Director Laurent Sky Discusses the Creation of Slayed

LOS ANGELES — Laurent Sky tells AVN the team at Vixen Media Group wanted to combine two key elements when it created the new all-girl site Slayed. The AVN Hall of Fame director calls the result “probably the most elaborate girl/girl site on the market right now.” “We have a very specific guideline since the beginning,” Sky says. “We wanted something extremely stylized… Especially in the past, every time when people are trying to build something elaborate the sex was lacking. The goal was to finally build a site that has both—extremely stylized but very explicit sex. “We’re very proud that we’ve been able to combine both. Usually you have very stylized imagery, but the sex is lacking or you have very strong sex but the imagery is not so stylized.” The French filmmaker points to Mike Miller, one of the founders of Vixen Media Group and the executive producer of Slayed, for having the inspiration for the site that was several months in the making and launched this week featuring scenes with a parade of the top performers in the industry. “The vision for the site I have to give credit to Mike Miller, who came up with the concept. And of course he gave me total freedom after that. Mike Miller is the creator of the site,” Sky says. “And we have girls who are just incredible, just another level.” Sky, who has directed every scene except for the first few that were captured by Chef, says there is no dialogue on Slayed but the idea was “to come up with a more extreme visual—like a borderline music video.” “An extremely visual concept and very hardcore sex,” he continues. “I wanted to push it a little further.” Sky explains he is utilizing “macro cinematography that’s never been done at that level” for Slayed. “By macro cinematography I mean we do extreme close-ups. We do extremely explicit close-ups but it’s done really really well,” he says, citing sequences such as Adriana Chechik squirting in slow motion. “It’s almost shot like a commercial. “As a matter of fact there is no site like that on the market where extreme close-ups are done that way. So I was able to bring my little touch and Mike let me do it. “We’re very lucky to be able to… Mike is a very open-minded guy. It’s very refreshing to launch a new site and be free to experiment.” The lineup of performers ushering in the project reads like a who’s who of bankable stars. Some of the early scene matchups include the likes of Emily Willis and Vanna Bardot; Ivy Wolfe and Vicki Chase; Ariana Marie and Alexis Tae; Lulu Chu and Kiara Cole; Charlotte Stokely, Lilly Bell and Tae; Eliza Ibarra and Charlotte Sins; Cecilia Lion and Scarlit Scandal; and Emily and Scarlit. In terms of casting, Laurent admits “it’s pretty easy.” “All the top girls,” he says. “Only the top girls or the big names. That kind of made the site right—to only use the best.” The 2020 Vixen Angel of the Year Ariana Marie, whose scene with Alexis Tae is called “Saturation,” tells AVN, “My experience shooting with Alexis on set for Slayed was great. She is so sweet and a phenomenal performer! I hope to work with her again someday in the near future.” Vanna Bardot, the 2021 AVN Best Solo/Tease Performance winner, enjoyed her latest throw-down with the reigning AVN Female Performer of the Year Emily Willis in a hookup titled “Light Me Up.” “Shooting with Emily for Slayed was such a lovely experience,” Bardot tells AVN. “We’ve shot together a few times in the past but always in multi-partner scenarios so I really enjoyed being able to perform with her one-on-one. "I really admire how naturally sexual she is on camera (especially with her dirty talking). It makes navigating a high-energy scene like the one we did for Slayed so much easier to bounce off each other’s energy and so fun when you have a scene partner who just gets it like Emily does.” Vicki Chase, the Vixen Angel in July 2017, squared off with fellow Angel Ivy Wolfe in a collision titled "Wild Things." "My experience with Slayed was the best girl/girl scene I have ever shot," Chase tells AVN. "Everything was on point from concept to execution. Being cast with Ivy was so good! It was a real thrill for me. A top-level performer and an all-star crew for the most anticipated site of the year from the creators of Blacked and Vixen! I can safely say it doesn’t get any better and I can’t wait to be back on Slayed soon!" Meanwhile Charlotte Stokely, the three-time AVN All-Girl Performer of the Year and August AVN cover model, got nasty with Lilly Bell and Tae in an encounter called “Sins of the Flesh.” Stokely tells AVN simply, “Laurent is a mad genius with a golden vision.” Sky says the chic imagery and set design reminds him a little bit of the work he did for blue-chip studios such as Ninn Worx and Club Jenna in the early to mid-2000s. In 2004, Sky won the AVN Award for Best Director - Non-Feature for Fetish: The Dream Scape, a Ninn Worx production. “We brought that back in and combined it with nice cinematography and very hardcore sex because with girl/girl if it’s not hardcore, it’s very boring. We didn’t want it to be boring and we wanted to bring creativity and try to come up with an interesting site,” Sky continues. “This is a full-on cinema line. This is not a video product, this is a cinema product. When you step on set, you feel you’re on a real motion picture movie—or like you’re stepping onto a music video set or a high-end TV series.” Sky, who joined Vixen Media Group in 2016 as an exclusive director, says his talented crew is instrumental in bringing that quality to every project. “We have people who work in the real world of cinema. It’s a total shift of mind from the old way of thinking—from a porno school of thought to a full-on cinema company. It’s pretty exciting to be honest with you. It’s very refreshing to be able to do that,” he adds. “If you look very closely and analyze what we did with the content from three or four years ago until today—with Blacked, Vixen and Tushy—if you look at it, we took the decision to progressively shift to a cinema look. We did it slowly. We didn’t want to shock the audience. We didn’t want to go super moody. We did a very slow progression. Every update on the site looks like you could be watching a TV series. “So the audience doesn’t get shocked. A lot of the audience is old school and just wants to see hardcore sex. They’re all about hardcore. When you look very closely from three years ago until now, we are a full-on cinema company and we are the only cinema company in the adult industry.”