Buttermilk Films has made a big splash in the indie porn scene. (Or should we say splosh?) Their short cooking-themed adult films have delighted audiences from HUMP! Film Festival to PornFilmfestival Berlin, where the pair is based in Germany. What is the secret ingredient to their success? We caught up with creators Ethan and Ty in an exclusive interview.

Satisfying the Hunger

PLTV: We can’t get enough of your food-themed films! (Breakfast in Bed, Brunch on Bikes, Dear Babe, and in a way, The Pizza Topping…) What appeal do you think food has when it comes to sex? And from a producer’s perspective, what’s the easiest food to work with on camera? Any advice to those interested in exploring incorporating food into sex — safety, clean-up, taste, etc…?

EF: After having so much fun making Lovers’ Toast in Breakfast in Bed, we wanted to keep making meals together. Our driving question then was “How else could the body function as a kitchen appliance or spice up a delivery?” Since then we’ve gone deeper into the Foodscape — crossing into an alternate reality inhabited by anthropomorphic pizzas and perverting the The Food Selfie.

Ty: Our favorite foods to work with are soft around the edges, not too hot, not too cold. I mean neither of us are masochists. This is why we’ve stuck to butters, batters, and bioaktiv yogurts. And our advice to emerging nasty chefs: if it’s goin’ in the butt, and you’re gonna eat it out the butt, clean the butt before. And after.
 

 
 
PLTV: Your films are all under 5 minutes in length. Why do you keep them so short? Do you feel there are more challenges in editing? Are shorter films better for festivals? Do you feel the short length aids in the light-hearted nature of the work?

Ty: Our first film, Breakfast in Bed, had to be under 5 minutes because we were submitting it to HUMP! Film Festival. We’d both seen several HUMP! programs, and knew from experience that 5 minutes can feel really long when sitting through a program of 22 shorts. We wanted our film to shake people awake from whatever vanilla-straight-film-school-thesis-project that had weighed down their eyelids and killed their boners.

EF: We’ve developed some core principles. 2 minutes and 20 seconds is a kind of golden ratio which we always aim for, and we love to KISS. Keep it Simple, Silly! That means there should be only one idea per film.

Ty: But KISSing isn’t easy! We fall hard for ideas in development and get attached to cute and fun moments on set. Asking for and receiving feedback helps us let go of beloved footage that doesn’t actually improve the story we’re telling.
 
 
PLTV: The Pizza Topping flips the porn cliche of the Pizza Boy. How did the idea come to life, what inspired it, etc? What other porn tropes have you played with?

Ty: We have this tote bag where we keep all of our ideas. The question  “What if a Pizza ordered a Pizza Delivery Boy?” was in the bag for a few years before we met Tom, our ace designer, who had the confidence and skills to make a pizza costume that could take–or rather, give–a real pounding.

EF: It was exciting to work together to invert a classic porn trope—not just in terms of story, but also in terms of who is fucking whom, and how? Who places orders, and who gets served? As an IRL thirsty bottom it was a dream for me to play the role of Hungry Boy and to “eat pizza” with all my holes. ?
 

 
 
PLTV: Your studio description says that you chefs have a nine-course tasting menu, but so far, we’ve only seen four films. Are there five more food-themed shorts on the way?

EF: The fifth meal, Dic Pic Picnic, has been shot and is currently in the editing bay. It’s an ode to prop work and creative expression. Amongst other “bits,” it includes a picnic blanket fetish harness, a human spring roll, a deviled egg bikini, and the bottle-poppin’-potential of the sphincter.

The rest of the meals are in various stages of development. We were planning to shoot the 6th meal at Hacker Porn Film Festival in Rome in May, but of course that is on hold. It’s a fine-dining film that features a very special butt plug…

Ty: Beyond that we’ve got some titles in our tote bag: “HARD CORN,” “Just a Banana,” and “Midnight Snack.”

 
 
PLTV: We can’t wait for those! But we suppose we’ll literally have to wait for the time being, as COVID-19 has put a lot of productions on hold. How else has your work been impacted by COVID-19? Any advice for filmmakers whose projects may be in limbo? Any upcoming projects, screenings, etc?

EF: In January we shot Mes Chéris with Jamal Phoenix and Dante Dionys, our first film outside of the Meals series. It’s a combination of interview and porn which clocks in at over 12 minutes (epic length for us!) and we are super excited about how it turned out. Post-production wrapped just as COVID-19 was taking off, so we had to do some internal wrestling with our hopes for the movie. On one hand we felt that Mes Chéris had a shot at a hot mainstream festival premiere, and the thought of premiering online just didn’t excite us. But on the other hand we had to surrender to the reality and uncertainty of the situation. Who knows how long it will be until we can watch porn elbow-to-elbow again. So we let go of this dream of the Big Premiere and are just applying to everything. An advantage of releasing online is that we have the potential to reach a much wider audience than if we were screening exclusively to folks with access to in-person festivals.

Ty: We were fortunate to have a stockpile of footage to work with during quarantine. We finished Mes Chéris and started editing Dic Pic Picnic. But for a few weeks, we weren’t so motivated to work on our films. We picked up some trending hobbies like sourdough and embroidery. And we’re going to try some new things film-wise — like animation! One thing that won’t change is that we’re going to keep collaborating and paying our collaborators. Cuz baby we all got to eat. And there’s some New Queer Cuisine that is sure to satisfy that hunger.

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