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Electric Love

By Ophelia Chong
January 4, 2009
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I first met John Carrozza and Doug Prinzivalli at our mutual friend Peleg's house. I don't laugh out loud often, and I am not a constant chuckler, but John had me laughing most of the night. Being entertaining at potlucks is just a small part of what they do, they also entertain on a larger scale.

John Carrozza and Doug Prinzivalli are the producers of Socket, a film about Bill Matthews (Derek Long) who gets struck by lightening and then develops a dangerous taste for voltage and for the cute Dr. Murphy (Matthew Montgomery). Socket will have its television premiere on Thursday Jan. 8th at midnight on Logo.

Doug and John have been together 17 years, a partnership that began back in New York. With their work in the industry, Doug an award winning graphic designer and John's career in major studios, together they formed a business partnership, Velvet Candy Entertainment to produce films where the sexuality of the characters are not pivotal to the story. Socket, their first foray into feature films is in the genre of Sci-fi, which happens to have main characters who are gay. In addition to Socket, Velvet Candy Entertainment has recently co-produced the HBO-funded short film Reunion and the TV pilot Screening Party. In the pipeline for Doug and John is the Russ Meyer/grindhouse homage Wildcat Road, which is is pre-production as well as Socket 2, both of which they plan to shoot in 2009.

Two Questions for John and Doug about Socket:

Star Trek's open in the title sequence refers to the original mission "...to boldly go where no man has gone before." Has Socket gone where no gay man gone before?
Socket goes where no gay film has gone before and certainly takes our characters in the piece to some scary places that no gay characters have ventured in any type of story. While we believe it to be the first thriller with a sci-fi/horror focus about gay characters and designed primarily for gay audiences, it speaks to the universal truths anyone could face if challenged with the life changing events that occur in the movie. We're not fond of referring to our characters as "just happening to be gay" but we were attracted to Sean Abley's script because the sexual orientation of the main characters is incidental to the plot. But it's also present during the whole roller coaster ride.

The main character is struck by lightening, which then opens up a new world of sensation and need for him; is this a parallel to a coming out story?
Audiences may read "coming out" into that part of the story, but we try to make it clear that Bill was already comfortable in his sexual identity. More people who have seen the film believe the parallel to be to substance and/or sex addiction. We think the electricity addiction featured in the film could really stand for anything that feels good but could have serious consequences if overdone.

Socket will have it's premiere this Thursday, Jan.8 at midnight on Logo. If you miss it, you can buy the DVD and support your local independent filmmaker.

For more information on Socket , you can go to the Velvet Entertainment blog

Top Photo: Pictured Left to Right: Allie Rivenbark, John Carrozza, Rasool Jahan, Derek Long, Doug Prinzivalli, Matthew Montgomery, Georgia Jean and writer/director Sean Abley.

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Photo: SOCKET star Derek Long (center) with producers Doug Prinzivalli (left) and John Carrozza (right).
Photos by Brian Putnam

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