Holly Randall

Two Girls and a Feather Duster

2008-08-20T13:00:00Z

Sometimes, no matter how much you love your job, you just get burnt out. Sometimes you forget why you’ve looked forward to going to work for the past ten years. And sometimes, you just get depressed. That “sometimes” has been all the time for me, at least for these last couple of months.

I’m usually a pretty upbeat girl—I smile a lot, laugh a lot, and overall, I enjoy and appreciate life. But lately, I’ve not been the “Little Miss Sunshine” I’ve come to know myself as. Instead of spending my summer weekends at the beach or out with friends, I’ve been sleeping or working. I don’t feel inspired, and I haven’t been very active. And since this is the first bout of depression that I’ve faced sober, I can’t drink over it. So I just… sleep. Or indulge in the occasional tub of ice cream.

What really made me realize that I’ve been depressed has been my lack of enthusiasm at work. I usually look forward to every shoot I have booked, and I just haven’t felt that way recently. In fact, I’ve found myself wishing it was the day after the shoot so it was already over and behind me. The sets and the girls have become one big, dull blur to me. And that frightens me, because if there’s one thing that has kept me going for the last decade—if there is one thing that I love and care about so much I’m willing to sacrifice my time and my social life for—it’s work. And faced with a possibility that I may no longer love my work, I feel empty. What am I going to care about now? What will drive me to get out of bed every day?

Thankfully, a solution presented itself to me just last week. Apparently the recipe to get me out of my slump was simple: two beautiful girls and a feather duster.

Now the opulent mansion location, the amazing clothes, the fun concept, and the great makeup certainly added to concoction that was one of the best shoots ever, but really I’d like to credit my return to sanity to Roxy Deville and Teagan Presley. I knew both girls were pros, but I had no idea what a dynamic pair they would make, especially cast in the roles of mistress and maid.

Shooting scenes with domination/submission roles has always been a favorite concept of mine. The typical sex scenes are almost always the same: Cue some corny scenario, and then onto the typical and rehearsed positions of blowjob, missionary, doggie-style, spoon, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, and pop-shot. But fetish—now that’s something a little more involved. Instead of the straight-up dick-in-vagina penetration, you get to play with the mind a little. It becomes a game of intellectual as well as physical stimulation. It’s an intoxicating mix of pleasure and pain, anticipation and fulfillment. There’s so much more play before you get to the actual sex act, all that anticipation makes the sex all the more exciting.

The photos went really well, as they usually do. In photos, the girls don’t usually have to perform in the way they will have to when it comes time for the video. Obviously, being a good model takes skill, but being a good performer is something I think is much more involved. Posing for pictures is one thing, but delivering lines and a certain kind of sexual character is quite another.

So when the photos were done, we began to set up for the video. Despite Roxy’s protests that she is a true submissive and can’t play a domme well, I suspected differently. Roxy is one of those talented girls that can probably play any role you throw her way, and she’ll do a damn good job of it. Teagan I wasn’t so sure about. It had been such a long time since I’d last shot her, so I’d forgotten what she was like in scenes. She’d been a contract star with Digital Playground for the past couple of years, and I wasn’t about to watch any of their movies to see if she could act at all. Nothing against Digital, but I don’t watch porn these days unless it’s mine. And I only watch the scenes I direct for quality control purposes.

Teagan, of course, totally blew me away. As the submissive maid, she had the downward cast eyes just right, but she also brought an adorably bratty attitude that enticed Roxy to punish her even further. Just as you would think Roxy had spanked her little maid into dutiful obedience, Teagan would take her little feather duster and in a very quick and almost inconspicuous manner, “dust” Roxy. This was done in such a charmingly mischievous way that I couldn’t help but be overcome by giggles. I actually had to call cut so I could have a laughing fit on the floor, because my camera was shaking from the giggles I was trying so hard to stifle.

The scene was about to end, and I really felt that the girls couldn’t have played their roles more perfectly. Just when I thought that I couldn’t have been happier with the shoot, Roxy ended the scene with the perfect touch. After fucking Teagan to orgasm with a strap-on, and then getting hers by shoving Teagan’s face in between her own legs, Roxy sent her slave off with one last feat to be completed. Bending Teagan over, Roxy stuck the feather duster inside her naughty servant. Framed by Teagan’s famous ass cheeks, the feather duster made quite a tail as Teagan crawled away from the camera and back to the drapes that she hadn’t finished dusting.

And that was a wrap! It was this scene that kicked me out of the rut I felt I’d been working in for the past few months. Suddenly I remembered why I loved my job, and it was because of shoots like this. I love my job because of girls like Teagan and Roxy, and because of small details like a feather duster inside a girl’s vagina.

Disenchanted Kingdom

2008-08-06T18:25:00Z

Leave it to me to turn a trip to Disneyland into a depressing reminder of how far behind me my childhood really is. As my friend Christopher paid for our entrance and the clerk handed us our tickets—or as she called them, “keys to the magical kingdom”—I should have been looking forward to visiting an amusement park that I had not been to since I was about 10 years old. And I was excited, but this excitement was mixed with a profound sense of disappointment that I could not enjoy “the happiest place on Earth” without remembering how much happier it was 20 years ago, before adulthood stole the rose-colored glasses I saw the world with as a little girl.

As I walked down Main Street, the stores seemed to scream greed and commercialism with their overpriced products. When I bought ice cream from the middle-aged woman at the corner stand, all I could do was imagine her miserable existence in a dirty apartment with cheap linoleum floors, peeling wallpaper, and too many cats. Those dressed up in Mickey Mouse costumes were probably angst-ridden teenagers, sweating profusely in their stuffy getups and glaring at the surrounding children through their smiling masks. And the girl that sang in a fake Mardi Gras band was probably counting down the days until she could once again stand in an eight-hour line for American Idol tryouts, only to once again be rejected and sent back to this mortifying job of singing at an amusement park for disinterested tourists. Oh yes, I was sure that everyone around me was as disillusioned with this place as I was... and I’d only arrived about 20 minutes prior.

I took this attitude with me as we climbed into the seats for our first ride, Pirates of the Caribbean. This used to be my favorite ride; as a child, I really felt like I was sailing the high seas, witness to a chaotic yet exotic and thrilling world. Now it was not the same. As much as I admired the lifelike qualities of the animated human figures, instead of imagining them as real, I questioned what kind of material they made the skin of. As I gazed around the dimly lit tunnel, I wondered how often they had to clean the ride, how they did it, and at what times they could do so. How different the ride must look with all the lights on! I was just about to turn to my friend and ask him if he thought the water was heavily chlorinated when I realized that the ride had come to an end. I was quickly ushered out of my seat by an angry man dressed as a pirate, irritated that I did not move fast enough to make room for some people who might actually appreciate the ride.

Next was the Haunted House. This ride used to be a close second to Pirates, and it had truly frightened me as a kid. It begins with those in line crowding into a circular elevator. The lights dim, a spooky voice echoes over the loudspeaker, and the elevator begins to descend. Once we hit the bottom, the room turned pitch black and the sound of thunder was loud and sudden. This time, as kids all around me screamed, and a little girl next to me began to cry, I rolled my eyes—is this really an appropriate ride for children? And why do we have to be crammed into this room like sardines?

It was the same experience for me as Pirates: Instead of enjoying the spectacle, I considered the technical logistics that went into making the ride. I remembered how impressive the ride was when I was 10 years old and compared that to my current disposition of unmoved disenchantment. It was depressing.
Not all the rides were as gloomy. Space Mountain was just as—if not more—fun as I’d remembered. Yes, there was a brief moment that I considered what the jolting might be doing to my back, but that was soon cancelled out by the pure exhilaration of being catapulted through complete darkness. Only on the fast and jostling rollercoaster rides could I be physically shaken out of my slump and forced to have a good time.

As time passed, I allowed myself to let go of the expectations I knew were unreasonable, and I began to enjoy myself. But I wasn’t completely immune to the intermittent attacks of sad nostalgia. The last one came when Christopher and I, on our way out, visited the princess store to buy presents for my friend’s five-year-old daughter and his one-year-old twin nieces. As I gazed around the room, I noticed several fairy-tale couples painted on the walls: Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, all with their perfect, smiling princes.
Christopher was standing beside me, looking up at the figures as well. “This is what’s wrong with women!” I exclaimed. “We’re raised on these fairy tales where we’re supposed to be rescued by Prince Charming, who is going to bring to us the happiness we were never able to have on our own. I spent a long time waiting for the guy to save me from myself, someone who would fix my life and make me happy. I finally learned that nobody was coming to rescue me, and only I could save myself. I firmly believe that you have to build your own happiness without a man, and then when you do meet someone, he adds to your life, but doesn’t necessarily define it.”

Christopher agreed, adding: “Well, also for men, it sets up this unrealistic ideal we are supposed to live up to. I’m far from perfect—how am I ever supposed to measure up to Prince Charming?”
As much as I agreed with him and believed in my own feminist political statement, I was still drawn to the glittery girlishness of the souvenirs that surrounded me. I picked out a beautiful, opulent blue dress, decked in sparkles and matched by a shimmering tiara. I held it up against me and stood in front of the floor-length mirror. If I bent my knees a bit and squinted my eyes just right, I could almost see the little girl I used to be staring back. I smiled at her. Perhaps she was still there, hidden somewhere among the cynicism, distrust, and worry that cluttered my life.

I know I cannot bring that little girl back out today. But that’s OK, because she will wait, dormant, deep inside of me. She will be patient, because she knows what can bring her back to life. When I am able to revisit Disneyland as a mother, I think that she will re-emerge amidst the laughter and the wonder that the children I hope to have someday will experience here. I think that then, through the eyes of my children, I will once again believe in Disneyland as the happiest place on Earth.

Shooting Gianna

2008-07-23T17:23:00Z

Shooting Gianna Michaels was a step in the right direction, as it was a step towards producing content for the internet, as opposed to shooting for our magazine clients. A very popular and highly searched for girl online, she’s a girl known for her natural DD breasts and her enthusiastic gonzo boy/girl scenes. She was not the typical blonde and skinny girl that seemed to have become a very boring Randall standard, and I didn’t really have any commissions on her from any magazine clients. But my webmaster had been bugging me to shoot her for ages, as he knew she would bring in some good traffic for my site. And I’m glad I listened this time.

It’s been a difficult transition for me, and especially for my parents, in this new and internet-driven market. Usually, we only book girls that are a possible sale for many of the adult magazines that we shoot for. My webmaster has been encouraging us to stop thinking so much about this shrinking market, where we have to shoot long sets for editorial reasons, and thus are able to usually only get about two sets in one day. But if our shoots are internet driven, I can get as much as five smaller sets in one day, plus video.

I liken changing my parents’ way of running things to turning around the Titanic—it’s a long and arduous process. After more than 30 years of running things a certain way, it must be really difficult to shift your thinking process into a whole different arena. I’ve been pushing for more location shoots, as it’s easier for me to change up looks there than it is in the studio, and that’s been a difficult sale. My mother has a theory that we have to shoot brand-new girls in the studio first, so we can light them properly and see how they model. But in the age of digital photography and Photoshop, we don’t have to worry about the little flaws that Suze would spend so much time in the studio trying to compensate for with lighting and clothing. It’s difficult to get her to accept that stretch marks, which take an extra 20 minutes to hide with lighting and fabric draping, can be fixed in Photoshop in a matter of two minutes. Her ability to manage these issues in camera is surely one of the things that makes my mother such a great photographer, but it’s almost unnecessary now. Oddly enough, that seems to frustrate her rather than relieve her.

So back to Gianna: She was not on time to the shoot; she was, in fact, early. That’s always a good (and rare) sign. She was actually cuter in person than I expected, but then again I’d seen a lot of crappy, low budget shoots of her online. I was shooting her in a solo stills set first as a “beer wench” in an old tavern-like scenario. Wine barrels and giant wood mugs decorated the set. We were going to get sawdust for the floors, but then I thought about how much of that would get in the air and decided against it.

At first, Gianna was very quiet, and when we began to shoot some test shots, she looked at the photos on the monitor but said nothing about them. This was kind of a blow to my ego. Now as I said, I’ve seen lots of unflattering content on this girl, and I know that I had made her look fabulous. I was used to, and now expected, her to be very excited over these amazing shots I was getting of her. But she looked at the photos and seemed expressionless. So my mind started racing: Does she not like her outfit? Her makeup? The set? My God, is it possible she doesn’t think I’m a good photographer? That last thought horrified me. At that moment, I decided that she wasn’t very nice, and I probably wasn’t going to enjoy today’s shoot. Keep in mind that she had done absolutely nothing that could be considered unfriendly. She was nothing but compliant and certainly had not an ounce of a diva-like attitude. But because she wasn’t fawning over me and my photos of her, I immediately decided that I didn’t like her very much.

Me and my ego. What a pair we make! In a matter of minutes, we can decide that a girl we hardly know is a bitch. Because we aren’t being stroked, we are going to throw a little temper tantrum and formulate unfounded and rash opinions of a girl we met hardly two hours ago. Thank goodness maturity has taught me to try to deflate this pesky ego of mine, but in the end, I can only credit Gianna with warming up to me and completely changing my mind about her by the end of the shoot.

By the end of the solo set, Gianna was well on her way to becoming a favorite of mine. She was a great model, and her amazing boobs were paired with a great set of legs. I loved her loud, abrupt laugh, her professional attitude, and most of all her performance! I knew the hardcore video was going to be a winner when we started the solo video. She crawled around on the bed like a panther in heat, asking the camera in a whispery voice: “What would you do to me?” She went on to vocalize all kinds of dirty things that the viewer might do to her if given the chance. I’d never seen a girl do a masturbation scene like this one, and I was enthralled.

As the time for the boy/girl video scene approached, I was getting excited. I’d hired Charles Dera, an absolutely gorgeous man who was Playgirl’s Man of the Year a while back. Gianna had never worked with him before but was as thrilled as I’d expected her to be when he showed up. She later confided to me that the first Playgirl she’d ever bought had featured him, and even back then, she thought what an amazingly sexy man he was. I was truly happy that I was able to bring this male centerfold to life before her, and on top of that she gets to have sex with him!

The video scene was hot, sweaty, and totally unstaged. It was like the cameras weren’t even there, and those are my favorite kinds of scenes. I honestly like to direct as little as possible and let the performers just enjoy themselves—I think it makes for a more intimate scene. I actually found myself smiling as I filmed the scene, and let me tell you, that is rare. I think I had more fun than they did!

So by the end of the shoot, I was in love with Gianna and so glad I’d taken that step toward shooting a larger variety of girls. I’d like to see my site emerge as a cosmopolitan destination for all kinds of models, appealing to all kinds of audiences. And the internet has encouraged that kind of change, as it allows all kinds of different people with different tastes and fetishes to find their favorite kind of girl. After all, variety is the spice of life, is it not?