Category Archives: RestrainedElegance.com

Custom video/photos update

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Hi Everyone,

Did you know that you can order custom videos (now in 4K!) and photosets (in 42 megapixel high res) of your favourite Restrained Elegance models?

Fancy seeing Lauren Louise naked in handcuffs, or Hannah Claydon in a strict hogtie? Lucy Lauren bound and gagged in satin or Sophia Smith in stockings and steel shackles? You can! We can shoot customs with any of our
regular models!

Details are here: http://elegancestudios.com/wordpress/?page_id=24888.

I’ve made a few changes, the main ones being to add 4K resolution for video, and to move to the industry standard of payment in advance. I had been taking payment after the shoot, but a few people were slow to pay, and also kept adding little refinements and details right up until the day of the shoot, which is completely impractical for us to handle as a small production house.

So the main reason I’ll be taking payment in advance is
that that represents signing off on the agreed final script in advance of the shoot so we know exactly what we’re producing and won’t suddenly have the customer asking for a new item of clothing, prop or bondage gear at the last minute.

In case you are wondering what the difference is between the Restrained Elegance customs and the ones which Ariel shoots via https://www.askarielstudio.com… Ariel’s customs are the ones shot on her selfie camera, usually stuff that she can shoot solo or requiring an off-screen rigger (which she hires me to do, usually). They are quicker to produce as mostly she just puts the camera on a wide angle setting on a tripod and rolls in one take until they are done.

Restrained Elegance customs are shot in full 4K on a digital cine camera, with full cinematic lighting, high quality sound, and all the know-how we can bring to bear from nearly 20 years in the business: multiple cameras, lots of camera angles, closeups and cinematic production. They’re a bit slower to shoot and a lot more work to edit, which is why they work out a bit more expensive than the AskArielStudio ones. But if you want the very best quality, there’s just no substitute!

Forthcoming models:

We already have shoots in the calendar with:

  • Ariel Anderssen
  • Hannah Claydon
  • Lauren Louise
  • Czech Beauty
  • Lucy Lauren
  • Zoe Page
  • Natalia Forrest
  • Chloe Toy

… and we can book any of the RE regular models who are still around, too. So if you fancy a treat and a bondage video made to the highest standards, drop me a line at webmaster@restrainedelegance.com! If we like the idea, we can bring your vision to life!

4K video is coming

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Hi All,

Technology marches on and more and more websites are now offering 4K video. Restrained Elegance has always been at the forefront of high resolution and high quality, so I’m adding 4K MP4 video as an option to the site. I’m uploading the first updates now, they’ll appear on the site in June if testing all works out OK.

Does anyone have a strong objection if I stop delivering the “MP4/iPod” small MP4 files as standard? Even smartphones have screens big enough to cope with HD now and it would be one less format for me to encode, upload and manage.

If everyone is OK with it, I’ll just put up the full HD 1080p version and the 4K version where there is one.

Some new videos will still have 1080p maximum resolution.

We’ve been shooting in 4K for years, but we’ve been doing it as a route to the highest-quality 1080p footage. Which means we’ve sometimes planned to be able to crop in on the scene in post, or shot full HD in slow mo for some sequences for more emotional impact.

So where the footage supports a 4K export, I’ll do it. Until camera tech lets me shoot 4K at 100+ frames per second some new films will still be limited to 1080p full HD. I mean, that’s only Blu-Ray quality 😉

Hywel

Restrained Elegance On Location!

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Dear Friends,

Hello from sunny Wales!

We just got back from our most exciting adventure – a big Restrained Elegance location trip! These trips are always a bit nerve-wracking for me. Will the location be suitable? Will some irate land-owner come and kick us off? Will the models all get on? Will the crew all work well together and have fun? Will we get any good stuff? How will I pay for it all… and will I make the money back?

This trip started on a high from the kindness of people joining or re-joining Restrained Elegance to celebrate our 17th birthday with us in April. This makes a massive difference to us and the support meant that we could be a bit more ambitious with what we shot on this trip. So thank you everyone!

If you missed out on the birthday offers, I’ve decided to keep the “buy two months, get one month free” $69.95 (Renews at $69.95) offer going for now. So if you enjoyed a month at RestrainedElegance.com, why not come back, enjoy a great deal, and get ready to see the results of all our hard work on location with Ariel Anderssen, Ayla Rose, Sophia Smith, Temptress Kate and Zoe Page?

Here are a few samples to whet your appetite – the full sets and videos will start going up for members very soon!

Massive thanks to Steve, Kate, Ariel, Ayla, Sophia and Zoe for making the absolute best of a cracking trip!

Hywel

Social Media Invitation

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Hi Everyone!

Social media is a mixed blessing for many reasons. One of the biggest problems we have as erotic artists is that any large corporate platform can ban adult material at any time (as has already happened on many previous occasions- Google AdWords, Paypal, etc.).

At the moment, Twitter is the most supportive platform, but we’re only one CEO decision away from losing our complete social media presence. As things like forums and interest-specific groups have fallen into disuse we are left at the mercy of large companies.

What would be ideal would be to have a semi-private platform which we control, a bit like the RE forum was back in the day, but which can talk to all the other semi-private platforms so people can still talk to each and discover each other’s work.

There’s an imperfect but promising solution to this called federation, and the most interesting platform for this at the moment is something called Mastodon. It works very much like Twitter, except that you sign up to a specific “instance”, a server which talks to other instances but which remains under the control of the admins who run it.

As an experiment I’d like to invite Restrained Elegance and Silk Soles members to join us on our new chat platform while we try it out. You can sign up here (it’s free): https://www.kinkyelephant.com.

There’s a GOTCHA – I think once you’ve signed up and verified your email, you need to sign in with your email address, NOT your chosen username.

OR: you can sign up via any other Mastodon instance, for example the big one run by the founder of the system at https://mastodon.social. Then you can just follow me: @RestrainedElegance@kinkyelephant.com.

At the moment what you’ll see is largely similar to my twitter timeline (because that is the easiest way to get some content on there to test it out). If the tests prove positive, I’ll be posting lots of teasers and tasters on there, and also promise to keep politics out of it! (Once it is up and running and no longer echoing my twitter feed anyway).

If this works, I’m planning to invite other models, photographers, fetish producers and fans to join us on https://KinkyElephant.com and build a kinky community that isn’t at the mercy of big business. I’ve no idea if it will work. I’d love to have you join in and help me find out.

Hywel