A Conversation with DVD Dave

I for one have become addicted to listening to the commentaries on your titles but not all your titles have them? Why is that?

David Crawford - Commentaries are great aren't they. It is difficult getting wrangling people in to do a commentary and if I am going to get Stephanie to come in and do a commentary it is going to be on a new title. Also for something like "Roman Orgy" coming up I can't get Serenity anymore. Some of our titles such as "New Girls in Town" and "Wicked Sex Party" really don't require a commentary .Whenever I can do it I will do it if it makes sense. It all depends on how old the title is and the availability of the girls.

Have you seen an impact on sales in relation to the presence of certain extras on a disc?

David Crawford - Audio I think really helps. People buy titles a lot based on the audio I think. I want to answer this correctly. There are certain features I do that don't mean a hill of beans. Photo galleries aren't really going to sell any more DVD's. I think just our reputation sells it. I don't think it is any one feature that sells it I think it is that you know that when you buy a Wicked title it is going to be good. I think Behind the Scenes people really like and the commentaries. Bottom line is I love it when I go to a DVD and there is a laundry list of extra's on it.

What exactly does the "Head of the DVD Department" do? How would you describe your job?

David Crawford - I over see all aspects of production, editing, encoding, replication, etc. From concept to completion. Do you do any of the computer work yourself? No but I will give them what I want. I will give them the visual and tell them this is what I want to see. They will give it to me and then I will critique their work. I can edit a little bit especially on the Behind the Scenes. It is a lot of repetition really what changes is the the specifics required because you have vintage on one hand and "Hercules" on the other. So it is a constant rotation of doing the same thing. Getting the Behind the Scenes edited , telling them what needs to be corrected, sending the DVD off to be encoded, going over the menus, going over transitions, going over everything. And once you have done that you have another one right behind it. Then you also have to sit down during pre-production and figure out what we need to do. I am lucky that my talent, my directors and Steve Orienstein believe in me and are willing to help me do what I need to do in order to make our product better.

This year we are seeing the release of the first "AshtonView Promotions" DVD's coming out. Tell us about that.

David Crawford - "Basically Becca" is the first one coming out and there are a lot of bonus sex scenes on that. What was cool about doing that title is that I have my style when I do a DVD. Even if you go back to my earlier stuff you can see that the style is consistent. But with AshtonView they did all the productions and editing and just gave it to me to be encoded. So it is different then what I would have done if they had given it to me to do. I like producing and I we are going to be doing the whole AshtonView line but it was nice to do something different.

What does 2003 have in store?

David Crawford - Angel X from Michael Raven which is live action ANMIE. I believe Brad is doing a horror movie. And hopefully by the end of the year I will be in production on my game. Steve really wants me to do it. All I have to do is find the time to do it.

I would like to thank David for taking the time to sit down and talk to me. Daniel Metcalf at Wicked Pictures for setting up the interview and Steph at Adult DVD Talk for making all of this possible.

If you have any questions or comments about this interview feel free to drop me a line at webmaster@pornstarportraits.com