Wrestling Holds Party Last Week: VeVe, Indra, Orlandoe, Annie

This past week we had a bunch of the ladies come on over to the small Brooklyn studio for a little filming get-together.  The result was a long, crazy evening of wrestling holds.  Would you expect anything else?!

Indra, VeVe, and Orlandoe were the first to arrive, so we first set up for a new Escape & Attack bondage challenge.  Indra and Orlandoe were to go head-to-head in a hogtie escape race.  VeVe hogtied each of the ladies (using the exact same tie method on each), we got the camera fired up, and off they went.

Now, I tried an Escape & Attack with Indra and VeVe before, and both ladies were able to escaped so quickly that the video was just too short to do anything with.  So, I kind of suspected Indra would have an edge in this challenge.  And, of course, as fate would have it, after a good bit of struggling, Indra made it out first.  Orlandoe, on the other hand, could do absolutely nothing to get out of her bonds.  At all!  I was distinctly reminded of the last Escape & Attack video, which pitted VeVe against Orlandoe... That resulted in the video being titled VeVe's Vengeance. Same thing then: Orlandoe just could not budge the ropes.  Sorry, Orlandoe!

After she escaped, Indra enjoyed some victory posing and strutting, and then she ate some cookies over the bound Orlandoe, dropping crumbs in her opponent's face.  How nice.  And that's how we kicked off the evening.

The ladies then went on to show off some of their favorite wrestling holds on each other via various "XYZ Domination" demonstrations.

This was inspired by VeVe's Boston Crab Domination, which she performed on your humble narrator as we were waiting for Hanz to arrive to film us for our Shiny Pro-Style video a few weeks ago.

The Boston Crab Domination itself was inspired by a fan requesting, a little while ago, that VeVe perform the move over and over again.  The fan's comment was, in turn, inspired by VeVe's Pro-Style video with Indra.  Talk about degrees of separation!

We decided that we generally liked the idea of Individual Hold vignettes.  They are nice and neat, and they are appealing to people who are drawn to a particular lock-up.  They produce great imagery.  And furthermore, they are just deliciously gratuitous!

The ladies each selected a hold they'd like to perform, and they then selected their opponent.  By this time, Orlandoe's friend (and soon-to-be victim) Benji arrived.  So he got a chance to watch the ladies performing these somewhat outrageous holds on each other.  More on Benji later, when the ladies turn their holding power on him...

Indra selected the Camel Clutch as her choice move.  Her victim: Orlandoe.

Now, the Camel Clutch is a strange choice, I felt, because it doesn't have that many different entries.  With VeVe's Boston Crab video, the camera was on a tripod (actually, a piano bench), so VeVe was able to use different entries to give the camera different angles of view for the hold.  Granted, now that I think of it, the fixed camera will force the wrestler to perform a number of entries.  But with a moving camera for Indra's hold, varied entries weren't that necessary.  The camera was able to catch a variety of angles, all while Indra kept poor Orlandoe's shoulders locked up.

Indra displayed her classic cheeky, bullying, trash-talkerly style as she yanked on Orlandoe's chin and pulled her into such an uncomfortable position.  Orlandoe, for her part, held in like a real trooper.  It was a wild time, with both ladies making a lot of noise: Indra with her gift of gab and Orlandoe with her groans of pain (and some occasional little weird high-pitched noises which I found incredibly amusing).

Orlandoe then selected her favorite: the triangle.  Her victim: Indra.  Of course.

Now the triangle choke has a lot of variations, so this was a big change from the Camel Clutch.  Orlandoe enjoyed the standard triangle from guard, the mounted triangle, the reverse triangle, and the body triangle as she paid Indra back with a torture session of her own.

And next up was VeVe.  Ever a scene-stealer, VeVe chose a combo power-move + torture hold: the Over-the-Knee Back-Breaker.  Her victim: Indra.

So, with this move, which scared me a bit, VeVe would pick Indra up and then slam her lower back down over VeVe's knee.  Thus to break the back.  But that's not all.  With her victim draped supine over her knee, VeVe would push her victim's body down further, creating quite a back-bend over the knee.  VeVe lifted Indra and slammed her down several times in the video, spending a lot of time with prolonged back bending after the slam.  Hmm.  Ouch.

How's about that, Benji?

Yes, and by this time, the ladies turned their sights on Benji.

Also by this time, Amazon Annie arrived!  Annie was coming over to film a foot video, but since our wrestling shooting ran late, she arrived just as the ladies were donning some pantyhose and setting up for their Scissor Contest.

The idea of the scissor contest was for Benji to receive various scissor holds from each of the ladies and judge who had the strongest/hardest scissor hold for each category.  The first event was the basic head scissors.  VeVe went first, followed by Indra, and then Orlandoe, who seemed intent to take Benji's head off.  Just as Benji was about to decide the winner for that category, Amazon Annie jumped in and grabbed Benji in a head scissors.  Annie made Benji submit almost immediately with her squeeze-power.  The win for that category went to Amazon Annie, who had now officially joined the contest.

The next event was the reverse head scissors (a real crowd-pleaser).  Again went VeVe, Indra, Orlandoe, and then Annie.  Feeling competitive, Orlandoe put a little extra bit of sadistic pepper on her reverse squeeze, bringing Benji close to tears and gaining the victory for that category.

We then went on to the body scissors, where Orlandoe again took the W, concluding then with a victory scissoring round for the winner.

Whew, ok.  Getting there!  Let me try to fast-track this recounting.

We then filmed Annie's Foot Comparison video, as well as a scissoring video where Indra put the squeeze on VeVe, and a Scissors & Facesitting video featuring Orlandoe in tight jeans and VeVe getting squeezed once again.

And I think that's it.  Yes, whew.  It was nice getting all the ladies together, but they can indeed get a bit wild when they are together.  It's actually very interesting in that they have relatively diverse personalities, so watching them interact is fun (and often hysterical).

So!  That was last week's little Wrestling Holds Party of sorts.  And I've been burning rubber trying to get all of the footage out of the To-Do queue!

Super Slippery and Shiny: Latex Lube Wrestling

Well, how's about that.

Yesterday VeVe and newcomer Jay Dirtin got into their respective black latex attire, covered everything they could in silicone lube, and then went at it for a 20 minute competitive mixed wrestling match.  I had some bright spotlights on them, so the result was very shiny.... and, of course, incredibly slippery.

The idea for this match came when VeVe asked Jay what sort of interesting attire he had for a video.  He reported that he had some latex shorts.  And with that, VeVe decided this would be a good opportunity to try her latex lube wrestling idea - something she'd been wanting to try for some time now.

It was also a great opportunity for her to put her newly acquired latex attire to good use!

Latex lube wrestling is similar to oil wrestling, except, of course, you absolutely can not use oil on latex.  So, we used something that latex loves: silicone lubricant!  Silicone lube is extremely slippery, I kid you not, and a little goes a long way.  It doesn't absorb into the skin like oil, so when you put it onto something, it stays unless it's washed off with soap.  So, like I said, slippery and shiny - yes, very much.

While the slipperiness baffled Jay incredibly so, it didn't seem to phase VeVe very much at all.  So Jay bore the brunt of VeVe's latex-clad assault.  I'll say more on this later, as I write the official description, but for now, enjoy these screen captures!

Black shiny latex, shiny skin, shiny purple mats, tons of sweat mixing with silicone lube.  Competitive mixed wrestling.  And lots of fun!

May 2013 Double Trouble plus Cover Image Talk

Wow.  It's finally June?  May was out of control.  Simply out of control.  I lost track of how many things I filmed in May.  I feel like I just kept stamping "May 2013" on so many video title cards.

And I don't even feel like I can talk too much about May because the new release queue is still quite full of unreleased May videos.  So, you know, I'm here thinking I need to get back to work at selecting preview pictures, selecting cover images (always the greatest challenge), and writing descriptions.

But here in this blog entry, I will talk a little bit about May.  And then I will talk a little bit about cover images.

May 2013

May 2013 kicked off with a barrage of 2-on-1 videos.  Various fans had recently been asking for 2-on-1s and other multi-person matches, so we got to work on putting one out.

Well, actually, hold that thought.  Our FIRST release for May, which was filmed in late April, was supposed to be a 2-on-1 video that ended up as a 1-on-1.  That was the incredibly popular "Bondage Wrestling: VeVe vs Candy Pain."  Originally slated to be a double team of Candy + Sircee vs VeVe, but winding up as Candy getting wound-up and bound-up  from going solo against rope expert VeVe.  This was released into our clips store on May 1, and it proved to be a remarkably loved video, hitting the #1 spot in all Bondage category at clips4sale.

We next filmed a Karate video with Indra and Adrian.  When that shoot was wrapped up, we decided that we just couldn't wait to get that first May 2-on-1 to happen, so we asked Indra and Adrian to put aside their differences and take on VeVe, who had been acting as the production director for the karate video.  So, our FIRST 2-on-1 of May was also our first mixed team competitive 2-on-1 (one male + one female vs one female).

We later got Candy and Sircee together to also get them on VeVe.  The ladies came in for a wrestling match, but I was still so fixated on the 2-on-1 bondage match idea, as we tried to set up on the first attempt. So, after the ladies fought in the wrestling match, I asked them to stick around and do a second match in rope-tie style.  Sircee and Candy readily agreed, both having been tied up by VeVe before.

So by mid-month, we already had three 2-on-1 competitive matches: mixed, FvF, and bondage wrestling.  And we rounded out the total with a mixed domination 2-on-1 with VeVe, Shauna Ryanne, and me in "Bondage Punishment in Leather," which we just released today.  That's 4 2-on-1s for May 2013.  How's that for a lot of numericals?!

May also saw the creation of the 4-way Female Bondage Wrestling video I mentioned in my previous entry. It also saw VeVe and Indra filming a karate "Iron Palm" striking video together, plus VeVe & Hanz in an intense Bondage Wrestling Rematch, as well as a new pro-style video a la "Diablo Dominates" (super shiny), VeVe's Boston Crab Domination short-video, and Sircee's first mixed domination video, titled "Sircee's Facesitting Smothers and Scissors."

Whew.

Some have been released, and others are still calling to me... even now... to come and create their preview pages.

Cover Images

Now a small discussion of cover images.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  And when it comes to selecting a cover image for a new video, you want to be sure those are one-thousand very good words that say exactly what you need them to say.  The cover is the icon for the product, and it is the loudest, strongest statement you can make about a production.

So, sometimes it is stressful to select a cover image.  Sometimes, if a video is pretty diverse, we need to consider 4-way or 2-way cover images - images which are a combination of images.  However, as colleagues and I have discussed, a multi-way image just doesn't have the same power as a good single image.  That aside, the single image is bigger.

 vs

Selecting the best cover image is indeed a task.  Sometimes I wind up looking at several images that are only a few frames different and then deciding between those.  Little glitches can "ruin" a good potential cover: bodies are great but face is blurred or hidden; faces look great, but too much motion blur; hand placement here looks awkward or inappropriate (!); everything is perfect, except that she/he is making a horrid face... for several frames.  Big frown.

When I'm filming, I do actively try to look for the cover image as the action is going on.  If I can mark in my mind "this moment is a perfect cover," it makes the cover search a lot easier.  No need to tease the video frame by frame for the selection; I'm right there in the moment, and I can get the exact framing I need to tell the story in one shot.  That is, of course, provided I'm not foiled by motion blur in post-production image-capturing.

When I appear in a video, I try to remember to tell my stand-in camera-operators: "Try to think of every frame as the cover image."  Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't.  Sometimes I forget to give that cue.  But I do think it is a good cue, and I do think it is a good way of working the framing.

In any case, that's my short statement on video cover images.  And speaking of cover images, yes, I do need to get to work at selecting some for these unreleased May videos!

Thanks for reading.  Until next time!