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I have a bit of a balancing act. I sometimes think it would be better to put all the parts of a storyline up in quick succession- so everyone gets all the parts. But I also think that if people don’t like the storyline they are going to get pretty fed up of having it come up all the time- and it makes me look a bit like I am cheating on the preview pages if every “Daily update” for a week is part of the same story, I guess.
I’d not really thought of it in terms of making people stay as a member, but I guess I’d like to think that people who join find that the site is active and exciting enough to WANT to stay a member!
Cheers, Hywel.
Urgh, analogue technology, how quaint! I wouldn’t like to shoot on film particularly, I started off shooting stills on film and the digital revolution couldn’t come fast enough. If I had limitless resources I’d shoot on the highest of high def digital systems a la George Lucas.
We Europeans need the extra frame for the simple reason that our mains power is 50 Hz, so clocking things at 50 Hz or 25 Hz is very convenient- no need for complicated timing circuits, you can generate your clock right off the mains.
I have used Magic Bullet plugins to make a more filmic look on some clips (the Christina Carter dominatrix ones in particular- now gone from the site but coming to JBT before long). It depends what I am after. Usually I am after the feeling that every frame of the video is a Restrained Elegance still, which means very clean, very saturated, slightly warm colour response, lots of contrast. That’s a look that the Panasonic does pretty well out of the camera with the right settings.
The Sony Handycam that I use for closeups and cutaways isn’t anything like as nice. Matching its footage to the Panasonic is all but impossible- if you don’t start with a nice clean pure signal, nothing you do to it afterwards is going to help. That’s one of the things I dislike most about my own video work at the moment- it is usually painfully obvious when I cut from footage from the Panasonic to footage from the Sony.
The obvious solution is another Panasonic, which is definitely on the shopping list, although the new Panasonic HDV cams look very tempting… that may give me the same problems in the grading as the Sony vs. Panasonic does now, so a second dvx100 is probably a safer bet. (The Sony HDV consumer cams are 1080i only which is a pig because I really want progressive scan- by the time you’ve deinterlaced 1080i you might as well have shot in standard def progressive scan, it is more or less the same vertical resolution).
BTW I have just edited part four- due out on 26th October. Which I know is a long time off but I wasn’t sure I was going to finish the edit in time so I allowed myself a bit of extra time in the schedule!
Cheers, Hywel.
I did get the email, thanks- hadn’t replied yet, been a hectic weekend trying to get October’s updates processed!
Sounds like the safest thing I can do for you is to keep doing a bit of everything! 😀 😀 😀
Cheers, Hywel.
P.S. no idea why the forum is giving posting errors today, I’ve tried pruning the oldest posts let’s see if that sorts it out.
HI,
They aren’t from recent sets, I worked with them last year. I’ve got one set of Tori still to go up (in Oct) but I am out of pics of Sammie. You can see their old sets at the classic RE photostore:
Cheers, Hywel.
P.S. Lurker- many thanks for voting & posting a reply to all the polls! It does help a lot to know what people like to see because although I shoot a mix of stuff (because I like a lot of different things) it can help to decide how to balance different themes and ideas and what ideas to combine together etc.
Edited By Hywel on 1127733948
It’s a Panasonic DVX100 as the main camera, which I shoot in 25 p (progressive scan, PAL TV format, 25 frames per second) which gives a lovely film-like look and nice resolution with no interlacing artefacts. The cutaways and closeups I shoot on a Sony PC350 handycam, which also has 25 p mode. Where I shoot in widescreen I use an anamorphic adaptor on the front of the Panasonic, and the stretch mode on the Sony. This is a bit of a pain on the Sony as in the 16:9 25p mode you can’t control the exposure manually for some reason!
I love the look and feel of footage from the Panasonic, so if I get to be rich and famous a second one of those is high on my list of investments to make!
Cheers, Hywel.
Part three will be up on 28th September, with part four to come in October (I have to edit part four yet!)
Ariel is indeed a wonderful actress! Not that surprising as she went to drama school I believe. I’m sure she’d be interested in film roles…
She’s a real discovery, and she and I have several very interesting ideas we are working on. I want to do a bondage short film- which really feels like a short film rather than a video “point the cameras and everyone ad lib” shoot, and Ariel is hopefully going to collaborate with me on that. We’ve also got many other ideas in the works for our next shoot, of course!
Cheers, Hywel.
… so what do you think of part 2?
Cheers, Hywel.
LOL there’s a very good reason why I appear in each flick- I work for free! 😀
Glad you like the prequel, you can see why I rate Ariel and Belle as two of the best actresses I work with (along with Jasmine Sinclair of course).
The bondage will be here in the second part- tomorrow!
Cheers, Hywel.
I don’t have a good regular source of gags- I have picked them up one or two at a time from stalls at Fetish Con, bondage shops, websites… some of them I made myself from bouncy balls bought from Toys R Us. So really I just keep my eyes open and when I see a gag that I think looks good, I buy it!
Cheers, Hywel.
Gags are definitely something which people seem to have strong opinions on. I have had some complaints that if a girl isn’t gagged she isn’t really in bondage. I have to say that I like gags sometimes but other times I prefer not to use one- it depends on the mood. A gag is very good for putting a submissive in her place, for sure. But it also blocks quite a bit of emotion from the face in photos. I like ungagged sets if they are playful, but also if they are very intense especially for video where it better to hear the screams! :devil
Cheers, Hywel.
HI,
I like to do some of the more playful sets as well- as you say, bondage games with a lover, something upbeat and fun but still with the strong bondage element that she can’t actually get free.
It is not too late to get the set of Charisma- I think the one you mean is on Classic Restrained Elegance HERE?
I’m going to be doing a few more two girl shoots soon, is this the sort of thing people would like to see more of?
Cheers, Hywel.
LOL I know, we’ve only shot a very small number of Jasmine-as-domme sets. Frankly, she is SUCH a crap domme!! She is absolutely totally a natural submissive. They are all coming up on the site because I have all but run out of Jasmine sets and so I am finally using them all.
BUT the good news is that she’s back, we have done one shoot with some sets for RE, they will be up starting in October and we have several more shoots scheduled! I can’t wait! It is REALLY good to have her back I have missed her sooooooooo much!!
Cheers, Hywel.
Well so far it looks like most people are happy as things are. I think WMV is the only serious competitor- I’ll leave the poll running a bit longer and see if the answer changes but right now it looks like staying with Real is OK for most people.
Cheers, Hywel.
HI,
I’m glad someone else likes the smiles, I sometimes wonder if I should cut them out of the set as they may not really be in tune with the story and they could break the mood- but I like them, so I usually leave them in.
Smiles are just something that happens or doesn’t when we are shooting. I guess it depends a lot on the mood of the set- often the smiles are spontaneous like when a girl in bondage for the first time discovers just how helpless she actually is- for some reason their first hogtie often reduces new models to the giggles when they discover they can hardly move! :devilishangel
Sometimes though the set is definitely a lot more dark, more intense, and more strenuous and then there are no smiles to be seen because the bondage is TOUGH. Then it is a question of getting enough shots quick enough to untie her before she gets numb. It is a bad idea to have someone in bondage if they are numb, especially if they are struggling, as they could get really bad rope burns or suffer permanent nerve damage without knowing it. So for safety I have to be careful especially when shooting with girls I haven’t worked with often (you get to know what ties cause problems after a few shoots with someone). If the tie is that hard for her, I don’t think I’m going to get any nice smiles- more likely swear words or quiet gritted-teeth submission :stiffdrink
Cheers, Hywel.
I came away thinking that Ariel actually was a fashion model (I know she is one) & Belle is actually crazy.
LOL 😀 :splat 😀
Well maybe this one wasn’t soooooo far from the truth, but I do think Ariel and Belle and spectacularly good actresses. That’s why I cast them together in my longest video storyline to date- the story starts next Wednesday. We are also discussing shooting a short bondage film together too!
Cheers, Hywel.
Hi,
I’m not hugely concerned because I don’t think any reasonably independent jury would consider RE violent. I guess some of the slightly darker and more gothic set ideas might have to be toned down. I’m quite prepared to stand up in a court of law and defend what I do.
The Chinese dresses have been accumulated from a lot of places over the years, the web supplier I have used most is http://www.goodorient.com
Cheers, Hywel.
HI,
I’m not investing in bondage gear just at the moment because I have to save up some money to decorate my studio (when I finally get it). I still intend to buy some more metalwork but I need to have enough cash to kit out the studio first.
Yesm the new collar is the one Francesca is wearing in the fitness instructor set. I thought it was quite nice though very lightweight- what didn’t you like about it??
Cheers, Hywel.
Nope.
How about it Emma???
Keeping us waiting will only result in a more severe punishment for you when you get here…
Hywel.
Hmmm, maybe I will try getting the staggeringly unflattering blue overalls out again then!
I like to do a mix of videos- spanking and torture work better on video than on still because of course it is interactive and dynamic. One of the problems I have with a lot of bondage videos which are PURE bondage is that they can be deadly dull. I know some people want to see a model in the same tie, struggling to get out for 10 whole minutes, but I’m afraid I get bored after a minute or two unless something is happening. That’s why my own favourite videos are the ones with a storyline.
Cheers, Hywel.
wirewyrm, not sure what the source of the problem is. I tried clearing the forum up a bit, see if it is still happening.
Hywel.
The full set of Lauren N as a Red Army spy goes up on 29th August.
Unfortunately, Lauren doesn’t do nude modelling (or at least she didn’t at the time of our first shoot) so she had lingerie on under the fur coat. Oh well.
That highlights one of the dilemmas I have when deciding which models to book for the site. Sometimes I get contacted by a stunning model like Lauren who is very expressive and keen to try bondage, but who doesn’t do nude modelling. I tend to think that it is worth shooting with especially gorgeous girls even if they do keep their clothes on, but I do like to shoot some nude sets, so of course especially gorgeous girls who model nude (Belle, Jasmine, Ariel, Aimee, etc etc) are even better! Best of all are the “try anything, full of suggestions” models of course!
Cheers, Hywel.
LOL how could I *possibly* forget Jasmine???
In the end I decided to try to tell a story in the 30 seconds or so of preview, so I’ve done a “fast and furious” cut of the Belle Petra Policewoman video- you can see it from thevideo preview page.
Thanks for your help & advice!
So while we are on the subject, what your favourite videos and why? What should I do more of? And if the answer is “more Jasmine Sinclair” I am shooting with her as soon as I possibly can!!
Cheers, Hywel.
Glad you like it! There’s a second part to that set where she does a bit more of the bumping and grinding physical exercise and attempts to do stretches while in chains- think that’s due to go up at the start of September.
I wanted to shoot a video in this style as well- a sort of “Bondage celebrity workout” video. What do you reckon? Belle keeps telling me she has (shudder) some 1980’s style leg warmers, should I let her wear those to exercise?
Cheers, Hywel.
I like the dryad pic too… I have the feeling I *ought* to recognise the model, can you put me out of my misery?
Hywel.
If by “a while” you mean two years, then yes that’s exactly right!
When I do a shoot, not all the sets go up right away. I work a month in advance so the very quickest any set would go up is a month after it is shot. I prefer to space out the sets from each a shoot a bit, to have some variety of which models are appearing and so that I can space out expensive location shoots with shoots done in my living room to give a good and exciting mix. I keep a long list of all the sets I have still got left to process, but there’s a LOT of sets on my system (I have been shooting stuff for the site for nearly five years now!) The raw images come to around 400 Gigabytes of disk space.
This set of Jessie inexcusably didn’t get processed because it probably never made it to my list- and after a while I stop going back to the older stuff. There are probably sets of other models from waaaay back as well- some of which didn’t get processed because I messed up the lighting a bit, or just because they never quite fitted into the update schedule.
However, I’m glad you like it! Jessie is absolutely stunning, she’s a lovely girl to work with, and I have promised her one of the first shoots in my studio. It has actually been ages since I shot with her for Restrained Elegance- too long. We have done some shoots for EvilMagician.com more recently… Jessie is actually to blame for the whole Evil Magician site as she introduced me to Rob the Magician and suggested we did a bondage magic shoot!
So it was a nice thing to find such a good set which I had forgotten about!
Cheers, Hywel.
Hi,
I’ve deleted that username. Clear your browser cache and delete cookies, then see if you can sign up afresh.
Cheers, Hywel.
Cool!
What’s amazing is that the elf maid- despite being drawing in that computer line art style- is definitely and identifiably Charli! I started out drawing portraits and it isn’t that easy to make a good likeness! That’s really good!!
Thanks for posting that 🙂 🙂 🙂 made my morning. Have you got any more you can show off? Please feel free to post here as much as you like!
Cheers, Hywel.
Hi,
Is that a problem with the forum only, or with the members’ area?
If it is a forum problem only, I think you should just be able to create a new username and password for yourself- the forum username and password don’t have to match what you have for the members’ area, they are completely independent.
Or let me know what your old username for the forum was, I will delete it and we’ll see if that clears the problem- then you should just be able to recreate it.
If it is a members’ area password problem, please email me at webmaster@restrainedelegance.com and let me know the username and I’ll investigate.
Incidentally, we have noticed a larger that normal fraction of membership renewals being declined by the banking network this month. We’re not sure why this is, but it seems to be happening at the bank/credit card company end rather than our end. If your renewal doesn’t go through you will receive an automated email about it- you will have to rejoin, which is a real pain. I am working with Surfnet to see if we can sort something out about this but as it is happening at the bank’s end there’s not a lot we can do in the short term. Apologies for any inconvenience, it is a real pain but not my fault :splat
Cheers, Hywel.
The cage is new- fairly new anyway I have had it for a month or two now. It was made for me by the same guy who made the bondage throne as I wanted the two to match.
Good idea for a Russian spy theme with the cage- I think probably in a dark and scary interrogation room? (Can’t wait to get the studio!) I might even be able to arrange proper hoists and be able to suspend the cage off the ground, I am not sure yet but I hope I will be able to. There are only two suspension points in my ceiling at home and I don’t really want to add the weight of the cage to them- don’t think it will be all that stable with a model wriggling about inside!
Cheers, Hywel.
… as good as my word… here we go!
😀
