Intimate Liaisons: On the Set of Leana Lovings’ 'Intimately POV'

This feature appears in the September issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital issue. VENTURA COUNTY, Calif.—There’s a beautiful mansion in the remote hills of SoCal, down a crooked canyon road, behind wrought iron gates, with lush lawns and limitless views of the horizon. There’s 20-foot ceilings in the living room, a spiral staircase, and arched entryways that lead to an all-white master suite with a big, comfy bed—the perfect location for the upcoming installments of Leana Lovings’ directorial debut for the Intimately POV series for streaming platform Adult Time. As a brand ambassador and freshman director for Adult Time, Lovings told AVN she’s interested in intimacy and how that can be arousing for a digital audience that’s craving closeness and depictions of passionate, penetrative (or not) sex. What she wants is the erotic embrace, kissing, hand-holding, and an aura of authenticity. Lusty love, POV style. “I started, officially, as a cam girl and I did that because I wanted to explore my sexuality. I come from a very religious, controlled environment and I realized that I didn’t want to be afraid of my body. I wanted to embrace my sexuality and I wanted to know what it was like to not fear and just embrace that joy inside of me,” Lovings told AVN. “I’ve designed myself as an artist that refuses to be limited by my capabilities. I want to be able to do whatever my heart tells me that I want to be—that is as a performer, that is as a director—whatever it requires of me, my passion is always going to play a part,” she added. While the setting looks pristine in each frame on camera, outside the shot, there are boxes of equipment, lights, ladders, and crew setting up while the performers run a few lines and get a feel for the upcoming scene. AVN Hall of Fame director/cinematographer Sal Genoa is the first camera, alongside veteran production pro Joel Sinclair, who was lighting the set and has been behind the scenes on adult productions since starting as an editor at his parents’ specialty video business in the ‘90s.  The first script, titled “Do You Trust Me?” paired AVN Hall of Fame performer/director Dana Vespoli and handsome Nathan Bronson in a stepmom/stepson scenario with anal. While that may not sound terribly romantic, Lovings is intent on infusing the scenario with sweet emotion. Award-winning Adult Time Chief Creative Officer Bree Mills also was on set and concerned with keeping on schedule. She hoped to have the second scene, a lesbian duo with Jessica Ryan and Chloe Surreal, started by 6 p.m. so they could take advantage of the natural light at sunset—the Golden Hour. Working side-by-side with Lovings, she advised on-camera angles and pacing for the actors as they watched the shots unfold on dual iPad monitors. “The beauty of the [Adult Time] platform is that you can put something out and you can measure the results, you can produce on-demand based on results, so that’s how all of our projects get started,” Mills explained. “We put them out, we evaluate the results, and then we either continue, or adapt and adjust, or we’ll say that it didn’t work and try something else.” With Lovings’ concept, Mills said she was interested in the “need for intimacy, especially digital forms of intimacy, that people are seeking out. “You see a real increase in the last decade of people who are turning toward digital means for finding that connection that is becoming harder to develop in real life. You really saw that explode during the pandemic. There is a real epidemic of loneliness out there, particularly with a lot of people who want to feel love and affection, and they turn to digital entertainment to fulfill it,” she said. Mills pointed out that “anal” and “stepmom” are two of the most searched terms on the AdultTime platform. She was interested to see the audience’s response with elements of emotion and “wish fulfillment” added to a story that might otherwise fit into a more narrow niche. Strangely enough, her curiosity was piqued by a Reddit thread on the topic of ASMR-based adult content. Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is described as a tingly, relaxing sensation experienced when users listen to white noise or whispering, or when they watch videos featuring slow movement or messages of personal care. The ASMR community uses this content to relax and de-stress—and, yes, there are ASMR adult content scenes, both audio and visual. Mills even directed a series for Adult Time titled ASMR Fantasy. “You know we try to take daring choices,” Mills continued. “We push ourselves technically, we push ourselves in terms of subject matter, and we're an all-inclusive platform so we have the freedom and flexibility to be able to tackle pretty much anything within the realm of what is acceptable by our standards. So, we have the freedom to try things that some of our counterparts might not be as flexible to do because they're more stuck in specific niches or specific audiences. “It's kind of my vision originally that created a space to be able to have the freedom to do that, and over the years we've just cultivated like-minded producing teams and performers who want to try something new. We're a good space to do that because we were engineered to be able to do that,” she said. Lovings, an eager young auteur, was careful to make sure the set had a comfortable, positive vibe. This was especially evident when she sat down with the performers to record a head-to-toe checklist of what activities each performer would be comfortable allowing during the action. When she reminded Ryan and Surreal that their scene would include lots of kissing, fingering, and squirting, it set off a flurry of giggles. Both actresses were straightforward about their boundaries. Mills reminded everyone about safe words and protocols for stopping the scene if needed. The day’s first vignette went off without a hitch. Starting on a white leather living room sofa, the focus was fully on Vespoli in a pink dress, as she delivered a loving stepmom POV monologue to the camera, leaning into the lenses with a soft, seductive tone. She was done in three or four takes. Then, upstairs to the bedroom for the main sequence. It was decided Vespoli would bring her stepson a load of laundry and accidentally interrupt his solo session, leading to their encounter. “I did laundry and prepped for anal,” she quipped as she practiced walking into the shot, her shocked look, and dropping the hamper. Meanwhile, Bronson prepared for the scene, with no dialogue for his character in the strictly POV script. His job was to be the eyes of the audience, follow Vespoli’s lead, and deliver a strong performance. Lovings watched every detail on her monitor as the scene unfolded, down to the curl in Vespoli’s toes. Ryan, who had arrived early at the location, waited downstairs for the second scene after finishing her makeup and filling out some paperwork. “I like the organization and the standardization of the process,” she said of her working experience with AdultTime. “They were one of the first companies I shot with after coming back from taking a break. So, I had four years off,” noting the change to production protocols in that period, with the addition of intimacy assistants and consent policies. “I think it’s important because things can get confusing on set otherwise.” About that day’s shoot, Ryan also was interested in intimacy as part of the concept. “I feel like that’s something that’s important, but very hard to capture. Given that this world lacks a lot of intimacy on an individual basis.” “The advent of OnlyFans, in its own right, has added a factor of intimacy because it’s kind of like the girlfriend experience,” she speculated. “I think it’s filling a void in some respects.” With ample time before sunset, the second scene, “With Passion,” got underway outdoors. The warm sunlight bathed Ryan and Surreal in its fabled golden glow as they sat together against the scenic background of rolling hills. Surreal climbed onto Ryan’s lap—a gorgeous lesbian couple, kissing deeply and deeply in love. With their dialogue complete, the pair, holding hands, stood and walked off-camera as Lovings called, “cut.”  The slow, sizzling build of girl/girl love-making leaned naturally into a sweet squirting scenario for the main part of the scene. Mills had pointed out earlier that “squirting” and “lesbian” are also popular search terms. “It’s very exciting to see that image that I had written down, come on in front of the camera,” Lovings described, “but it's also very important to catch the small details. I get completely absorbed into what the camera’s doing so I make sure there are no small details that are being forgotten.” In her role as an AdultTime brand ambassador, Lovings also wants to address mental health for adult performers. She has partnered with Adult Time to launch an industry mental health wellness workshop, which met for the first time in July. She hopes the project will grow into a resource for performers and industry members who may be struggling with mental health issues.  “Do You Trust Me?” and “With Passion,” the third and fourth episodes in Leana Lovings’ Intimately POV series will drop September 16, at AdultTime.com.   Photography by Modest Pup