On The Set: Breaking Frontiers: Part 1

Behind the Scenes of Breaking Frontiers with Writer & Director Jeremy Babcock.

Putting together our big Next Door Studios “Feature Film” release of the year is always a daunting task.  What models to cast?  What story to tell?  What’s BIG enough?  What’s sexy enough?  I spent months tossing around ideas before settling on the idea of going big and continuing the story of “Cowboy Carter” from That Summer.   That original film (based on a country song) was a special one for me.  I’d grown up a sheltered ‘straight’ guy in Montana, so the notion of coming to terms with sexuality in a rural area struck a particular chord with me, and the visuals are just universally sexy and fun to watch.  I’d been trying, and failing, to get the pieces in place for a sequel to That Summer, since the release of the first scene, but the timing never worked.  This was finally an opportunity to try to make that happen. 

I’d originally cast Ryder in a role to return, and even had the first 2 scenes written, but flexibility in casting is vital, and when Ryder was forced to pull out, we knew ‘the show must go on.’  After extensive re-writes, a new story started to take shape.  Instead of continuing a previous love story, we got to really explore Carter’s character and what life would be like for him after his first gay experience, which continued on to a first ‘boyfriend’, and then ‘coming out’ to his country-boy friends.  This new story tweak gave us so much room to develop new characters and tell some really non-traditional hookup tales amidst our country backdrop.  I was rewriting scripts until days before the cameras were rolling, but all the casting finally locked into place and deep, thoughtful, rural characters developed to surround Carter.  With scripts locked, weeks of thrift store shopping for flannels and hats and boots accomplished, and an epic house in the country.  It was time to shoot.

Finally, April 30th had arrived!  The cameras were set up.  The living room furniture was arranged to give us a nice peek out the window.  Carter Woods and Cody Seiya were looking amazing in their flannels, jeans, boots, and hats.  Everything was finally ready to call “ACTION” on Part 1 of Breaking Frontiers, the most ambitious project I’ve had the opportunity to put together!  We started our day by getting the guys all dressed up, only to remove their clothing moments later.  The shoot day started with a short piece of dialogue that flowed immediately into sex.  The energy spread across the cast and crew was immediately apparent, and the sex was as energetic as these guys are stunning.  

Sex is really the hardest part of any porn shoot, and I love to get it shot first.  Seize that morning energy and get the hardest part out of the way first.  In the case of Cody and Carter, it was a breeze.  The chemistry was amazing, and they’re both such talented performers, the hardest part was deciding where to put the cameras to watch the magic unfold.  Thankfully, we had Director of Photography Conrad Parker lending his vision, and Big Mike there to help capture on the other camera.  Some highlights of this first sex scene include Cody climbing up the couch and face fucking Carter before Carter leans back and rims him from down below.  It was such a fun, organic moment that was so fun to watch.  Then the icing on the cake (pretty literally) was an AWESOME double cum shot captured from down below.  Mike was lying on the ground to get a beautiful shot of the penetration and the energy just built to a point I decided to let the guys climax and cross our fingers it all worked!  Hat’s off to Mike for capturing one of my favorite cum shot visuals in a long time.  

Some other funny moments from the first morning were a couple of adlib lines from the guys.  As the clothing started to come off, Carter leaned in to Cody and asked “is that your belt buckle, or are you just happy to see me?”.  Thankfully, the ONLY two people who resisted the urge to laugh were Cody and Carter, and that line got to stay in the edit.  The second adlib of that first morning we weren’t so lucky, but there will be a great bloopers moment.  After sex, Carter asks Cody if he’d be “open” to having sex again.  Cody’s ad-libbed reply was “I’m gaping”.  Nobody kept their composure on that one… but we did keep the line and shot a take without the laughs. 

Luckily this fun energy continued for most of our very packed first shoot day. The cameramen and models were on their A game capturing beautiful (mostly outdoor) shots.  Jared Camelon ran around the property picking up some wild drone shots, especially around the horse barn, and Leo Sunday had the less-than-fun challenge of capturing audio with the nuisance of airplane noise every few minutes.  

But back to the horse… YES, we got to shoot a cowboy movie that included a horse!  We were lucky enough to find an awesome shoot location that also had an in-use horse stable.  Dixie became the shoot mascot and unofficial extra star of the scene.  She was always sneaking into the backgrounds of photos and shots all through our 4 day shoot, and took a special liking to her pretend owner Carter.  

This film takes place mostly outdoors, which made for a lot of juggling dialogue with airplane noise, but the visuals are amazing.  The bonding moments between Carter and Cody really set up a sweet bonding story for our characters, as well as plenty of sunlight to show off all those ripping abs!  

Toward the end of the day, Andrew Miller arrived to shoot his scene for the film.  Andrew picked up a quick dialogue scene with our other two characters to set up his role as the horse caretaker for Part 3 of Breaking Frontiers.  It’s always great to work with Andrew.  His laid-back demeanor and friendly energy are so welcome on a stressful set, and he brings such great charisma to every film he’s in.  

Day 1 of our shoot was so smooth!  We wrapped a fat script with a ton of montage eye candy and dialogue all before the sun went down, giving us plenty of time to hang out and relax through the evening.  For this particular film, the models and some of the crew were staying at the shoot house for the week, so we got the added fun of hanging out and getting to know each other once the production ended, and you couldn’t pick a better group of guys than these to play Summer Camp for the week.

It’s wild, but we managed to complete a film that runs over an hour, all in ONE day of production.  Hats off to the cast and crew for their hard work making this magical cowboy film a reality.  More to come for Part 2!