Jonni Darkko On Balance Creativity And Doing What He Wants

“She’s eight months old, so she’s crazy,” he explains, sounding much like a new parent as he describes his energetic Yorkie. “You’ve got to play with them a lot when they’re that age, and it’s getting to the point where I’m struggling to get enough time to do all the things I need to do. If she’s sleeping, I’m sleeping, so there are nights when I’ll be in bed at 9 p.m.

“But I’m good with it!” Darkko adds. “I did 35 years of nights that were never-ending. I went to all the parties and did all that crazy shit, but that’s all over now, which is fine by me. I like to enjoy a nice meal with a good glass of wine, of course. But that’s all I need.”

Darkko got his first taste of the industry in the late 1990s, while working for photographer J. Stephen Hicks. He went on to shoot with Jenna Jameson, and worked with Jill Kelly for years before eventually connecting with Scott Taylor at New Sensations.

“Scott kind of gave me the push,” recalls Darkko. “I was doing stills for him, and then he handed me a video camera and said, ‘Here, shoot this.’ It was like the bridge came down. That got the wheels rolling real quick, and I came back from Christmas break with all these ideas and titles.

“That kicked it all off,” he says. “And it was all because somebody allowed me the freedom to do what I wanted to do, which was unheard of.”

These days, after starting his morning by rolling around in bed with Lulu, Darkko has his coffee, then hits Twitter — though he says he tries just to log on, promote his work and quickly sign off, as he feels like the site can be “an energy suck.”

On non-shoot days, he might spend an hour or two Photoshopping images or preparing a rough cut of a scene for his longtime editor, Ricky of Motion Fiction.

“I usually do the color correction as best as I can and try to make it as easy as possible for Ricky,” says Darkko. “My shooting style is different from everyone else’s due to the frame rates and some of the colors we use, so it’s a bit of a process, and editing software is constantly changing. But he’s really good and we’ve been working together for a while, so we’ve figured out a lot of technical issues together.”

Darkko also keeps a notebook close at hand so he can jot down ideas.

“It comes in handy when I come up with an idea for a title or a plan to shoot a certain girl or a certain gangbang,” he says. “I’m constantly writing things down as they come to me because otherwise, I’ll forget and it won’t happen.”

Darkko’s lunch breaks typically include sneaking in a good workout at the gym before rolling up his sleeves again.

“People have such a misconception about porn,” he says. “It’s a business, just like anything else. The business end of it is so complex that it requires constant massaging.”

Part of that is strategizing around his various websites and marketing.

“You have to be on certain platforms, but I don’t pay attention to the ones that aren’t profitable,” Darkko says. “I’m shooting different niches, and I’m not cross-platforming a ton. Every year, I look back and run the numbers, and it helps me decide what to do. I ‘moneyball’ the shit out of it.”

Shoot days are different. When Darkko is in production, he’s “in the zone.”

“I don’t pay attention to my phone at all,” he says. “I just make sure I translate the things that I want to see, that will make a scene insane. I like to try stuff in the moment, but for the most part, my productions are pretty well-thought-out. I don’t leave a lot to chance, so there aren’t going to be a lot of deviations from the plan.”

That includes making sure everyone is on the same page.

“If two performers haven’t worked together before, then I say “Let’s discuss the things you love and the things you hate,’” Darkko says. “I like to get that stuff out in the open before they start touching and fucking. I want people to know what they’re doing before they even get there.”

Darkko avoids long shoot days, typically starting around 9:30 a.m. and wrapping around 3:30 p.m.

“I used to work for people who shot long days, and I absolutely hated it,” he recalls. “It’s about energy. You only have someone’s attention span for so long before they just completely lose their minds, so having someone on set for 12 to 14 hours is just absolutely absurd.

“I think a lot of people overshoot,” he reflects. “That’s why it takes so long for people to get through set days — because there’s all this added dialogue and stuff that no one really pays attention to. So I kind of trim that stuff down for my own sanity’s sake, and do the opposite. It’s more like, ‘Let’s bring people together, light the stick of dynamite, make it happen and go home.’

“That’s important to me,” he adds. “Especially getting older, I don’t want to be on set for 10 hours. I don’t want to do anything for 10 hours — except for fly fishing.”

Darkko also prefers not to work on weekends, though he will sometimes bend that rule to take advantage of the lighter traffic.

For shoots, Darkko relies heavily on his two right-hand men: Deacon, who is also performer Jennifer White’s husband, and Nate, who has been with him for roughly 16 years. After wrapping a shoot, he heads home to download the day’s footage and take a peek to see if it turned out the way he intended.

“I don’t really make a ton of mistakes,” Darkko smiles. “After all these years, I kind of have it down to a science. Sometimes I’ll be in too much of a hurry and forget to get a voiceover. But that’s why I take a lot of notes. On a shoot day, I can scroll through them to make sure I’m not forgetting something.”

Darkko is especially proud of a showcase he recently directed for Chloe Amour.

“We just dropped it in early September, and Chloe is amazing,” he enthuses. “I shot her a bunch in the last year or so, and I just think she’s fire. Her showcase turned out great, and I’m really proud of it.

Amour’s showcase took four months to produce, but was a particularly fun project for Darkko, who says he enjoys the creative process and tossing ideas around with collaborators to see what sticks.

“I don’t know if people realize the work that goes into these showcases,” Darkko says. “It’s such a process. I came up with all these concepts and ideas, and put together a wardrobe, so it’s a lot of work — but it’s the kind of work I like. I always wanted to shoot in this one studio in Burbank, but I needed a reason to do it. It has these huge LED screens that are nearly 100 feet wide. So I made videos to project onto the screens in the background while I stayed focused on Chloe, who did her first gangbang and her first double anal. It was crazy. We just went nuts.”

Darkko also recently enjoyed working with Angela White on her “Fuck Angela” showcase.

“That was fun because we shot on these old cameras from the early 2000s and put something together as a homage to what we did back then, which was crazy cool,” he marvels. “I’m always trying to learn something new, maybe buy a new camera or try a new editing style. Anything that will help my process as a creator.”

When Darkko speaks with XBIZ, he’s enjoying a break from production, planning future scenes and starting to wind things down so he can spend a couple of weeks traveling.

“I’m going to Montana to fly fish and just disappear,” he says. “It’s a cathartic release to get away from it all. It’s beautiful up there. There’s no cell phone signal, so I can just live life like nothing else is happening.”

After that, Darkko expects to spend some time over the holidays reviewing the past year’s work to figure out what clicked and what didn’t, as he begins to map out upcoming projects.

“I’ve got a couple of new title ideas in my head, and an idea for a showcase next year, so we’ll see if that works out,” he says. “I like to plan things because when you plan things, you make them happen. I don’t like not knowing where I’m going.”

The same might be said for the business itself. Darkko says that while he’s excited by all the new technology he’s seeing in the adult industry, he’s also concerned about the rise of AI.

“The minute that people normalize AI-generated porn, it’s over,” he warns. “The stuff I’m seeing right now is crazy — and it’s going to get even crazier.”

That being said, Darkko does not feel too personally invested in the issue, for the simple reason that he expects to retire fairly soon.

“I may have another five years to go, and then I’ll probably be done,” he reveals.

Darkko hasn’t decided what he’ll do once he retires, but says he is looking forward to the next chapter of his life.

“I haven’t figured it out, but I’m hopeful,” he admits with a nervous smile. “I just feel very fortunate to have worked with so many great performers. It’s been amazing. I’ve had a really good run.”

Asked whether he harbors any regrets after more than 25 years in the industry, Darkko says he just wishes he’d managed his finances better early on.

“The VHS and DVD era was a crazy time,” he says. “It was like the Wild West, and I acted like it was going to last forever. Then the business shifted so dynamically in a different direction, and I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’ But I try not to have any regrets because regrets imply something’s wrong, and I don’t feel like I did anything wrong. I feel like everything’s been great. I have no complaints.”

Rather than point to a single career highlight, Darkko says that the highlight for him is his independence. He’s been able to do what he wants to do, while making friends in the business and gaining fans from all over the world.

“I’m blessed in that regard,” he says.

As for the immediate future, Darkko’s plans turn out to be pretty straightforward.

“I’m taking Lulu to doggy daycare after this interview,” he laughs. “So I can have some fucking peace and quiet!”