LOS ANGELES – Severe Society Films is a disciplined, award-winning production company run by BDSM fans, making content for BDSM fans. From the folks at the top to the people at the…uh…bottom, the staff and performers live the life they depict on film
Dee Severe and her husband Jimmy Broadway co-own the studio in addition to directing, performing and editing. The couple recently released Treacherous, a four-hour BDSM epic featuring more than 50 performers and extras on screen.
By any standards, including mainstream, four hours is a heckuva lot of material. For a BDSM, the feat is astonishing.
YNOT: Why the name Severe Society Films?
Dee Severe: Our original partner in the company was legendary Los Angeles-based whip-master Sir Nik, who directed and performed in a number of our movies. He used to have a BDSM performance art group called Severe Society. That’s where the name comes from.
How and why did the company get started?
Severe: By accident. Jimmy and I were lifestyle BDSM players and we were also in a non-adult short film collective, so we were getting lots of filmmaking experience. Simultaneously, I was trying to break in as a mainstream screenwriter and getting very frustrated by projects that got optioned but never got made.
At one point, I got a part time job as a pro dominatrix to make extra money. The guy running the dungeon wanted to get into video production. He’d made a couple of movies he wasn’t happy with, so we took that over for him. For two years we made DVDs for Passive Arts and also ran their Clips4sale stores.
Jimmy Broadway: We created the company early on to keep our adult work separate from our mainstream projects. Toward the end, we were having more and more creative differences with Passive Arts. We finally decided to part ways, and we became a fully independent production company.
Is it accurate to say you cater to a wide range of the BDSM market?
Broadway: We’ve tried quite a few fetishes over the years, and we still test new ones to see if they have a market, but we definitely have specialties: femdom strap-on, spanking, tickle torture, kinky sex, cuckold, forced bi, handjobs and footjobs with a twisted edge. We started out in more traditional BDSM, but now we’re combining it more with sex.
After working with a mainstream short-film collective, how did your first adult production go?
Severe: Our first production was called The Headmaster’s Office. It was a caning video in a historical school setting that we did for Passive Arts.
We had hired a cameraman from our non-adult short film collective, thinking we could hire our friends, get them some extra cash and have good quality content. Well, halfway through the shoot, which was pretty heavy, I looked over and saw all the blood had drained from the guy’s face. Only professionalism kept him from running screaming from the room. That taught us to hire from the fetish and porn communities — no civilians.
Still, the movie turned out well enough so that our boss let us do another one. A couple of years of learning on someone else’s nickel and we were ready to go out on our own
You have produced about 70 DVDs and received 14 AVN nominations to date. What is the secret of your success?
Severe: We love to make movies and we are genuinely kinky, so we’re combining our real, true passions in life. Also, Jimmy and I have different strengths and skillsets so we make really good partners. We’re also workaholics, and that helps.
What are your favorite DVDs so far?
Severe: We’ve made a lot of movies I’m really happy with: Our parody Strap-on Idol, our first-ever AVN-nominated movie Sorority Hazing Horror, our really successful, kind of humorous spanking series The Housewives’ Revenge and Sadistic Mother-in-Law stand out for me.
Our current release, Treacherous, is by far the best movie we’ve made. I co-directed it with the fabulous Aiden Starr, who is now a contract director for Evil Angel. We really challenged ourselves to combine extreme scenes with high production values, and I’m really proud of the result.
Has the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon helped your bottom line?
Broadway: It’s definitely raised awareness of the fetish world, and hopefully it will make what we do more acceptable with the general public.
Severe: Fifty Shades has definitely gotten more people interested in their kinky side, but honestly, it’s not really representative of real-life BDSM, or even porn fantasy BDSM. It’s more like a twisted romance novel, so it remains to be seen if it’ll really convert people or just be a fad. It will be interesting to see what happens when the movie comes out — how good or bad it is and how that will affect the market.
What makes a great BDSM film?
Broadway: Authenticity. Most of the audience will know right away if your performers aren’t into what they are doing, so we try to get people who are genuinely into the fetishes we ask them to perform on film.
Beyond that, it’s just like any other film. You need a good script and storyline, and it should be well lit and well shot with good audio.
What do many people do wrong in BDSM films?
Severe: Hiring people who don’t know what they’re doing. Dressing a hot girl in latex and giving her a flogger doesn’t make her a dominatrix. If you’re using any kind of implement where you could hurt somebody, you need to get instruction and practice.
This is the main thing I would recommend to vanilla porn performers who want to get into fetish: Just about every big dungeon offers classes. It’s well worth your time [to take one or more].
From the standpoint of the director, it’s great to realize BDSM doesn’t have just one flavor; it’s not all super-serious and heavy and dark. It can be romantic, it can be kind of funny and it can be sensual.
What are your future plans?
Severe: Right now we’re really focused on marketing Treacherous and editing our next two releases, an extreme strap-on DVD called Strap-on Revenge and The Devil’s Workshop 2, a dark male Dom movie starring legendary porn star Nicki Hunter in her very last role before she retired as a performer.
Since Treacherous was such a great adventure, I’m writing another bigger-budget flick about the sickest, most twisted Las Vegas road trip ever. Look for it next year some time.
What do few people know about you?
Broadway: We have four rescued dogs and are advocates for animal rescue and animal rights.
