Edit: Messtival closed their voting 10 minutes after I posted this, so I've changed the subject line to be more general. This is one of the finest fully clothed pie scenes I've ever bought, and deserves credit.
What's this? A Messtival nominee promoting someone else's work?
Well, we're not in the "Fully Clothed Scene" nominations - instead we've Maude in the mud in shiny PVC cycling shorts in the "Best Outdoor" category, and Friday's spectacular skirted cake-sit in the "Best Cake-sitting" one - which I really hope you'll also vote for. But I nominated this Moomins scene for Best Fully Clothed, and wanted to explain, with pictures, just why, because it's an easily overlooked tour-de-force of a clothed WAM scene.
Note: The images below are all from the actual scene previews, though I do own the scene I've not used anything from the buyer's-only set, so these are already published images. I've also resized them down to 800px across so they can be displayed in-line in a UMD post.
Ok, looking at four of the images, description above each one:
First off, the girls and their outfits. That's Tess on the left and Rachel on the right. Both women are gorgeous and with fantastic long hair, and both come over as more than happy to get wonderfully messy together, which always helps, I want to see people having fun getting messy, not hating it.
Their outfits: Rachel first, those jeans are just absolutely perfect. High waist, which emphasises a feminine figure, and not ridiculously tight, but still very well fitting. The kind of jeans you can happily spend the day in, comfortable and practical. Add the white trainers and red tank-top, and you've a perfect casual outfit for a nice summer's day.
Tess' outfit is more officey, but smart office trousers, not a stupidly short skirt, and a lovely open-necked white blouse, plus smart shoes. Her trousers are also high-waist, so a good height of trunk above her lap for us to enjoy watching getting messy, and a feminine figure. It all goes together well and also looks like a summer outfit, what you'd wear in the office on a warm day. So in that respect it matches Rachel's outfit and they look perfectly natural together.
Ok, the scene is part of the "JustPied" series so you know they're basically going to constantly pie each other. They get asked trivia questions by Leon and first to answer correctly get to pie the other. They both have similar knowledge levels so both get thoroughly messy. Obviously it starts with pies to the face, but in this shot, after Tess has already had multiple pies, the residue of which you can see all over the front of her trousers, it's Rachel's turn to get pied on the bum of her jeans. Look at the composition of the shot, it's perfect. No idiotic trying to keep heads in view, instead it's a nice steady well-arranged money-shot of the pie being splattered onto Rachel's bottom, and framed so we can also properly see and enjoy the mess all over the front of Tess' trousers. This is the very essence of fully-clothed WAM, seeing the participants clothes getting messy, and being able to clearly see it happen. The pie landing on Rachel's jeans *is* the money-shot here, and the state of Tess' trousers is a lovely bonus, and the fact that it's been filmed and framed properly so we can see both with good clarity, zoomed in enough to focus on the action but no so much that we miss bits, elevates this to perfection.
Now we're a good way further into the scene, both girls have had quite a few more pies and Tess has just given Rachel a green one in the chest, making a delicious mess of her tank top. As with the one above, the framing of this is absolutely perfect - in particular, while Rachel's head is in shot, Tess' isn't. This is no negative on Tess, rather including her head would have meant zooming much further out, which would have spoiled this absolutely perfect view of how messy they both are. You can see that Tess has had a pie to the chest already, and there's lots more mess on her office trousers, including green residue from where she's been pied in the bum. But again, the money shot here is Rachel, and in particular, look at how she is sitting. Glory of glories - NO CROSSED LEGS!!! So we can properly see all that glorious orange pie-filling down the front of the trunk of her jeans, and again, because they are high waist, there's plenty of space to make a mess of. Because she's sitting flat, and with her legs slightly open, we can see the mess on both jeans legs, and that as yet there's no mess between her legs, but that she is sitting in mess - which is of course the residue from being pied on her bum earlier.
And now it's Tess' turn to take centre stage, this image is from much further into the scene, Rachel has just pied her in the face, then pushed the pie up onto her hair and lifted the tin off. But again, look at the framing of the shot. Rachel's head is out of shot this time but that gives us a glorious side-on view of her now very messy jeans and top, plus we can see from the empty chair just how much mess Rachel is now sitting in when she's sat down, and given the even balance of the scene, you know that Tess will also have a nice squelchy wetness coming through the seat of her trousers even as Rachel is pieing her. And then of course there's Tess herself, absolutely the money-shot in this image. Again, sitting flat so we can see everything. She's got her legs together but from the amount of mess in her lap and all over the front of the trunk of her trousers, you can imagine how messy she must be "down below" too. She also has lots of mess all over the front of her blouse.
Ok, so much for the image-by-image analysis. Having bought a copy of this scene on the strength of the preview images, it absolutely lived up to expectations and I've gone back to it on multiple occasions. The way both girls just casually ignore how messy they themselves are while doing things to each other - that's a standard feature in any tit-for-tat WAM scene. But combined with the superb outfits and great framing, here we really get to enjoy it. Once they've been pied in the bum (which happens more than once each) their chairs get messy, but they just casually sit back down on them, no attempt to remove the existing mess, so of course their trousers just keep getting a bit messier each time. Sometimes when watching it, the sexiest thing is actually the way the girl delivering the mess's mucky clothes move and look as she goes about her work, there really is something magical about a smartly dressed office woman with goo all over her trousers mashing a pie into someone else's jeans.
It's an absolute tour-de-force and I have no hesitation in commending it as Best Fully Clothed scene for Mestival 22. Go to the voting form (url below) and scroll down to "Best Fully Clothed Scene", and it's "MostWAM - Casual JustPied Tess Vs Rachel".
Of course I'm hoping you'll also find the Saturation Hall entries for Best Outdoor, Best Food Fight, and Best Cake Sit, but this scene definitely deserves your vote.
I feel like I just walked out of a Master's level lecture from one of the world's eminent scholars, who just taught me something new about a subject I have thought about, every day, for about my entire adult life!
hoffa73 said: I feel like I just walked out of a Master's level lecture from one of the world's eminent scholars, who just taught me something new about a subject I have thought about, every day, for about my entire adult life!
Thank you! **blush**
It's something I've spent a huge amount of time thinking about too, and Leon and others will tell you how I've always been death on producers who have models sit with their legs crossed blocking the view, or completely miss the money shots because they're obsessed with keeping everyone's head in shot like it's a family snapshot. So seeing how absolutely perfect this scene was, fairness demands that I properly acknowledge it. Been meaning to write a review since I bought it but figured this was an even better way to both credit the Moomins for great work and hopefully give useful info on why crossed legs are bad, and the importance of properly framing shots, to any aspiring producers who read it. I've long believed that the more we share info and help each other, the better all of us will do because overall there will be more happy customers pleased with their purchases, who'll come back for more.
Unfortunately Messtival closed their voting about ten minutes after I posted it, had expected votes would be open till midnight. But I hope the post and reasoning is still of interest to people. I should probably review the scene itself and include a link to this thread.