The company has also produced a fair amount of impressive features including the vamp-tramp epics “Dark Angels” 1 and 2 and its newest big-budgeted sex movie, “Hearts & Minds 2,” which looks at sex and heroism in the face of the controversial Iraq War.
Now that New Sensations is celebrating 15 years of producing powerful porn, XBIZ decided to look at the past, present and future of the company through the eyes of its owner Scott Taylor to, hopefully, unravel the outfit’s formula for success in sex sinema.
From Army Brat to Porn Prodigy
Looking much younger than his age, Scott Taylor was born in Oklahoma 45 years ago and is a self-proclaimed “army brat,” living all over the U.S. until the age of 19 when — after a stint at the University of Houston as a radio/television major — he settled in California. To support his musical career as a drummer, Taylor worked at several one-stop companies, selling adult movies to retailers for about a year, before deciding to run his own distribution business in 1983.
Over the next 10 years, he continually expanded that same business — officially christened National Video Supply — methodically moving his headquarters from, initially, his own mobile home to much larger office spaces in the Valley.
Consequently, by 1993 Taylor had saved enough money to make one of the most important decisions in his life.
“The truth is,” Taylor humorously recalls, “I was either going to build a pool in my backyard, or put the money toward my company. So I decided to make a movie.”
Enter the “Video Virgins” line for Taylor’s new production company New Sensations, so named after a 1987 single by the pop group INXS. Initially shot in the warehouse of National Video Supply, “Video Virgins” contained interviews with new female talent, followed by a strip tease, masturbation and all-out sex scenes captured by two cameras, one operated by Taylor himself, who also directed and edited the movies.
The series was a runaway hit, inspiring Taylor to branch out with yet another company: Digital Playground.
Yes, that Digital Playground.
During Taylor’s involvement with Digital Productions, he developed the “Virtual Sex” series, of which “Virtual Sex with Jenna Jameson” was the most important title in the (at the time) all-new interactive-based format.
“I think that’s one of the keys to a company’s success: trying to stay ahead and trying to plan ahead,” states Taylor. “That’s why I like to embrace what I think will be future technology — and I like to embrace it early. If you come in too late, then you spend too much time going, ‘Hey, look at me, I’m over here.’”
But while simultaneously running National Video Supply, New Sensations and Digital Playground, Taylor soon figured something had to break.
And it did just that in 1998 — in all the right ways.
New Blood, Virtual Playthings, Dark Angels
By the turn of the century, Taylor was entering one of his most vital business periods, signing brunette bombshell Jewel De’Nyle to a contract, bringing director Nic Andrews on board to helm bigger budgeted features, embracing the relatively new DVD format, and creating a new company, Digital Sin.
“I sold my interest in Digital Playground,” says Taylor, “started Digital Sin, and then there was just a whole infusion of new blood, with Nic putting together some pretty significant, fancy-looking movies like ‘Electric Sex’ starring Jewel De’Nyle, which had some really cool effects.”
Taylor also came out with the interactive “My Plaything” series on DVD as a flagship product for Digital Sin. The line, in fact, became the company’s best-selling series.
In the meantime, New Sensations got its own rebirth in 2000 with the release of the Nic Andrews-directed feature “Dark Angels,” a vampire epic spotlighting the scorching onscreen potency of Jewel De’Nyle and the up-and-coming star quality of Sydnee Steele.
“I don’t think there was anything close to ‘Dark Angels’ at that time,” notes Taylor. “It generated a lot of buzz for us, ultimately winning all kinds of awards, and it really did make a mark for us.”
But Taylor had plenty of more surprises up his sleeve at the start of the new millennium.
Girls! Girls! Girls!
In 2002, for one, luscious Latina Carmen Luvana became the new contract sensation at New Sensations, followed by the delectable Chloe Jones. But after both girls and NS amicably parted ways, there was a “long drought,” as Taylor calls it, in terms of contract girls for the company. New Sensations and Digital Sin continued to produce truckloads of hot-selling gonzos for the next several years, as well as the critically acclaimed “Dark Angels 2” in 2006.
By early 2007, Taylor finally caught wind of a new sensation, indeed: blonde, buxom beauty Ashlynn Brooke, a fresh new face on the block whom Taylor immediately signed to a contract.
Then in early 2008 he met brunette fireball Sadie West and was similarly blown away, quickly signing her to an exclusive contract.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve struck gold twice,” Taylor says. “I’ve got the blonde and I’ve got the brunette. So, of course, now I’m open to a third! I don’t know if I’m getting greedy, but I just have two of the very best girls I could possibly have.”
Look Into the Future
Aside from planning to expand into the adult toy and clothing markets, NS is currently in pre-production on a feature with the two blonde hotties whom everyone has been dying to see get together: Ashlynn Brooke and Bree Olson.
But what about the future of porn itself?
“Entirely speculation,” Taylor predicts, “but I truly believe that all of your media is going to be delivered and stored somewhere in a computer and it’s going to be transmitted to your mobile device, to your television, wherever. It also will be available in an on-demand basis. In turn, you won’t have walls of CDs or DVDs at home. Rather you’ll have media that you can take with you wherever you go.”
Lastly, after surviving 15 years in the tumultuous, grueling, at times even unforgiving adult business, how would Taylor define the formula for success?
“I think it’s that you simply don’t rest,” he said. “The minute that you think you’ve got it all under control, that you’re the best, that you don’t need to keep moving forward, that’s the minute you decide you no longer want to play in the game. And in order to properly guide the ship, you have to constantly ask ‘What are the waters ahead? If we’re not going this way, then which way are we going to drive this boat? Is that an iceberg ahead? If so, we better go around this way.’ In other words, you always need to keep your eye on the ball.”
