“Costume designer Lady Onna provides some beautiful mermaid tails for the girls to wear, which she describes as ‘leg corsets’ and which act as underwater bondage.” I took this quote from a video description the studios are using to promote their filming activities.
I was being knowingly sarcastic, when I gave the interview for the promotional video of creating mermaids out of nothing.
I was not creating mermaids out of stunt girls who were trained and fit. Oh no, I don’t think they would have paid for that. It’s all very well if at least one of them was taking it on herself to enthuisiastically practice.
I was creating mermaids out of just.. girls. And my job was to make them as real a mermaid as could be on the costume side, without them having any training whatsoever.
Unbeknown to them until the reality hit as we were on route to a location at sea… they were taking on a big risk to themselves without necessarily having the aptitude for it.. ‘I don’t want to do this’… one of them whispered to a colleague as the final preparations wrapped. And my hands are tied, I am just the costume lady…
I was about to wrangle these girls into the tight PVC leg binding tails I had made, and see them off into the water while I joined them on the same venture. Speaking from a veteran point of view now, someone who likes bondage, enclosure, claustrophobia, aquaphilia… I wasn’t keen on giving these girls the dunk in this ornamental bondage.
The tails were more ornamental than practically made for bondage. I could have used Latex but used Shiny Transparent PVC on this occasion. If the tails were made more surviveable for their punishment, then there would have been a balance of compromise (not often considered by requisition). This would be of lesser ornamental appeal and something more practical but less binding for the same budget. In other words these tails were ornamental, fragile, and very difficult to maneuver in. One of the first things that become apparant when self bondaging in the water with a large ornamental tail is that even practicing with cling film doesn’t bring you close to challenge. The tail prevents you from rolling easily, which is a motion instinctive if you want to reach the surface quicker in some situations. Suddenly not only do you realise how encumbered you are to think about swimming by squirming through your back, and then you realise everything takes twice as long to achieve – and you still only have one breath to do it in, and a tail dragging you back…
Now who wants a tail?
Recent Comments