Building a Universe – The Creative Challenge Beyond Nerd Pervert
Paul Taylor
If you've followed our work for a while, you'll probably know us best for Nerd Pervert. It's the brand we've become known for and, after all these years, it's still something we're incredibly proud of.For a long time, though, we've wanted to expand beyond it.
That sounds exciting, and it is, but it's also surprisingly daunting.When you've spent years building a loyal audience around one idea, it's easy to stay in that comfort zone. You know what people expect, you know what works, and you know why they come back. Walking away from that, even just a little, can feel like taking a risk.
The funny thing is, if you had pitched Nerd Pervert fifteen years ago on paper, most people would probably have said it would never work.
An adult series... with an ongoing story? Recurring characters? Comedy?Continuity?
At the time, those ideas weren't exactly common in adult content. Looking back now it seems obvious, but back then it felt like we were trying something that shouldn't have worked.It certainly didn't become successful overnight.
It took time. People slowly understood what we were trying to do, and eventually the audience found us. So when we started thinking about creating entirely new brands, we knew they couldn't be as involved as Nerd Pervert. We're still a relatively small production company, and over the last seven years Dusk Films has evolved into something much bigger than just producing our own content.
We're now a content creation studio. That meant every new idea had to serve two purposes.Firstly, it had to work as a brand for us.Secondly, it had to work for the content creators we collaborate with.Every scene needed to stand on its own so the creator could release it immediately on their own platforms. If they returned to shoot another episode in the same series, they'd have their own Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, while we slowly built a much larger catalogue of that brand for Dusk Films.
In many ways, everyone wins.The creator gets content they can monetise straight away, while we're quietly building something much bigger in the background.After doing this for over a year, though, we found ourselves asking a question we hadn't expected.
What makes something the Dusk Films version?
The standalone versions worked perfectly.The creators loved them.But where did those characters fit inside what we're now calling the Dusk Films Universe?For years people have associated us with the Nerd Pervert characters, but suddenly we had police officers, game show hosts, gym instructors, shoplifters and completely new personalities appearing across different projects.
How do they all fit together?
How do we make them feel like they're part of the same creative world?That's where the real fun began.One thing that has accidentally happened along the way is that we've gained a bit of a reputation for giving creators what looks like exclusive release rights because we often don't release our versions for quite some time afterwards.The reality is much simpler.We're building a library.
Once we begin releasing these new brands properly, we'll already have enough episodes completed to maintain a consistent release schedule. Rather than scrambling to produce the next episode, we'll already be ahead of ourselves.The creators need their version immediately.
We need to think long-term.That difference in timing is all part of the plan.These days, it's not unusual to find us staring at an Adobe Premiere Pro timeline asking ourselves the same question over and over again.
"What do we add to this scene that turns it from a good standalone video into a Dusk Films production?"
Is it the editing? The humour? The storytelling? The little recurring details? The characters? The music? The pacing?Or is it simply years of making content in a certain way without even realising we've developed our own style? We're still discovering the answer ourselves.
And honestly... that's probably the most enjoyable part of the whole process.Creativity shouldn't always have all the answers from the beginning. Sometimes you only discover what makes something special by making it.
I'll leave it there for now.
If enough people enjoy reading about the creative side of what we do, I'd love to write a follow-up talking about the thought process behind building the Dusk Films Universe, creating new brands, and how those ideas evolve from a notebook into a finished production.Finally, here's one piece of advice that has helped us more times than we can count.
Write every idea down.
Even the ones you think you'll never forget.We've all had those moments where an idea feels so good you convince yourself there's no chance you'll lose it... and then life gets in the way, you become distracted, and it's gone.
Keep a notebook, use your phone, write it on a scrap of paper, just don't rely on your memory.
You never know which tiny idea today might grow into something much bigger tomorrow.
— Paul Taylor
CEO, Dusk Films
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