Paul Morris (producer)

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Paul Morris is the owner of Treasure Island Media, a San Francisco, California-based gay pornography studio that specializes in bareback pornography. Known to be reclusive, Morris has never attended an event sponsored by his studio and in fact, when invited to speak at the 1998 World Pornography Conference in Los Angeles ^[1], he hired an 18 year old skateboarder to deliver his essay ^[2]. He is openly gay.^[3]

[edit] Biography

Morris was born in a small town in Southern California, U.S., and began making amateur pornography at a very young age. He enlisted in the Navy at age 19, serving three years before receiving a dishonorable discharge for being caught on base at a self-made glory hole.

He moved to New York and then to San Francisco, earning a living by hustling and making and selling private video tapes. After inheriting money after the death of a relative, Morris attended several art schools to study videography and electronic music composition. He studied composition with Terry Riley, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, Philip Corner, William Brooks and others. He was threatened with expulsion from art school for setting up a glory hole in the performance art gallery and hiring young men to engage in oral sex. He was eventually expelled from art school for creating a series of performances that involved male prostitutes who were bound with leather bands that were connected to contact microphones.

He traveled to the South Pacific and lived for a while in a traditional Fiji village, studying the indigenous religion and music. He returned to the United States and lived in San Diego, where he divided his time between the San Diego Zoo (working as a researcher in infrasonic communication among elephants) and the military bases (having sex with marines).

After depleting the inheritance he had received, he eventually returned to San Francisco where he met Bob Jones and other professional pornographers who encouraged him and taught him the basics of the porn business. He produced and directed videos for several companies, including All Worlds and Brush Creek Media.

Morris started Treasure Island Media, naming the business after his favorite childhood book (Treasure Island). In 1998, he filmed Raunch Lunch.^[4]

He is known to be a patron of independent filmmakers and has supported work by Vanessa Renwick, Bill Daniel, Todd Verow, Daniel Rabinowitz, Lee Krist, and others. He has also funded projects by San Francisco's Artists' Television Access.^[5] He was a primary producer of Todd Ahlberg's film, "Meth", a feature-length documentary on drug abuse among gay men.^[6]

In October 2007, Paul Morris’ Treasure Island Media (TIM) won the prize for Best US Studio at the DAVID Awards in Berlin. This caused controversy as TIM produces bareback films, filmed without a condom, causing Titan Media founder Bruce Cam to decline his award.^[7] In 2008, Morris received a Best Director Golden Dickie Award for "What I Can't See 2" (which also won Best Video) from Rad Video and Treasure Island Media received the most Awards of any adult company including Best Studio.^[8]