New Video Titles Big & Loud: On the Set of Digital Playground's 'Machine Gunner'
LOS ANGELES—Let nobody say that the porn megaproduction is dead. Arriving on location for "Machine Gunner," the new blow-’em-up military extravaganza from Digital Playground, it’s abundantly clear that this is no typical micro-scale adult shoot. Quite to the contrary, it is literally a sprawling operation, with scads of cast and crew members getting shuttled up and down a steep hillside atop which sits a lavish Spanish-style estate where the movie’s climactic firefight is set.
A New Era of Blockbuster Production
Machine Gunner is a high-stakes project for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it’s Ricky Greenwood’s first for DP. It serves as a gauntlet-drop for the brand, signaling the dawn of a newly revitalized effort to resurrect the kind of lavish blockbuster-tier pictures for which it was known in years past. For Greenwood—who has grown into a powerhouse director taking home the AVN Award for Director of the Year in 2022 and the Grand Reel trophy—this endeavor also happens to be the largest he has ever undertaken.
The Realism of High-Octane Firepower
When we say “firefight,” we are not talking any feigned playacting with toy guns that’ll have their bursts of ammo added in post—no, these bad boys are the real deal, loaded with live rounds of blanks, and they are not quiet. We’re handed a pair of noise-cancelling headphones to don as director Ricky Greenwood bellows into a megaphone: “Stand by everyone, guns are hot!”
The explosion of gunfire is so earthshattering, it feels as though a barrage of military-grade fireworks are going off right in front of us. On the specific challenges of orchestrating all that gunplay, Greenwood reveals: “At some point during one of the scenes, we have like six guns firing at the same time. So it’s a lot of firepower, it’s a lot of noise, it’s impressive.”
Stunts and Safety on Set
“It’s just like, we’re firing blanks, we’re having stunts, we’re faking explosions, we have people running attached to a car,” he spouts off. “It’s just crazy.” To ensure the production remains professional, he notes that “we have someone who professionally does all the staging and explains to us what to do and makes sure that everybody is safe and is doing it safely.”
A Posthumous Tribute to Robby D.
On a much more personal level, the movie also represents a posthumous tribute for Greenwood to his close friend and mentor Robby D. Greenwood explains that his mentor’s favorite movie was Code of Honor. “So when I talked to Digital Playground, I said I will be interested to do a movie, but I will wish I can do Code of Honor 2,” he continued. While it is not a direct sequel, the team was willing to do another military movie as an homage to the AVN Hall of Famer’s 2013 action epic.
Production Details and Key Participants
- Director: Ricky Greenwood
- Screenwriter: Shawn Alff
- Primary Cast: Damon Dice, Kayley Gunner, Nicole Doshi, Isiah Maxwell, Kira Noir
- Production Concept: Over-the-top military action and "old school" Digital Playground scale
For all of its pyrotechnics and elaborate set accoutrements—including big army rovers trundling about—Machine Gunner is not meant to be anything more than a giant popcorn ball of over-the-top fun. Greenwood asserts, “The fact that Digital Playground agreed to all those things ... I think you can tell that Digital Playground really, really [is trying] to bring back the ‘old school’ Digital Playground.”