Hot House Flowers

Let’s face it, we love porn, and  we’re guessing you do too, which is why we love Hot House so much. Ever since Steven Scarborough created it in 1993, Hot House has been delivering some of the best in gay adult entertainment. Fifteen years later, they’re still growing strong and releasing some of the hottest movies of the year. Recently, Hot House won the European Gay Porn Web Awards for Best Video Company Site — the same award they had received from Cybersocket earlier this year. Based out of San Francisco, Hot House boasts five unique video lines including Club Inferno, Plain Wrapped Videos, Hot House, Hot House Backroom, and Pack Attack. Despite having so much to oversee, Hot House Vice President Brent Smith was incredibly accommodating and sat down with us to answer questions for Cybersocket’s readers.
   
As 2008 comes to an end we look ahead at what exciting new things the New Year will bring. We asked Brent to give us the skinny on what we can expect in 2009. “We’re in the process of rolling out new bells and whistles for our two membership sites, The Hot House Backroom and The Club Inferno Dungeon, that will allow users to interact with our content like never before. We also have a new VOD product launching soon that will allow us to sell other studios’ movies in our Superstore by the scene – as well as the traditional DVD model.”
   
The idea of studios sharing content was unheard of until Hot House joined forces with BelAmi to bring their members scenes from the other studio’s tremendous selection. What’s so unique about this dynamic team-up is that they will each provide the other studio’s members with four weekly scenes, but best of all it’ll be free! Brent told us he believes Hot House and BelAmi are setting the next big trend saying, “There are a lot of middle-men out there who keep profitability down. As studios continue to look at ways to save costs and to maximize revenue and profits, we believe there will be a new spirit of cooperation between major studios.”
   
This year, some of the titles that we saw this studio release were as varied and as colorful as a gay pride parade. Some of our favorites include Fisting Network, King Size, Paging Dr. Finger, Wood Work, and The Kent North Collection. With so many hot titles on the way, we were curious to learn about Brent’s creative input as V.P. “I’ve literally designed the set backdrops for films like Communion, Verboten, and the upcoming Masterpiece. All of those movies had giant opera-like sets that have become a recent hallmark of our films.” In terms of running things, Brent explained that as V.P. he actually takes the tapes that Steven and the other director’s turn in and then brings the films to market by supervising the editing and art departments, music production, branding, PR, and web development. That might seem like a lot for one person, but Brent is definitely up to the challenge after working for Hot House since June of 2001.
   
One of the things that people are often curious about is how Brent ended up in the adult industry and in such an exciting position. Most adult industry veterans have followed an interesting and diverse career path – and Brent is no different. He told us, “I had been working as a Brand Strategist for Razorfish in 2000 when the dot com bust happened. I had been dating Steven Scarborough for a few months and, since my days were mostly free, I tagged along with him to work. In those days, Steven hadn’t been making movies for nearly 4 years and had almost lost his company. He made the decision to get back into the game and I saw an enormous opportunity for a top-to-bottom rebranding and repositioning of the Hot House brands. I called in a few other out-of-work Razorfish creatives and we held a two day brand workshop – and the rest is history.”
   
Another person we spoke to is Alan Breslaw, the affiliate manager of the Hot House Cash program that launched this past January. We asked Alan to tell us the best thing about working at Hot House. His answer was honest and really helped to explain why Hot House continues to be at the top of their game. “I love working in a professional environment that’s more like a family – as it is at Hot House. We have an awesome team that is amazing at what they do and I am truly lucky to be working alongside them. For the first time in my life, I love coming to work .”
   
Contact Skylar Grant at: [email protected]