I put up a new poll today. Correction, I put up my first poll today. I view my work as adaptive and evolve my content and style based on what is selling the best and more importantly the many emails I receive about likes and dislikes. Looking at the number of views I've been getting I wanted to try putting up some polls to give everyone a chance to express what they prefer when it comes to damsel in distress video. I still want those emails to keep coming, but this could be a great way to quickly take the temperature of everyone when it comes to bondage material. The first poll as the title of this post indicates concerns the attire of damsels. I'm always asked why I don't do more nudes or more stockings or more costumes or more latex. I shoot what I think looks nice is the simple answer. If I know what people are looking for then I'll shoot more around those preferences. No need to vote if that's not your thing, but any I do receive bring me closer to what you are looking for in future content!
One of the categories of the poll is garters, hose and heels. My formative bondage years were in a time when that was frequently seen in bondage images and movies. I've always had a strong preference for it going back to the beginnings of my photography. In fact the beginning of my photography was almost always that with some panties thrown in from time to time. Some of my favorite movies and images of this attire come from the film loops of the late 70s and early 80s, and they had a lot of garters, hose and heels. Hell there was even a bondage magazine called that. A little bit back I decided to try my hand at reproducing that look and style. The elements that I needed were a vintage looking model, the constant thrashing of the model, slight graininess to the film stock, the slightly accelerated movement speed, the look of 8mm celluloid film and that wonderful soundtrack.
The model was easier than I expected. I worked with this gal that called herself Betty Page and showed up to a shoot with this tussled throwback hairstyle and showing me the vintage shoes she just got at a rummage sale. I always keep garters and hose on hand, but would she go for the idea? I had worked with her twice before and although the bondage was strict the content was very mild. I went through all the elements from those loops that I could think of and she didn't balk at any of them. I was elated: noose, vibrator, groping, topless and bottomless were all now on the table. My video idea was one step closer to being complete. I coached her about the movement, and she nailed it. Gagged with her own panties held in by a strap she was dragged in by a noose and her sometimes rhythmic, sometimes thrashing movements were perfect.
Betty had given me perfect emoting and perfect movement. She had pulled off the vintage look and the movement from those old 8mm loops like she'd done it a hundred times. I had my footage, but the rest was up to me. The graininess was easy even shooting on DV film instead of celluloid. You can do it in post-production or while filming. With Betty I decided to shoot the video slightly underexposed and then bring up the brightness in my editing software. The grain effect came out perfectly. The slightly accelerated movement speed of the film proved slightly more difficult. I tried a dozen things. I sped up the play speed. I removed frames. I used plugins. I posted in forums. Everything I did though made it play far too quickly or made the playback jerk and hitch. I spent days on this effect and it was a fail. I decided to work on the funk soundtrack to at least make some progress. I found a great royalty free CD for around $60 and grabbed it. The songs were wonderful and very similar to the music tracks heard on the videos made using those old loops. That's when a very cool thing happened. I turned off Betty's audio and turned on the funk track. She seemed to be moving slightly faster. I turned her audio back on and she was moving at normal speed. I though I was going crazy, but somehow she seems to thrash more quickly with no sound or with the funk soundtrack. I decided that there must be some brain mechanism that makes time perceptions change when detached from the auditory experience. Regardless of the reason, the effect was there. Three cheers for dumb luck!
The last element was the look of old film stock. Anyone who's seen these loops or has some old home movies knows that the film has scratches, dust, blotches and those crazy hairs that float around while you play the film. They have plugins for that, but I didn't like the looks I was getting. I went back to looking and found some videos of actual 8mm film and videos that people created artificially. The actual 8mm was a bit distracting. The borders jumped all over the place and quite frankly gave me a bit of a headache. That's not a good thing watching a bondage video. The artificial one looked great but was a bit repetitive which made it seem artificial. The easy answer was to just pick one and be done with it, but I'd come so far to compromise. Again, there was a happy accident. In testing things I had both the actual 8mm and the artificial 8mm overlaying the video. I'd turn on one and turn off the other, but I accidentally left both on once and it looked wonderful. So I trimmed out that annoying border and used both merged. This did two things. It resulted in the longest video render of my life, but more importantly it nailed the look of the old 8mm film I wanted.
With that Betty in The Priss was born. As an homage to those loops I kept the story similar. Betty was a prissy wife who scoffed and her husband's bondage desires. Just like those loops a masked antagonist is brought in to teach her a lesson and make her into a compliant bondage model and toy for her husband.
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