Off a rugged dirt road in Ibiza, in a fantastical villa that sits in the clouds, Brigham and Colette Field are creating what they shyly deem "an erotic revolution". GQ is on set with X-Art, the pornography phenomenon that promises to turn sex movies into art-house cinema.

Disillusioned after witnessing the attacks of 11 September from his downtown New York marketing firm, Brigham Field embarked on a career change that began with erotic photography, and grew, after meeting his would-be wife, into perhaps the world's most sophisticated cinema erotica. Investing in next-level cinematography - with a mantra to eschew porn tropes - the mom-and-pop American start-up has grown into a global production team, accessed by viewers in the hundreds of millions. Field's singular talent is the intimate. It's a whispering blonde wrapped in white sheets and a yawn of morning light, whose smile is as sexy as it is tender. This emotional intelligence has proved a hit in a market saturated by the quick, rough and jejune. With 2012's Farewell, they released their most filmic production yet: narrative driven, with budget and nuance unprecedented in the industry.

The production swears by its discerning casting: so tall and lithe and beautiful are the women, you'd think they'd been plucked from runways. (Several have.) Crucially, many of these models only film scenes with their real-life boyfriends. Most only do so for the Fields. It takes a few hours on the island set to realise their operation has a knack for attracting serial monogamists. Mr X, a Matthew McConaughey lookalike with a deep tan and a quick smile was one of the first performers involved. He has a girlfriend in America. "It's a mindf***," he tells me. While the previous week's filming had been dedicated to X-Art's couple performers, this week's performers are all nominally single. The narrative theme is the imaginary. I learn this by chance, after witnessing a majestic pool-side three-way in which a hairless man named Libor made love to a tanned Czech beauty, then miraculously willed to life a near-identical twin, in time for a cathartic release.

Taking all of this in isn't without revelations. Like, how the plucky Libor needed to maintain mettle for a full 90 minutes, or how this must be made considerably more difficult by his co-stars repeatedly deserting him between takes in favour of a cigarette.

Some behind-the-scenes actualities ("OK... have an orgasm now...") are less surprising than others (many female performers won't allow coital ejaculation). But, perched a few hundred metres above the Mediterranean, the visitor's mind still labours over innocuous matters. What are the emotional consequences for these performers?

So tall and lithe and beautiful are the women, you'd think they'd been plucked from runways. (Several have.)

I meet Tyler Nixon: a bright, young Californian with a surfer's physique. Tyler has been in the industry for a year. A serendipitous one-night stand with a Playboy casting director led to soft-core and now hard-core shoots, where his boy-next-door charisma has made him one of the industry's most in-demand male performers. He recently came out of a six-year relationship. "I'm a hopeless romantic," he says. "That's the hardest thing for me as a performer. Sometimes you build up this chemistry. You have this incredibly passionate time, and then... cut. Done. She walks out." Tyler's next scene is a "boy-girl" with a new Latvian model, Baby. Meeting for the first time in Ibiza, they'll need to overcome language and cultural barriers. "It's my job to make her feel comfortable," he reminds me.

The director is a European auteur whose career is rising so rapidly I haven't been allowed to identify him here. An admirer of Field's work, he has become a mainstay of X-Art's international production crew. On his return to Los Angeles, he will enter pre-production on a film for a major Hollywood studio. Still fixated on flights of fancy, the setup is a sort of reverse Libor:

Baby will lie on the bed, self-pleasuring, then Tyler will appear, an erotic apparition. (Naturally, he will have corporeal form.) The filming proves sweltering, with regular intervals to fortify erections and reach over for lube and water in equal measure. The director barks out surgical orders ("That's too porno!", "Can you make her cum?", "Tyler, I can't see your cock!").

The shoot is punctuated by the smearing of fake cum on Tyler and Baby - in reality a particular brand of leave-in conditioner. The crew heads to the van. Though not directing this particular film, Field hops in, tagging along to shoot some stills. We need to make it to a nearby beach by sunset to shoot the (fully clothed) denouement. As we careen down the hills at speed, Baby starts giving Tyler a massage. "I might just fall in love with you right now," he grins.

While the director sets up the camera and Spanish beach-goers gawk at the scene, Tyler and Baby wander off in the distance.

They're taking photos by the water, poking fun at the ludicrousness of their situation. But before it begins, it's over. The sun has ducked behind the hills. The shot has been missed. During the ride home, after the European visionary has methodically put away the rig and Field has plunged into his iPhone, Baby ruffles Tyler's hair again. She grabs the arm of the imaginary boy with the imaginary cum. "I can see when you're looking at me," she whispers, as audible as the breeze. "I can feel that."

x-art.com (NSFW)

Like this? Now check out:

Behind-the-scenes of our photoshoot with Agent Provocateur model, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley