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Saturday, August 1, 2015

Milo Karanikas


Concept: Porn Producer

AKA: Produces and directs films under the name “Richard Ames”

Desc: Middling-sized and skinny. Rarely seen without something leather on. Mostly it’s pants and sometimes a leather vest. Anything that isn’t leather is usually silk and of a dark color. Wears engineer boots or his beloved set of black “Chuck’s” He sort of resembles Nigel Terry in “Excalibur” except he’s a little swarthier.  Makes the mustache work. His goatee is actually just a straight vertical strip of hair, dead center of his chin. He refers to it as the “Persian Tickler”  Rarely without his over-sized sunglasses.  Black nail polish.

History: There WAS a plan. Milo got out of film school and rather than go into the slow slide of film students fighting to stay out of porn, He decided to jump in with both feet, make as much money as he could and then make himself over to break into legitimate film-making. He created a persona and dove into the business, always with the idea in mind that at some point, he’d put all this behind him and make real films.
   This did not happen.
There are a few reasons for why this did not occur. For one, Milo had underestimated how hard it was for a film-maker in porn to make the jump into legit films. Once you’ve done porn, you are essentially stigmatized and it’s going to take more than a change of wardrobe and shaving off the Persian Tickler to get out from under.  Secondly, Milo found that he actually LIKED producing and directing porn. Call it a streak of voyeurism in his basic make-up. It may have had something to do with how the plan got made in the first place.  Third, Milo is actually pretty good at it. He’s got a gift for getting nuanced performances out of boys and girls who are dumber than a box of rocks and he’s got the photography aspect down to the point where they are calling him the “New Michael Nin”
   So, Milo found himself some backers, found a nice place JUST outside the city limits, and opened his studio in an old, tiny office park facing the highway. The Office park is small but the interiors are modular enough that they can be shuffled around a bit. and with a bit of set dressing can pass for a home interior, or a doctor's office, a cubicle farm, or even, with some set-up, more unusual locales. There’s some green-space on the other side, away from the highway, where exterior shots can be done.
Milo is doing well financially. Has made occasional forays into financing legitimate films and has done okay on that front.  He’s not super rich, but he’s doing very very well. Well enough that he came to the notice of some interested parties.
For one, Don Pentangelli. who was one of the original backers. The Don takes a regular slice. But he is, truly, the least of Milo’s problems.  The other backers were members of the Vermillion House inner circle. Those people got their original investment back, but they wanted something more... 
They wanted Snuff films.

And so, once a quarter, They come around with a panel truck delivering some young person who’s been grabbed. A limousine appears bearing a man clad all in black leather who refers to himself as “The Engine” and Milo sets up and directs the shots while Engine repeatedly rapes and then strangles the person to death.  Then some whole other dude turns up and collects the body, taking it God only knows where.

The whole set-up makes Milo nervous. He does it because he’s fairly morally flexible, the money is huge, and he’s already seen that if the House wants him erased from history by tomorrow, he’ll be GONE.

Attitude: “Look. This is not what I signed on for.  I only wanted to make movies of people fucking. But the needs must when the devil drives. You know what I mean? But hey...This thing that you and I are doing together...It’s your only shot at some tiny slice of immortality. That’s what film-making is. So...If you could act like you’re enjoying it. That’d be great. It’ll add a whole extra dimension to this scene. K?
Okay, Engine. Let’s go back to first position...”

Skills:  Milo is no combatant. Hasn’t thrown a punch since grade school and wouldn’t know the business end of a gun unless it was pointed at him. He’s quite adept at the social skills and has a few skills when it comes to jack-leg engineering. Knows his sound and video equipment backward and forward. Has intimate knowledge of his digital editing suite and is able to assemble a fully realized film for the Vermillion from last shot to final cut in the space of a couple of hours. (It’s always a crash project with them.)  He’s got a few dots of Computer at least and, unbeknownst to the House. Has salted away some get-away money and copies of ALL of the films he’s made for them. He’s got them squirreled away in a safe place. They have gone to the lengths of making sure that his editing suite is clean, but he’s got a second server elsewhere. He’s hoping that should the day come, those copies will provide leverage or at least a reduced sentence for himself. This is unlikely, and he knows that, but it may be his only hope.

Gear: Milo has a van for hauling his film equipment. He also has a very nice restored Mustang which he uses to prowl for new talent. He has a smart-phone on his person usually. 

Home: The Studio is where he keeps the bulk of his personal possessions and his gear and while he does have a nice swanky apartment downtown for “Entertaining”, he generally cat-naps on the cot right next to his editing bay.

Circle: Milo is a known quantity in certain circles. He attends The Vermillion House parties and has “Those”sorts of connections, but he’s constantly on the prowl for new talent that he can mold and shape. He has a stable of girls and boys who make comfortable livings from him and a few people who are part of his crew who make decent money off of what he does.  NONE of them know about the other thing.

Story Uses:
* “Dude! I didn’t know she was your sister!”
Milo is, at his core, kind of scummy, and a bit of a low-rent lothario. That could be forgivable if it weren’t for the other thing. But he doesn’t really have any nervousness about enticing a young impressionable person into a career of fucking for money, and a likely case of Herpes.

*”LOOK! I’m just a link in a chain! It’s not me you want!”
Some fine day, Someone may get the people who snatched their loved one. And they may get those people to talk. If so, they’re likely to come round and have some pointed question for Milo. Milo is totally chickenshit and has gone over in his head exactly what he’s going to say when and IF that day arrives.  The sad fact is, that he doesn’t really KNOW all that much.  He doesn’t even know that “The Engine” is Lothar Van Doren.

Connections:
The Caboose has a small deal with Milo's Studio for producing web content. All of this is very soft-core and entirely up to the girls if they want to be the Featured Girl of the Month. Some of the girls do it, it's a nice bit of extra cash.
Detective Bela Janofski has been sniffing around. He's been asking questions and so far been coming up dry. Milo's studio doesn't have a name for a reason.
Lara X came very close to taking Milo up on his offer, but it seemed like a major exposure for her and she shied away. Many of the people who work at the studio are avid fans of her blog. Milo has no idea how close he came. If she'd even gone back to his apartment, he has hidden cameras there too.
Darla Grumman once came out to the studio to fix a broken lighting fixture at the insistence of her then girlfriend. Unfortunately, that led to a fight (about the filming, not the lighting fixture) and the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth about the place.
Lewis Flowers is an avid fan of their website, especially the more S&M flavored offerings. Lately, he's been seeing the Office park in his dreams. The Engine, too.
Don Pentangelli keeps an eye on his investment. He keeps the cops away and occasionally makes investment suggestions to Milo, who has a decent head for business and is respectful...for a pornographer. It's probably a good thing that the Don doesn't know about Milo's sideline.


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