New England Summer: Provincetown, 2001

From June 15th to the 18th of 2001, the Catalina crew and I were on the East Coast to work on scenes for four of our upcoming productions. The movies were Vermont Reunion, New England Summer, Party in Provincetown, and His Terrible Twin. This was not the norm to be shooting this many movies simultaneously - in fact, we normally didn’t have a script or even an idea for an upcoming movie until a week or two before production would start. Needless to say that I had to do a lot of pre-planning for this trip to make everything work out seamlessly. I directed two of the four movies, with Peter Romero directing Vermont Reunion and Brad Austin directing Party in Provincetown. His Terrible Twin was the big budget movie for the year and was basically paying for a lot of the other movies to have “on-location” scenes in them.

We left from L.A. and flew to Boston, where we rented a large van and drove it to Rhode Island. We all stayed at my parent’s house, in Coventry, Rhode Island, where I grew up. My parents were very cool and accepting of my career with Catalina Video and were happy to host the crew for an evening. My mom made a large batch of Cacoila, delicious shredded beef we first discovered at the Portuguese Carnival held in town each summer. The next morning, we drove to Provincetown, MA and rented out a B&B on Bradford Street, about a ten minute walk from the center of town on Commercial Street. I remember being really excited to show the crew P-Town, as it was the first time for all of them. We hit all the hot spots: breakfast at The Squealing Pig, lunch at The Lobster Pot, drinks at The A-House, doughboys at The Portuguese Bakery, and your late night munchie fix at Spiritus Pizza. We were sitting on the steps of Spiritus Pizza eating our pepperoni slices when the most amazing thing happened. John Waters walked bye with a couple other guys! Brad Austin spotted him and it was everything I could do not to run up to him and “gush!” The models flying into Provincetown - Ray Harley, Brad McGuire, Aaron Tanner and Robert Black - all hated the very, very, very tiny Provincetown Airport. The flights were nail-biters because the planes were like - four-seaters! Robert Black had to sit next to the pilot and was trembling when he arrived!

The first movie we started rolling on was His Terrible Twin with Ray Harley and Brad McGuire. The pair realized that their roommate (played by Andy Hunter, who shot all his scenes in Los Angeles) was psychotic and they were determined to take him down. We blocked a day for dialogue in the rental house, as well as a local cemetery - the same cemetery Ryan Murphy used in a season of American Horror Story. I guess that will be my only six degrees of separation with Ryan Murphy, sadly. I have to say Brad McGuire is one hell of an actor, elevating His Terrible Twin with his performance, and Ray Harley benefited from working with him, as well.

The next morning, we took them both out of downtown and to the secluded sand dunes near the ocean. We hiked quite a distance into the dunes to find the perfect spot for shooting their outdoor sex scene. Everyone was carrying equipment, including the models, and we were all about to “drop” when we found a nice grassy area at the bottom of a dune. I put the make-up man on top of one sand dune and my partner, Tony, on another to look out for anyone heading our way. We got through the sucking and fucking without any interruptions, but just as I was about to go in for the cum shots, a “looky-loo” was spotted. We wrapped the guys in blankets, covered our video equipment and just sat around like we were chatting. Just when you think the scene is almost done! After about ten minutes, he finally left our sights and wandered off. Cum shots both came quickly and we were on our way back to town. Here’s a link to “The Making of His Terrible Twin,” a short video on my channel.

We definitely needed some stiff drinks after the shoot, so we hit the bars. Brad Austin, who always gets chatty with strangers in bars, was telling the bartender that we were in town shooting porn. I’m sure as a way to entice him into bed. The bartender was familiar with Catalina Video and mentioned that his roommate had a small sailboat that would be perfect for shooting a scene. We had scheduled the next day’s scene with Brad McGuire and Aaron Tanner at our house rental, but Brad Austin begged me to come up with some “moolah” to shoot on the boat. I thought it was a great idea and told him, “Yes, let’s see if we can get the bartender’s friend to accept $300.” It meant another fabulous dinner at the Lobster Pot would have to go bye-bye in exchange for a couple of pizzas from Spiritus, but we all agreed because we wanted to get on that boat to shoot. The scene came out fantastic and can be viewed in Brad Austin’s movie Party in Provincetown. The boat owner even dragged along a little dingy so we could get wide shots while the dingy circled the large sailboat. It looked like a million bucks. The next day, we hiked along the sea steps that led to an attached island with Ray Harley and Robert Black. There was a beautiful lighthouse in the distance so we stopped, set up the cameras and shot their sex scene with it in the background.

After wrapping up in Provincetown, we drove to Burlington, VT, where we picked up Steve Rambo and David Chelsea at the airport. We then headed out to Williamstown, VT, where we rented a secluded home in a rural part of the state. The house was home base for us to shoot some scenes for Vermont Reunion and New England Summer. On our way to Williamstown, we passed through Montpelier, VT for some dialogue scenes. In the movie New England Summer, Steve Rambo picks up his friend, played by David Chelsea, at the train station. Steve has always been in love with David, but David is such a whore that it was impossible to tie him down. Throughout the visit, the two find more things in common and realize they can embrace his “whorish ways” by playing together, thus making them the perfect couple. The movie ends with David proposing and the two of them walking into the stunning Capitol Building to take their vows. In 2002, when we shot this movie, the state of Vermont was not yet allowing gay marriage. I guess I was an optimist when writing the script, insinuating that Vermont allowed gay marriage, because it wasn’t until September 1, 2009 that Vermont actually became the fourth state to do so. The state of Vermont did, however, allow civil unions starting back in March of 2000. We continued our drive to the house rental and just so happened upon the most amazing covered bridge, right next to a dam and running river. When I spotted it, I just had to stop, pull out the cameras and get some shots of the two actors walking out of the bridge and across the dam. I discovered, from a YouTube follower who watched the New England Summer trailer on my channel, that it was “The Lower Cox Brook Covered Bridge in Northfield, VT.” Thanks! He was responding to a previous follower who thought it might be the Beetlejuice Bridge, from the 1988 film.

My partner, Tony, and our friend, Mark, all returned to the East Coast and Provincetown a few weeks ago. Provincetown has not changed one bit! Lunch at the Lobster Pot was amazing, and the doughboys and custard filled donuts at the Portuguese Bakery brought me right back to 2001! I thought we were booked into the same B&B that we shot His Terrible Twin in, but once we arrived I realized I was wrong!!! Damn, I had a whole blog I was going to write about that! It was actually up the street from where we stayed on Bradford Street, but I remembered (because of Tony’s diary that he’s kept since the early 1980’s) that His Terrible Twin’s house location was a house rental, not a B&B. I fucked up, but the John Randall House where we stayed this time was fabulous and actually more central to town! Once back in Rhode Island, we actually toured the real Conjuring house in Harrisville, but I’ll write about that in one of my Halloween themed blogs this October, as we also went to more haunted places while we were there.

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002.