Advice From Academy Award-Winning Director Robert Wise
The movie "Citizen Kane," which was written, directed, and starred Orson Welles, is often hailed as the greatest movie ever made. Robert Wise, who served as the editor on the film, shared with Ken the story of how Welles, a prominent radio star, aspired to make movies, but initially faced rejection from Hollywood. However, his fortunes changed when he produced and starred in an infamous radio broadcast based on H. G. Wells' science fiction masterpiece, "The War of the Worlds."
The broadcast, which many listeners believed to be real, caused widespread panic as it portrayed a Martian attack on the United States. This incident almost derailed Orson Welles' career, but it ultimately captured the attention of Hollywood, leading to his success in making great movies. Mr. Wise challenged Ken to come up with a concept that would showcase his creativity and generate significant publicity. After several months of Ken proposing various story ideas, Mr. Wise finally approved one that he considered "brilliant."
In the spring of 1998, the Internet was still in its early stages, and the leading news story was the President Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. However, this changed when news broke about the first live birth being broadcast on the Internet, causing servers around the world to be overwhelmed. Witnessing the media frenzy, Ken was struck by an idea. He thought that if a live birth could be shown online, why couldn't they show the first step - the conception?
Ken wrote a treatment for Mr. Wise, outlining a project called OurFirstTime.com. The project involved two 18-year-old recent high school honor graduates who would lose their virginity live online. It was intended to be a semi-scripted reality project, similar to today’s “Borat” movies, with a focus on raising awareness of AIDS testing, safe sex practices, the power of the Internet as a new media platform, and sexual abstinence. The final scene would show the two virgins deciding to wait until they were married to lose their virginity. With Robert Wise’s approval, Ken initiated the project with a budget of only $300.
The project was planned to run for 18 days and would be adjusted daily based on reactions and comments from around the world. The script involved the two participants, Mike and Diane, sharing their journey online, including telling their parents about their plans, getting AIDS tests, buying condoms, dealing with media attention, and ultimately deciding to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. A single one-page teaser was set up online to announce the launch of the website in five days.
Ken, with no money to advertise, registered on a deeply religious website forum as a "grandmother." who was shocked to find that her grandchildren were looking at a website where two young adults would lose their virginity online. This single posting caught fire on conservative websites worldwide, and they were up in arms to stop the show. The furor then spilled over to liberal websites who wanted the show to go on. Within 72 hours, the OurFirstTime.com website was #1 in the world, crashing servers around the planet. Many countries said they would ban access to the website, while others praised its message and planned to offer it in schools. The website was also highlighted on all of the late-night talk show monologues and even got the attention of the US Congress when Senator John McCain railed against it and demanded a vote to establish the Internet Decency Act.
Ken had made arrangements with several private Internet servers operated by computer enthusiasts from their basements. He knew the project would be controversial and draw high traffic, so he needed a nationwide network of servers that could handle a very large load when necessary. However, when the teaser page was launched, all of the nationwide basement servers crashed, leaving Ken in a difficult situation. If he couldn't proceed with his semi-scripted project, he would have no way to demonstrate that sexual abstinence was the actual focus of the show and that he was a supporter of abstinence rather than a promoter of sleazy content.
Ken's attorney held a news conference, seeking help from anyone or any company with the massive computer power required to host the show for free. Despite the controversial subject matter, many offers came in, but none had the necessary computer power to handle the global traffic—until Seth Warshavsky, known as the Prince of Internet porn, stepped in. Seth owned ClubLove.com, the largest and most provocative porn site in the world. He was responsible for distributing the Pamela and Tommy Lee home sex tape, nude pictures of conservative personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and various other unsavory but sensational porn content.
Seth signed a non-disclosure agreement and then a contract to acquire the OurFirstTime.com URL for his large computer network. The entire website was moved to Seth’s Internet Entertainment Groups’ servers, which included a surprise ending promoting sexual abstinence, something that Seth was fully aware of. Only a single teaser page was available for the public to see. However, once the actual website went live, there would be a disclaimer stating that the entire project was a semi-scripted reality show with actors.
When Seth noticed that his servers were getting hundreds of millions of visitors, he strongly urged Ken to let him implement an Adult Verification system, similar to the one Seth was already using at ClubLove.com, charging $5 per visitor. This could potentially generate millions of dollars, which they would split 50/50, and Ken could finally fund the movie “Heart of the Beholder,” based on his family’s true story. However, Ken refused. He wanted young people to watch his show and hopefully initiate a conversation between parents about AIDS awareness, safe sex practices, and sexual abstinence as well as showcase Ken’s creativity.
Seth was in trouble with the IRS and faced many personal and business lawsuits due to his unethical and criminal business practices, which involved overcharging customers' credit cards. He had plans to flee to Thailand to escape his problems. When Seth discovered a large amount of Internet traffic going through his servers from OurFirstTime.com and Ken still refused to let Seth charge a $5 Adult Verification fee, Seth locked Ken out of the system and redirected the traffic to his main website, ClubLove.com. Approximately 10% of the traffic stayed and paid the Adult Verification fee, also becoming members of ClubLove.com at a cost of $30 per month. According to court records, the amount of money coming in was described as "astronomical," with credit cards being charged multiple times, generating over $100 million dollars.
Seth then appeared on CNN, claiming that he was the one exposing Ken Tipton as a fraud. Seth alleged that Ken was planning to scam millions of dollars by creating a worldwide sex show featuring two young adults losing their virginity live on the Internet, which was all fake, and charging a $5 Adult Verification fee. Seth also revealed that Ken was a "convicted porn producer" from St. Louis. However, what Seth referred to was that Ken had created one of the first home videocassette rental companies in America, which had grown into a multi-million dollar chain of stores and the first stand-alone kiosks offering first-run videocassette movies vended robotically.
Ken was a trailblazer in the videocassette rental industry. He faced charges of obscenity for renting adult films to customers who could prove they were of legal age. Despite the fact that the majority of the jurors were women, both jury trials unanimously ruled in his favor. The charges were brought by a corrupt prosecutor who had been blackmailed by the St. Louis chapter of Rev. Donald Wildmon’s National Federation for Decency (NFD). Ken was targeted because he was the President of the St. Louis Video Dealers Association and was the only video dealer in St. Louis to carry Martin Scorsese’s controversial movie “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which the NFD opposed without even watching the movie. The negative publicity and substantial legal fees led to the bankruptcy of Ken’s video stores and his family, eventually resulting in his divorce.
A few years later, Ken discovered that the prosecutor had been blackmailed. With the help of St. Louis TV reporter Herb Humphries, they conducted a sting operation that successfully exposed the corrupt politician. It was revealed that the prosecutor was also embezzling from a Crime Victims Fund. As a result, the prosecutor pleaded guilty, was disbarred, received a suspended prison sentence, and had to pay a large fine. Ken's involvement in the case led to the opportunity to make a movie about the true story. However, the topic was deemed too controversial and likely to upset the religious right. Despite facing obstacles in getting the project off the ground for years, Ken's mentor, Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise, presented him with a challenge that ultimately led to the creation of the OurFirstTime.com project. The goal of this project was to showcase Ken's creativity and bring his family's true story to the big screen.
Ken is still proud of what he tried to accomplish with the OFT.com project, but he admits he made some very bad decisions. The worst was pretending to be “Oscar Wells”, the website developer of OFT.com when talking to reporters. During interviews, he would improvise his answers to add authenticity to the project. However, when Seth accused Ken of scamming people, the media turned on Ken and his team. The reporters didn’t care that Ken had no legal corporation, business bank account, or credit card merchant services that would have allowed him to accept credit cards. They also ignored the fact that Seth was a well-known scam artist who had multiple bogus websites offering fee-based cosmetic surgery and home loans that never materialized.
Ken had a plan to raise money for his movie and pay the basement server geeks. He sought sponsorship from companies like Trojan condoms, who referred him to the owner of Condomania retail store in Los Angeles. At Condomania, Ken learned how to have people register for free on the OFT website and how to build a large email list that he could rent to online email brokers at $0.25 per name. The registration process would disclose that Ken would market their information, similar to how car giveaways at malls operate. However, since the full website was never opened, the disclaimer was never seen. After the project fell apart, a fight with Seth began to reclaim the OFT.com URL, which was eventually taken over by Condomania. They opened the website with its full disclaimer, and eventually sold the OurFirstTime.com URL to a porn company for $50,000. However, for Ken and his actors, the damage had already been done.
After the fallout, Ken and his actors faced severe consequences. They lost their agents and managers, and were shunned or cut off by many friends and relatives. The young actors left Hollywood. Michelle Parma, the actress who played the role of the virgin Diane, was a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and had participated in one of the first "Road Rules" shows on MTV. Tragically, she was killed in a car crash in Texas. Ken feels responsible for her death and believes that if he hadn't cast Michelle in his project, she would still be alive and in Hollywood.
Seth fled to Thailand, which has no extradition treaty with the US, with an estimated fortune of $100 to $150 million. In an online interview, he bragged about sponsoring OFT.com and feeding the media a false story to cover his tracks. He overcharged hundreds of thousands of credit cards to build his enormous bankroll before leaving the country.
Ken had one opportunity to prove that his semi-scripted reality project was not a scam. However, doing so would have ruined the career of his friend Jay Scherberth, who was the actual webmaster of OFT.com. Jay knew every single detail about the project, but he was also the editor of the top TV show "Friends" at the time. If Ken had revealed Jay as the person behind the OFT.com website and who could vouch for the motivations behind the project, Jay would have lost his job and damaged his long successful career as one of the top TV editors in Hollywood.
If Ken had produced the OurFirstTime.com project today, he wouldn't have experienced the server problems that brought the entire project down. The show would still have angered the religious right and excited the people who wanted to see two young adults lose their virginity, only to have their allegiances switch when it came time for the surprise ending of sexual abstinence. The OurFirstTime.com movie is on Ken's list of movies to be made the way it really happened.