Two weeks ago today, inside the million-dollar-plus houses on a quiet cul-de-sac in Encino, the neighborhood kids delighted in what the Easter Bunny had brought.
Then, about 10 a.m., the porn stars started showing up.
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Porn Shoots Get Under Their Skin
Encino neighbors may object to the filming, but there's little recourse if city permits are in place.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday May 03, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 66 words Type of Material: Correction
Adult movie locations: An article Sunday in Section A about the filming of adult movies in Los Angeles referred to Film L.A. as a city agency. In fact, Film L.A. Inc. is a private, nonprofit corporation that issues film permits on behalf of the city as well as other jurisdictions, such as Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Angeles National Forest.
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Helaine Gesas, who has lived on Hayvenhurst Avenue for 38 years, was in her kitchen cooking Passover supper when she noticed men hauling cameras and lights into the two-story house across the street.
Her neighbor Kerry Cohen, a paralegal and mother, was on her way out to organize a charity event. As she squeezed past several large production trucks, Cohen looked in her rear-view mirror and saw "scantily clad" young women parking their cars and heading toward the same house.
As far as John R. Johnson was concerned, "that was the end of Easter Sunday." Johnson, another neighbor, told his 9-year-old daughter to stay inside while what he described as a "prison-yard break" -- a large film crew, many of its members covered in tattoos -- entered the iron gates of the house in the 3600 block of Hayvenhurst.
Outraged, Johnson called the city seeking to shut the porn shoot down. But everything, he was told, was perfectly legal.
In any given year, about 3,900 adult films are shot in Los Angeles, according to industry estimates. As with any other shoot, those films are supposed to obtain permits from the city. But the city doesn't restrict the content of the projects it approves.
Which means that if one of your neighbors decides, as Johnson's did, to rent out his house for the filming of "The Alphabet" -- in which sexual acts are performed in alphabetical order by 21-year-old identical twins -- there's not much you can do to stop him.
Many in L.A. have endured film shoots in their neighborhoods and know the infuriation of traffic congestion and sidewalks swarming with self-important production crews. But along with the hassle often comes a little cachet -- if you lived in a dump, chances are they wouldn't be shooting a romantic comedy or luxury-car commercial next door.
When the call sheet calls for neither witty patter nor rich Corinthian leather but instead for orgiastic sex, cachet isn't what the neighbors talk about. Morality, their children's physical safety, property values -- those are the topics on many people's minds.
The tale of the Hayvenhurst cul-de-sac, where several adult productions have been shooting almost nonstop for two weeks (and were booked to continue through Monday), pulls back the curtain on how one of the region's most thriving industries -- pornography -- coexists with the city itself.
