more intimate connection,” CZ said.
“It means we always try to have a realistic scenario, from a couple having breakfast in bed together to a delivery guy.
“It’s all stuff that is within the realm of possibility.”
Behind the scenes
Each shoot starts with ID checks, confirmation of rates and performer’s STI tests being verified. Then photos are done before the scene is actually filmed.
Creating the scenes is a huge production. There are 300 scripts produced for the VR scenes each year, plus a crew of around six on set including make-up artists, cameramen, a photographer, plus sound and lighting technicians.
And even experienced producers like CZ sometimes have accidents on set.
“I almost knocked myself out when I bent down behind the camera to sort something,” he said.
“There are counterweights on the rig but I forgot they were there. I stood up and smacked into them and hit the floor. I think everyone on set has a story like that.”
The married couple have 25 years of experience between them in the sector – with CZ focusing on work behind the camera and Samantha performing in front of it.
Incredibly, CZ initially got into behind-the-scenes work thanks to his mum suggesting he work for a family friend.
It led to him meeting his now-wife when she was shooting a scene.
“It was so embarrassing, I rang my mum to tell her I’d just met a beautiful man,” Samantha said.
“I assumed he didn’t speak English. He waited until I was down in front of the camera to say in perfect English, ‘by the way, what was your name again’. I really thought I’d put my foot in my mouth.”
Under the camera
While VR porn shares some similarities with traditional films, it requires performers to be prepared to change how they act, given that the camera is acting as a partner’s eyes.
Czech pornstar Lovita Fate has spent time working both sides of the virtual reality rig.
The 28-year-old said: “They’re really good fun because it’s all up to whoever is in front of the camera.
“If you’re on camera, you have to talk a lot to try to create a connection. The big thing that I find is missing is the physical connection. You can’t kiss and in some scenarios the guy can’t even touch you.
“When you’re under the camera, it can be quite difficult. You have to really control your breathing, you can’t really move or make any noise.
“But you don’t have to worry about how you look when you’re not on camera.”
Dark side of pornography
Like every industry, the pornography business has a darker side.
Suicides, drug overdoses and human trafficking form a seedy underbelly, which recently has made headlines in both Europe and the United States.
In January this year, porn star Thania Fields was found dead after sharing that she had experienced “sexual abuse” at the start of her career in porn.
She said at the time: “I have suffered sexual harassment and abuse after starting to create adult content. It’s very strong.
“Many thought that by hiring me they could do what they wanted with me, but then I came home, took a bath and cried.”
Recently deaths in the US include star Angelina Please, Dahila Sky and Olivia Lua.
Former director Tommie McDonald tells us he left the business after being confronted with some horrifying situations.
He says at least two models he knows off killed themselves while he was still producing, and many more simply seemed to disappear.
He said: “Over the years working in the industry, suicides were sadly fairly common.
“Often Eastern European women are brought into the industry at the hands of traffickers and forced into filming porn under threats of violence.
“It’s hard to work in this industry and not have your morals shift because so much goes on.
“I’ve also heard of rape allegations against top producers and suggestions that people have been drugged on set before filming.
“It was also commonplace for a bit in Europe that talent would forge clear tests so they could still work even if they had contacted something.
“There was a HIV outbreak in Europe about five years ago, which thankfully changed the way testing was done.”
Returning performers
Lovita realised she wanted to get into the industry after visiting a strip club when she was 18 years old and was left entranced by the girls being able to be so overtly sexual in public.
But it wasn’t until she was 20 that she finally took the plunge into porn and was flown over to Switzerland to film her first scene.
“I was a bit stressed before, but it was actually really easy for me to do the scene,” she said.
“I love the whole process, how it is all filmed and put together, not just the sex part. I wasn’t surprised by much on that first scene, but when I first filmed for a big company, I couldn’t believe how many people were on set.
“There was like ten different people there from sound and lighting to make-up and photographers. I hadn’t expected it.”
Lovita, who has filmed for some of the world’s biggest brands, finds that she often works with the same male performers time and time again.
In fact, it’s so rare to work with someone she doesn’t know, it tends to come as a shock.
This is because there are fewer male performers in porn, due to the physical pressures of ‘performing’ on demand.
I’ve got cough medicine if someone is coughing, plasters if somebody breaks something
Charlie Dean, pornstar
One actor she works with regularly is Charlie Dean, 31, who has been in the industry for over a decade and shoots around 30 to 50 scenes a month.
The Sun met him at his penthouse flat in Prague, which he also rents out for porn productions to keep extra cash flowing in.
“I always wanted to be able to live in a penthouse flat and renting it for porn is how I managed it,” he said.
“I rent it out to big production companies and that helps cover my rent.”
Opening up on how he has maintained his career for so long, Charlie says he has an unlikely bag of tricks to make sure everything goes smoothly on set.
“I’ve got cough medicine if someone is coughing, plasters if somebody breaks something,” he says.
“Antihistamines in case of an allergic reaction.
“If I’m having problems I don’t want to hold everyone up on set. It would be unprofessional.”
Like many porn actors, Charlie got into the industry through a friend, after having real-life sex with a pornstar who then suggested him to a production company.
He’s since become very savvy with money and even rents out his home to production companies for shoots – meaning his rent is covered.
Showing The Sun around his penthouse flat, he admitted: “I’ve had my sofa recovered multiple times on insurance.”
Regular viewers of adult content will be familiar with every room in the flat, incuding the bathroom, if they watch things on tube sites.
“We film everywhere in the house,” he said.
“I have three covers on my bed to keep it protected including a waterproof layer as well.”
There is one other quirk in his house too – not a single brand can be seen.
“We cannot show brands at all in porn, so I’ve just covered up everything I can see that might appear in shot,” he said.
“I just leave the covering up all the time to make sure there are no accidents where something appears in a scene.
“Product placement isn’t a thing in porn. It applies to things like water as well.”
Working abroad
Earlier this year, The Sun reported from Budapest, which has sprung up in recent years as a challenger to Prague as Europe’s porn capital.
Like the Czech capital, behind closed doors thousands of pornography scenes are being filmed and the city is buzzing with adult stars – who are often tapped up from nations like the UK.
But while stars can often be seen en masse in cafes around the quaint streets of Budapest, Prague has a different feel, according to performers.
Charlie said: “I lived in Budapest for two years and there is a bigger community feel there than in Prague.
“People often go out together after shoots for dinner or drinks, which you don’t get here as much.
“I’ve always thought of Prague and Budapest as being the metropoles of pornography. Most of us work across both.”
In Hungary, the focus remains on more ‘traditional’ methods of filming, rather than pioneering new techniques.
Both countries have liberal laws around nudity, but Prague has the edge when it comes to sexual liberation, which extends far beyond the industry itself.
Just off the main square, for instance, there is a sex machine museum, which is visited by thousands of people every single year.
CZ said: “Nudity here is not a big deal at all. We’ve done a scene in a mechanic garage and guys were just stopping to have a look.
“Everything we do here is known about. We’re registered with the government, pay taxes and all that.
“Mostly the reaction to what we do is good. It’s not a dirty unsafe place like some people might think.”
Battle for Prague
Instead, locals and politicians are focused on forcing out boozy tourists who arrive on drinking holidays such as stag and hen dos.
The Czech capital brought new rules into force in the centre of the city on November 1, preventing the bar crawls from running between 10pm and 6am.
The city centre mayor Terezie Radomerska said: “The ban is driven by our desire to reduce disruptive behaviour, especially connected with events such as stag and hen parties.
“They often result in excessive noise and disturbance for locals and other visitors.
“These activities do not align with the type of tourism we aim to cultivate.”
But while the battle for Prague’s soul ramps up around binge-drinking tourists, pornography appears set to stay.
CZ said: “The industry is thriving. People are still spending money to watch their favourite vidoes.
History of Prague
Prague was founded in the 8th centruy before the Czech Republic became an offical country in 1918 as Czechoslovakia.
Since 1993, the country has been known as the Czech Republic.
Today, 1.4 million people call the pretty city their home and more than 8.5million tourists visit it each year.
The city centre, known as Prague 1, is a registered UNSECO World Heritage site thanks to its Gothic Period arcitecture which dates from the 14th and 15th centuries.
Prague’s university is one of the oldest in Europe after being founded in 1348.
The city’s astronomical clock was first installed in 1410, making it the third oldest in the world and it is the oldest one that still works.