By Peter Berton

THE ALGARVE, Portugal – When juxtaposed with “porn,” the word “quality” often begs definition. In the case of longtime adult film producer Viv Thomas, however, the two words seem naturally to belong together.

For decades, Thomas has produced visually stunning, erotically moving content that puts gonzo porn to shame. Thomas’ work likely would be called masterful even in the mainstream; in adult, that description has never been questioned.

YNOT.com caught up with the 65-year-old, South Africa-born Thomas, who now lives and works in Portugal.

YNOT: How did you get into adult photography?

Viv Thomas: I started shooting my beauty-queen wife in 1984. In those days, I managed to get published in the local girlie magazines and calendars and eventually hit it big with Mayfair. I moved over to the United Kingdom and throughout the 1990s built up my own business shooting glamour girls and later hardcore porn.

And from there you segued into adult filmmaking?

I had been taking glamour photographs for years, and it was a natural progression for us to move into video. Our first attempts at filmmaking were amazingly well received, winning an AVN award for Leg Sex Dream in the late ’90s. The success continued with a lucrative and longstanding deal with Playboy TV and the Paul Raymond Organization in the U.K.

We shot Leg Sex Dream in London at a friend’s studio and out and about in London, which was very risqué at the time. The best thing about this film was the Dutch Penthouse model Diana van Laar, who I absolutely adored. There is still a lot of her content on our pay site.

How has your career progressed over the years? What have been your highs and lows?

Highs? Discovering the Hungarian girls like Sandy, Sandra Shine, Sophie Moone, Peaches, Jo and Vera and working with them on location shoots in Portugal and Spain. We used to drive down from London for three weeks at a time and fly the girls over from Hungary. We worked extremely hard, but it was great fun, too.

Our Playboy TV deal was a consistent high during the 2000s, and moving the company to Portugal from London in 2005 was fantastic. It cost us a lot of money, but the lifestyle change was amazing.

We enjoyed substantial internet success in 2009, which was great while it lasted.

Lows? Economic recession, piracy and general downturn of the adult industry in 2010.

Your films are high quality, with an emphasis on topnotch cinematography, attractive models and believable onscreen scenes — a far cry from the gonzo that’s been popular for the past several years. What is the philosophy that guides your work, and how do you maintain that commitment despite market trends in other directions?

We attempt to stick to our slogan of “a cut above the rest.” This means we try to elevate our level of content through, as you said, beautiful girls, lavish locations and higher production values than the average porn outfit.

Our competitors never really used to put much effort into film production. Nowadays, that has all changed. The market is seriously competitive, with a lot of companies putting out some excellent, high-value porn.

Our philosophy is to always strive for the best result possible, even though we may have limited resources. You need to make love out of nothing at all sometimes. All it requires is a strong commitment to professionalism, and you’ll succeed.

Your work is well known for sensuous lesbian scenes. How do you achieve the realism for which your films have been praised, compared to the awkwardness that passes for erotica in some productions?

We try our best to pick the right girls and to work with them often. This way we build a great rapport, and the teamwork just flows. I have worked with some of our models for almost 10 years, and the strength of our relationship makes such a huge difference to the end product.

It’s also important for us to explain exactly what we want of the models, as many of them have seen what we like to call “traditional porn.” This is characteristically male-dominated and consists of a lot of slapping, spitting and screaming. Naturally, the word “filthy” is liberally used by models to describe themselves.

We don’t do that. We aim for a more natural, sensual feel by constantly teaching our models how to work for us.

When you shoot a scene, do you want the camera to disappear?

Absolutely. It is important for the models to feel at ease, and when you have six men aiming laser-sharp lenses at them, it kind of destroys the intimacy. We really aim to clear the set of all unnecessary personnel.

What do you think of the current state of erotica?

It is a whole lot better than it was five years ago. There is a real sense of quality coming through, and the mainstream press have adopted a much more liberal attitude to reporting on the porn industry. They don’t always get it right, but it appears that for years porn was shoved down men’s throats as “this is what you need: male dominates female.”

These days, there is a whole lot more choice, and discerning porn lovers will find a much more acceptable collection of erotica available to them. A testament to this change is that women are watching porn a lot more.

What work do you still want to do? Have you considered working with interactive sex technologies?

Our primary goal right now is to make more fantastic films with incredible girls and maintain the technical consistency. I’d love us to have the luxury to be able to create a lot more story-driven films. I think people get bored with continual sex, sex, sex. It’s important to set that sex up in believable ways.

What is the silliest sex scene you’ve ever shot?

Actually we’re working on five silly sex scenes for a project right now. I just got done saying how I want our sex to be more believable, but we thought we’d embark on a fun, lighthearted project for a change and poke a little bit of fun at porn itself.

The working title of the film is Cliche!, so you can imagine what it’s about. Yes: the plumber, the cable guy, the maid, etc.