Vivid Entertainment Group is one of the world's largest adult film producers, featuring a popular catalog of VHS and DVD titles and internet content.
Vivid specializes in high-production-value movies, filmed in exotic locations and shot with professional lighting and quality cinematography. Vivid also produces gay porn movies under the names "Vivid Man" and "Vivid Video".
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The company is best known for its "Vivid Girls", a collection of porn starlets such as Tawny Roberts, Briana Banks, Jenna Jameson, Taylor Hayes, Chasey Lain, Racquel Darrian, Devon, Ginger Lynn, Heather Hunter, Sunny Leone, Kobe Tai, Tera Patrick, Sunrise Adams, Lacie Heart, Mercedez, and Savanna Samson. All of these women made their names in other companies' productions, then moved to Vivid once they had become famous. The Vivid Girls are retained on exclusive contracts much like those of bygone days of the Hollywood studio system. They reportedly command a higher salary than do free-agent performers and produce only a handful of films per year (in 2004, Jenna Jameson told an interviewer "you probably have more sex than I do - I only film a couple of scenes three or four times a year"). |
In the past, Vivid has had a strict policy mandating condom use (see below), and the sexual activities shown are generally "milder" than those of Vivid's competitors. Scenes of bondage are rare and particularly mild. Vivid did not follow the path taken by much of the rest of the U.S. porn industry in the late 1990s toward more explicit and extreme activities. Intercourse almost always involves a heterosexual couple. These policies are intended to appeal to a wide, mainstream market (including women and heterosexual couples) that may not rent or buy pornographic movies frequently.
Vivid produces relatively few titles per year, and each film is aggressively advertised and promoted. This is different from many other San Fernando Valley production companies, who routinely film, edit and release a two-hour title in less than a week, spending relatively little on advertising or promotion.
Its titles are sold to the rental market and direct to consumers through its online mail-order site. Vivid also distributes the films to cable and satellite channels and offers its Internet subscribers full access to hundreds of titles. Steve Hirsch and David James, who together started the company in 1984, control Vivid.
In February 2006 it was reported that director Chi Chi LaRue was leaving the company due to the company moving to a "condom-optional" policy
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