Red Light District Video
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Red Light District Video is an American pornographic movie studio headquartered in Chatsworth, California.
It was founded in 2002 by performer/director Vince Vouyer, a longtime exclusive director at Anabolic Video, and industry veteran Dion Giarrusso, who had worked as general manager of Elegant Angel. The plan was to emulate Evil Angel's setup where producer/directors would own their own movies, and share in the profits. Vince's own company, Vouyer Productions, owned his titles. Other initial directors there included David Luger and Brandon Iron, neither of which owned any movies. Most movies produced by RLD are considered gonzo porn.
Vouyer and Giarrusso eventually brought over many of Vince's colleagues from Anabolic in 2004, which saw Erik Everhard, Lexington Steele and Mike John join RLD, where they could start their own production companies to be distributed by the RLD infrastructure. Steele's stay was brief, as he left to start his own studio, Mercenary Pictures, after only a few releases at Red Light.
Around the same time, Platinum X Pictures was launched by Michael Stefano and Jewel De'Nyle (married at the time), bankrolled by Dion and Red Light. PXP also brought in Manuel Ferrara, Steve Holmes, and Brandon Iron to direct.
Dion's silent partner in Red Light all along had been his brother, David Joseph. In 2004 they had a massive falling out, and Dion left the company. David took over the reins, slowly shifting from a business model based on producer/director ownership, to a model where he owned more and more titles, and could profit accordingly. He, for all intents and purposes, merged RLD and PXP, 'promoting' Stefano and Ferrara to RLD.
Through a relationships with Rick Salomon, Joseph was able to get rights to 2004's massive hit movie, 1 Night in Paris, starring Paris Hilton. It has become one of the best selling adult movies of all time.
In early 2006, several of the RLD directors decided they weren't getting a fair shake, and announced they were leaving. Everhard and Ferrara joined Evil Angel; Mike John joined Jules Jordan's upstart company; and RLD founder Vince Vouyer left to start Vouyer Media, to be distributed by Wicked Pictures.
[edit] External links
- Official website Caution: contains very explicit content.
