Nyssa and Taylor, Double the Damsels Double the Fun

I tend to avoid two-girl shoots because of logistics. I have to move the camera around a lot and paying attention to who might be struggling out of frame is fairly taxing. Then I have to combine that with moving the camera around a lot and it becomes a bit tricky to make sure you have two damsels struggling in each frame as opposed to a damsel and half of a damsel with her head sticking into the unknown.

I had some trepidation about the idea when Nyssa Nevers suggested I work with her traveling companion Taylor Rae, but Nyssa won me over when she said that if I told her where to stay she'd flop around but always stay in frame. And she did! The exotic beauty was always in frame and struggled like hell. She made it easy to concentrate on Taylor during her bondage sequence with no worries that Nyssa would get cropped out somehow. The video was one of the better sequences I filmed that year. Two girls very different: one blond and one brunette, one exotic and one girl-next-door.

It was a fun shoot on many levels. Both girls were charming to work with, I got a great struggle sequence with Nyssa in the beginning, I used panty gags for the first time, I got to man-handle two-girls at once and I did my first on-screen forced orgasm with Nyssa. It is a LONG video that demands a DVD release and the clip may have to be cut down to be palatable to some. However Nyssa Nevers and Taylor Rae in Trouble for Two: Ropes, Gropes and Orgasms is now available as a clip. Warning: If you don't like two beautiful women stripped down to just shoes getting panty gagged with tape head wraps and then worked over stay away from this clips. Great job Nyssa and Taylor!

Kendra James what were you thinking?

It's always fun to go through video and pull out the odd things that happen during a shoot. Like when the dog gets loose and gets into the scene or UPS picks the the perfectly wrong moment to need a signature on a delivery. I should do a blooper reel someday! I do actually have a piece of video where the model told me her boyfriend would be checking up on her once an hour and if she was indisposed I should pick up and tell him she'd call him right back. Sure enough in full restraint and tape-gagged the phone rings, I pick up and I say the classic, "she's a bit tied up at the moment, she'll call you back." He said to put the phone by her ear and she mmmphhs four times. After the shoot she told me they agreed that any number of mmmphs other than four would mean call the cops. I find that funny until this day! Why four? Who knows, still damn funny though.

My first shoot with Kendra had some funny moments as well, mainly because she's a hoot to be around. I still have a vivid recollection of her in a naked lotus tie, neck to ankles, and hearing, "little help please." I know I've told the story but turning around to see nothing but feet and you-know-what was a bit shocking, very funny and just plain awesome from a perv point of view.

Some of the things that really get my wheels turning though are when I see expressions and wonder what is going through their heads at the time. It's fairly obvious when the expression means "just get this over with idiot!" Other times it's a bit harder to read. I was working on screen shots and just had to put up this one from Kendra James in Vintage Vixen Hogtied. I had recently re-mastered it for better color and a higher bit rate. I took the screen shot because it had drool, and I LOVE drool. Nobody plays a character in distress better than Kendra, so it could just be play-acting. The more I look at it though the more it seems to say that she knows the only way I'll get the camera out of her face is to drool. I can't even view it anymore without knowing she's thinking, "here, it's all over my bra now, happy, now film something else already!"

There are bees in my head!

My brain is buzzing today from working it at all levels. I'm in the middle of a complete re-mastering of my C4S store front, and the level of activity has been full throttle. I'm having to create new preview images, stay in email touch with tech support, update descriptions, re-master videos and create new sample images. Since re-masters can take anywhere from 5-30 minutes, I'm trying to stay busy while those churn by working on all the rest. This means that my brain is switching between lobes constantly, and I'm burning on about 8 things at once at any given time.

I needed a bit of a break to let the buzzing in my head calm down, so I'm updating my blog while I sip wine and have a couple of slices of cheese! I will say that Shannon at C4S is a God-send. She acknowledged a tweet I made within minutes and jumped on the problem I was having. The short version is that previews sell clips and they were broken for my store. She's hand-generated previews for me and cracked the whip at programmers for several days now and after 8 days of issues my store is acting like normal. Phew!

I always like to make whiskey sours when life throws me lemons, so the revamp continues and I'm loving what it's looking like: better formatting, clearer descriptions, less typos (so unprofessional) and FULL-RES previews. I'm not done though. There are still more images to generate, more previews to render and more full clips to re-render. The end result though is bigger clips at higher bit rates, better color and no more issues with people having codec issues with MPEG2.

My second favorite video clip I've put up just got remastered. It's Angelique in Hooded Hottie Groping Hell. The clip was put up while C4S had stricter guidelines on clips dimensions and file sizes. Those have changed and I've re-mastered in 720x540, 2000 Kbps and stunning color. Oh, and poor Angelique gets the lotus tie of her life and my hands all over her tenders. I love my job!

Finding the groove

Does anyone else constantly fiddle with things? I do. I think it's an integral part of the creative process. Sure, I need to brand myself but evolution of style is important as well. When I started publishing it was after a period of trying to decide what was the best resolution, post-processing effect, bitrate and such. It turns out I was wrong on just about everything lol. The viewer of the material always shows you what works best. Hey, the clip with that lighting sells the most and people prefer this format over that format.

Viewers like 720x540 and 720x480 better, and that is what they should get. Viewers like higher bit rates, and that is what they should have. Additionally, I found a nice way to get lighting similar to how I edit my images which I love. Why shouldn't all my clips look the way I prefer? That creates a dilemma though because I already have dozens of clips up. Do I just leave them and put up new stuff with the revised quality? Do I take the ones that sell the most and re-do them? Do I take the ones that sell the least and re-do those in hopes that the higher quality will get them selling.

I didn't have to face any of those choices though because fate intervened. A number of people who like my clips have been asking for special versions of clips in WMV format. On top of that my previews keep going down which is KEY for people getting a glimpse at the clip. I'm not the type to sit on a broken system or ignore a valid request. The only way I could have reliable previews is if I provided them. This is great for viewers; they get to see full quality previews that contain snippets from a larger portion of the clip. Talk about try before you buy!

In the process of doing previews I realized I had the opportunity to remaster ALL clips while I was at it. I mean, I needed to do previews of EVERY clip so why not spend the time remastering all the clips in the new format and quality. And that's what I'm doing. Slowly, surely I am remastering and swapping out EVERY clip that isn't 720x540 or 720x480 and isn't 2000 kbps. It has taken days so far and will take a couple more, but the long hours are worth it. By this Wednesday I will have 100% revamped my entire storefront on clips4sale. Was it necessary? No, people would have kept buying clips as long as I kept putting them up. But it was the right thing :)

The first clip I remastered and put back up was Angelique in Bed Bound & Busty. It was a snippet of a play session that we decided to film where she is jacked out in brown rope, red panties and killer heels.

How to know a gag is tight

I've been waiting on resolution of an issue with my C4S store for a couple days. It seems that the previews are breaking left and right, and I'm having issues when I update the store. They're working diligently on it, but I need to find something to do when C4S slows down. Luckily for me I keep a list of things longer than I'll ever be able to complete.

Something that's been hanging heavily on me for a while is that the Hogtie from Hell series seems to be very popular. The reason it hangs heavily is that the most popular clip of all with Angelique Kitos only has the ending portion where the hogtie is final. Imagine 20 plus minutes of binding and gagging something so delectable as Angelique sitting on a HDV tape gathering dust. When the store issues cropped up I decided it was great time to resolve that issue.

The clip was originally a custom request that for some reason fell through. The request was to show the tying, gagging, interaction between model and rigger and finally the completed position. The two things I noticed in reviewing the footage were just how long she had to deal with something so tight. This wasn't a case of quickly tying someone up and getting the footage. It was long and languishing. Her arms were red, and her face was red.

That's how you know a gag is tight. The ballgag was bad enough but a full roll of co-flex was stretched out and wrapped tightly over her face. That stuff is like rubber, and it squeezes when it's stretched out. After six or so layers your face is in a vice, and that ballgag is in the back of your throat. The worst part is the strain of not choking. The saliva builds up with nowhere to escape making it a true physical and mental challenge. Face red, veins popping out, eyes closed and dimples not only between the eyebrows but over them. Than my friends is how you know a gag is tight. I quite frankly don't know why the gal still gives me the time of day! Regardless check out Angelique in Hogtie from Hell - Full over at C4S ... if things are functional enough to let you :/

Nobody gets away ... most of the time

My motto of tight tight tight means that nobody escapes until I let them get out. I mean, what good is strict bondage if the ropes fall off or the gal gets loose somehow? Of course, that was before I found out a lot of folks like a nice escape video.

I tried to put my head around it and decided that the best way to do it was to make the model work for it. I'd make things a little easier by not totally jacking the position. Don't get me wrong, the gals are tied tight, but I wasn't a complete bastard by tying them up into a hogtie and saying, "get loose, I'll be over here by the camera until you do." Another aspect was to use dull scissors; I'd make the girls saw their way out and get a nice little reaction to the scissors not working as well. Finally I decided on a frogtie. There's really no comfortable way to sit upright on a hardwood floor in a frogtie, and sitting upright is the only way you're having a chance of getting loose.

Kerri Taylor wasn't the first model I've "allowed" to get loose, but her attempt was a fun one to film. She was all over the place: sitting up with knees splayed, on her side and even arching on her back to get at her ankle ropes. She certainly made it dynamic. With her elbows tied using her hands to work the scissors was a challenge, and it took her a lot longer than she expected. She asked at the start if I'd get enough video, and I assured her that I would. After 12 minutes of struggling before even getting the elbows free, she saw my point. I called it Hurting to Be Free because a model can struggle and stay within a certain comfort zone; however it is impossible to cut yourself free from an elbows-tied frogtie on a hardwood floor without it stinging a bit. Kudos to her. Despite the veins popping out of her forearms she eventually go out ... I did give her the scissors though.

The rest of the day is a busy one. I need to render out a lengthy video of Angelique Kitos, a version of her Hogtie from Hell where all the restraint being applied is shown. I'd forgotten there was a portion where she felt woozy and meditated her way through it to finish the video. Add to that photo samples, promotional work and some DVDs and it's going to be a slammed couple of days.

Where did she go?

So many people waft in and out of the business. It's no different that any other business, but I've worked with people that just model for a month. For that matter, I've heard of people leave after their first shoot. I can't really blame them though. You think it's one thing and then you get the ropes on and you decide that going back to school isn't such a bad idea! Then there are people that cycle in and out.

I met Renee years ago when I was shooting stock photography for comic books. She had never shot bondage before but had done some wrestling videos. I remember laughing to myself because she said the idea of being tied up seemed a bit rough but had already told me she'd done a dozen or so female wrestling videos where breast punching was involved. Call me crazy but I'd go for jacked restraint over getting punched in the Jimmy a dozen times. Regardless, after several emails we had our first shoot set up and ready to go, and it went great. Not only did her elbows touch, but she felt is was much less rough than she had originally thought. The material looked great, she was a great wiggler and the camera loved her. I immediately signed her up for a second shoot with video.

Then she disappeared. Well, she didn't disappear, but she worked under a manager (I can picture all the producers out there rolling their eyes) and they parted ways. And so our second shoot was foiled. To my surprise, I sent her an email just to touch bases about two years later and a shoot was back on courtesy of her new manager lol. Manager or no, we had two more shoots with some fun video. My style back then was based on cuts to provide drama and minimal moving camera work, mostly due to a crap motion sensor on my camcorder. I sometimes go back to that style because it really does make for good drama. I also tended to add more story to the shooting, so Renee got to play the part of a model that continually promises a bondage shoot but never comes through. Unfortunately this tactic only works so long before she becomes an Unwilling Bondage Model.

New twists on old favorites

The first four or so years I shot I did what a lot of people do when they shoot bondage. I had my favorite positions and relied on the models, clothing and settings to provide variety. Everyone got the same four or so stock positions with something unique thrown in for flavor. And EVERYONE got a hogtie. That gets a little boring as a rigger, so I started experimenting and that continues to this day.

Symmetry has always been in my nature. I wrote recently about loving elbows that touch because of the look. I was referring in part to the symmetry. Going against that was very out of my nature but when you challenge yourself artistically that's when you often get the best results. I started experimenting with asymmetry. Wow did I love the results. Bondage is about drama and a nice, tight tie can certainly bring that, but the angles of an asymmetrical tie do the trick nicely when done correctly. Since then everyone has been getting a mix and every shoot is an experiment in what I can do with lines.

I've been doing my "hogtie hell" series with a number of models, and Kerri Taylor was no exception. She's done it twice in fact. The first one was a sweet asymmetrical hogtie that was far more taxing than the tightest hogtie. It cinched her in 3-dimensions and pushed her flexibility to the max. Her exact words afterward were, "I'm going to hate you for about ten minutes so just leave me alone. After that we can be friends again." That only lasted about a minute, but it's a great way to let you know that it wasn't an easy hogtie. Kerri Taylor in Hogtie and Strappado from Hell was a fun one!

All Tied Elbows Are Not Equal

I know that everyone has a liking for different ties, and I myself like a large variety of restraints. I don't mind if someone's elbows don't touch as long as it looks tight. You can see when someone has them back there as much as they'll go, the shoulder shape and the slight color change always give things away. I do have to admit though that I find nothing cooler than when elbows touch. From an artistic standpoint there is a symmetry that is visually appealing. From a rat bastard point of view there is just utter helplessness there. When the elbows are tied touching you lose so much mobility. You can't twist your arms, bending is severely limited and the hands can only do so much. Love it!

All elbows are not equal though even when they do touch. Some people have great flexibly which allows their elbows to touch. Every so often you run into someone who's elbows just plain touch and by this I mean no tugging, no cinching of the rope or any external force is necessary. What does a rigger do in this case. You crush them of course. I'm not talking pain or damage or being an irresponsible ass. I'm talking about arms so close together there are no gaps and no spacing; skin touches skins from wrist to elbow. Holy crap it's a nice thing to work with I'll tell you.

I had the pleasure of working with Victoria Ashely on a video I called Date With Welded Elbows now up on my store. I plan on putting up several screen shots at www.tedmichaels.com very soon! The first shoot almost didn't happen because she got lost, but I drove out to lead her to the shoot when she got twisted around. I told her to put her arms behind her back when the first set was going and to my amazement they just touched. No ropes, no help from me ... just two unbound arms side by side. I couldn't believe it.

We did two shoots over the next two weeks and those elbows were welded 90% of the time!

Old treasures shine just as much!

Yesterday I spoke of going through the archives of material from a decade of shooting. The best decision I made ten years ago was to drop a grand on a DV camera. When everyone was shooting VHS and Hi-8 I was shooting material that holds up to a lot of the cameras today. If you can show me a VHS or Hi-8 that can be published as a 720x480 clip with no downgrade in resolution, then you can convince me otherwise.

Glamour models that discovered they liked bondage, a porn model that decided that rough oral was easier to do than my rigging, countless girls-next-door that never knew their elbows touched, models nobody has footage of but yours truly, capture sequences, vibrator sequences and full mini-movies going years back. I thought what I'd shot the last couple of years was a gold mine, but the mountain under that is just as shiny!

And so it is that I give you Ivy. She had done some mild bondage, had refused to work with some other producers and agreed to work with me because she was close and needed a content trade. I remember vividly that she changed when the ropes started going on and became very submissive. I had her elbows crunched, and she didn't care. By the time we shot a second time, I had her breasts bound and a vibrator in her crotchrope ... she progressed quickly! I'll hold onto that one for a little while though to see how her first clip, Ivy in Roped and Groped Glamor Gal, does.

New formats and old treasures

I love that the video of Amaya has been selling so well. She struggles great and has a girl-next-door look that just makes root for her to get loose ... she never does, but it's damn fun watching her try. Thank you to everyone who's been picking up the clip of her. I've done two day shoots with her, so there are plenty more clips of Amaya to follow in the coming months.

My home site continues to get more traffic, so it will be time for some updates over there soon. My goal is for it to get 100 hits a day before I do weekly updates. Check out www.tedmichaelsdamsels.com and make me do updates!

The biggest challenge I faced putting up a clips store wasn't material, it wasn't the balls to do it and it wasn't any concern about how things might go with the store. Oddly, the challenge was figuring out the best format to use for the clips. I originally planned on several formats to accommodate PCs, Apples and mobile devices. Then I decided on MPEG2 because it works "everywhere." I get great results, but I've had a couple people indicate some codec problems. So much for working everywhere. So now what? A friend over at FetLife specifically requested a WMV version of a clip with Stacie Snow, so I put up the WMV version today just so he could see the clip. Wow, the quality is a lot better than what I'd expected. No wonder so many people use it for their clips lol. I'm actively considering putting up WMV from now on.

Yesterday I cataloged "old treasures" for a couple hours. How do I put this? When people were shooting for image sites a decade ago I was shooting DV video. I have a lot of tapes, and those tapes have a lot of bondage on them. I wanted to start putting things out with my recent work, but I've always planned on interweaving that with the early material. Out come the old treasures! Look for an update from the archives tomorrow :)

Bound and gagged blond

This morning I needed something to do while my brain woke up, so I sorted and cataloged my DV tapes. I learned some things. I learned that I have a lot of video shot. I learned that I'm terrible at labeling and providing descriptions with the tapes. I learned that my obsessive need to keep all model releases filed and up-to-date is a huge thing. learned that I have some kick-ass video with capture sequences, transport sequences and multiple positions where the restraint is changed on-screen. Oh, and it's all tight as a drum rigging! I also learned that I used to use vibrators ... A LOT. I can probably do daily updates for 6 months and not have to shoot lol. I will of course continue shooting though ... I finally have a formula that I like and there's no way I'll pass on talent like Kerri Taylor, Nyxon, JJ Plush or Lola Lynn when the roll into town.

This afternoon I'll need to focus on putting together some DVDs though. I've had a goal of getting a couple full-length films up to see if anyone has any interest in HDV format of my material or if they just prefer clips. Time will tell. My top priority is finishing up a custom DVD and shipping it off. That gives me time to start a new one if anyone is interested (wink).

The bound and gagged blond pictured is Amaya Solace. I've seen her at a lot of sites, but I've never seen her in quite the style of rigging that I perform. I have this knack for getting people into a real bind without them getting pissed off at me. We've shot twice, so there's much more video to come. Amaya is very vocal and a constant wiggler which makes for great damsel video. You can see her first installment as a Ted Michaels' captive in Feisty Frogtie Leads to Naked Hogtie.

Superheroines and Spandex

The last couple of days have kept me hopping, and it's hard to believe that I couldn't find the time to update the blog the other day. That's the case though. On top of domestic items and a hockey game, I shot a custom with the lovely Angelique Kitos where she played a ravishing masked crime fighter. In this case though she was pole-tied with about 2oo feet of nylon rope and fought the vibrator in her crotchrope. I'll put some pictures of that up after the customer sees them; it's a bit gauche to show everyone before you show the person who paid for it! Ms. Kitos does make a great superheroine though, and I think we'll work that into the rotation in the future for her C4S store.

I do have to admit though that most of my time has been spent on "domestic" issues. My fellow photographers and models out there can attest that life is not always ropes and struggling. The laundry needs to get done, the dishes still pile up in the sink and the floors get dirty. How's that for glamorous?

My excitement for the week is with my new continuous lighting set up. The last time I looked at anything other that halogen lighting the cost was in the 4 figures range. When a shop light at Lowes costs $35 it's not a hard decision to make. AK kept telling me my lights wash people out (which adds to my post-production time), and I finally listened to her and checked out prices. The big conversion of everyone over to fluorescent though means the bulbs have come down drastically in price and the rigs are much cheaper now that more people are making them. The short version is that I am now the proud owner of 3000 watts of cool, soft-boxed lighting. Every model out there that has ever baked like a trussed turkey under my lights is rejoicing lol. I am just dying to get a clip shot with them too!

The image today is Angelique. A little-known secret to everyone except those that read my blog is that I have terrible grammar and like my hero Christopher Walken I refuse to change. AK pointed out my tendency to begin sentences with "however" when I fully know that I should end the last sentence with a semi-colon and then use the "however." However I don't like to do that (smile) and the image is because when she corrects my grammar is always want to get out the bit gag and nipple clamps! Oh, and the image is from Angelique in Mummified and Vibrated.

Just Hanging Around

I absolutely love a video I shot with Maria Shadoes some years back. I had a little different formula back then since I was working mostly on a tripod for the camera work. Sure, I had a DV camcorder but it still produced somewhat shaky results when the footage was hand-held. I even went so far as to make a steady cam, but it was useless for shooting in tight spaces. Where was I? Oh yeah, I shot mostly on a tripod. The problem with shooting on a tripod is my style has always been about drama and the best way to get drama with static angles is a lot of camera cuts. The change in scene tells the brain that something is happening and makes it get "re-interested" in what is going on.

The big lead-in is basically to say that a lot of cuts means a lot of editing! I've wanted to put up this video for a while, but it's been a real bear to edit into something I am comfortable releasing. I could just throw up 35 minutes of Maria wiggling with her elbows welded the entire time, but I demand drama. My post-production motto is the same as my restraint motto. The editing has to be quality; if it's not tight it's not right. My editing software isn't helping either because it keeps choking on empty frames I forgot to fill (technical blah blah).

Regardless, I will figure it all out and get a clip up soon. It's going to be called Maria Shadoes in Do Not Disturb and will feature a tight chair tie, callous man-handling, jacked hogtie and a door suspension in a hotel. The entire time poor Ms. Shadoes wears my fattest ballgag and a tight wrapping of gauze over her entire face. Wish me luck ... this edit has been fighting back harder than Maria did during the takedown at the beginning of the video!