I never celebrated Independence Day and today feels particularly surreal in light of all of the recent Supreme Court rulings that empower cities to imprison the homeless, allow bribery for politicians, and for presidents to rule despite being tried for crimes. I've not been a good mental space this week as a result. But, something that gives me a sense of joy, which is important to manage in times of despair and hopelessness to allow survival to fight. So for Independence Day, we're getting blasphemous as I release my newest ENF/EUF film, The Embarrassed Naked Nun
June ended with me feeling slightly burnt out, much of it stemming from work but also in finding what my mental/emotional limit is in terms of shooting ENF films. The most recent film, The Embarrassed Naked Nun was the third film I shot in this month. It of course was fun and a great learning experience and also a bit more exhausting this time around since we shot it at night. As fun as this has been, it also takes time to recover. I love the editing process and it keeps me from being present and engaging in rest on the weekends, which is the only chance I have to recover. With 3 shoots booked in one month I realize I need to find a more balanced schedule with shooting so that it can still be fun for me and also be sustainable long term.
Each shoot comes with excitement and also anxiety. The anxiety stems from my own worry about not knowing what to do if a shot doesn't work out or if I'm running behind. So that energy carries in the weeks leading up to the shoot. This gets added when I think of location, getting props, and planning my shots. It would be one thing if this was my sole job, but I also work in healthcare slightly over 40 hours. While it was nice to see I could do multiple shoots in one month, I am glad to have seen that this might be my ceiling for now and why for July I'll take a break from shooting so I can focus on wrapping up the Immodest Collection volume 4.
I am glad I was able to complete Embarrassed Naked Nun before this break. This was one of the first shoots I had on my list of ones to prioritize. I have plans to upload things on Clips4Sale and needed 10 videos. Being brand new to this, I wanted to keep story lines simple in terms of shooting, things that wouldn't require a lot of setup/tricks for the exposure scenes. Officer Undressed was easy because Skunk would simply strip in and out of a room that was off camera, which would make editing easier. Ariel Anderssen would strip in real time as part of her story in Embarrassment is Forever and so it was just a still shot on her for the whole clip.
Embarrassed Naked Nun was planned to be my third film but was delayed after had the confidence to film Embarrassment Quest and Cat Embarrasses the Cartoonist. The Nun script was simple in that the Nun would get stripped as the possessed Matthew turns the lights off. My friend Violet Vixen is someone I met in the local kink community and have enjoyed doing rope scenes before. When I proposed shooting ENF with her she was totally down. She was also new to ENF so it was fun to introduce a new performer to this kink and see how she approached her character.
It took Violet some time to get the sense of her character, but once we got to the stripping scene, she started to get the contrast between the shy-nice-timid seeming Sister Francesca and the kinky, expletive using, sexually repressed nun that is slowly exposed over time. Violet helped me realize there are a lot of ways to help a performer with character, I used to just write dialogue and plan to work with them during shooting on getting the performance. She highlighted the other important aspect, which was understanding the character to help with the performance. For example, she learned more about her character as we shot the stripping scene and shot the outdoor scene last. She shared that had we shot that first, she would have had less idea about her character and the context of her conversation with Father Dyart. I appreciated her dedication to acting. Having tied with her before, I felt more comfortable trying the pentagram harness and rope panties, something I was most looking forward to because they were the first ties I taught myself when I got into Shibari.
The highlight of this film experience was shooting late, waaaaay past both our bed times (I know, we're truly edgy people). I needed the night effect so that when the lights go out it is completely black and with summer, it isn't getting dark until that time. Weather was also a rival as I wanted to get an outdoor shot of Violet under the lamp post, a slight nod to The Exorcist. We were able to get the shot just as it was about to rain but it didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped, and so I opted for an alternate choice, using the still frame of Violet in black and white and zooming in with the audio laid over. As much as I would've liked the outdoor shot, I do like the eerie vibe of the zoom in to her eyes.
I really wanted to shoot this film because for this embarrassment and exposure story, I wanted to focus on a type of embarrassment of exposing secrets, and the idea of a nun having a very sexual side that she's tried to hide that's represented by the racy lingerie she wears was a hot ENF story. The contrast of Violet in her conservative nun habit to her revealing lingerie and then rope underwear I think makes for a wonderful ENF/EUF film that I hope you all enjoy.
