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mulletcal · 4 years

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memento mori - an ashton irwin one shot

a/n: hi friends!! i’m reposting this bc the first time i completely didn’t give the proper credit and i wanted to correct that! this whole thing was inspired by @sexgodashton‘s answer to this ask. and while i could have just edited the original post to include the credit, it wouldn’t have sat right with me personally to do that and just pretend like it was there the whole time. lau’s brain blows my mind every day w her creativity and she inspires me so much, thank you lau. thank you also to @myloverboyash for reading this over for me i appreciate u sm! word count: 2.5k

warnings: talks about needles, ashton being tattooed, smut, there’s riding, voyeurism (sort of? i don’t know rly but i wanna put the warning there just in case), ashton having a pain kink, light dom ash, spanking, i reused two things in these that i’ve used in the past but you know what??????? i kind of love it

****

Ashton’s felt the pain of a tattoo before; he kind of enjoyed the sting, the drag of the needle. Ashton also enjoyed pain, but he never noticed how erotic the pain of a tattoo could be, the intimacy of being so close to someone’s skin, until he began to date a tattoo artist.

You met Ashton when he came into your shop one day, on the hunt for his typical tattoo artist. He was nothing short of a gentleman, something you weren’t used to when men came into the shop that you owned; Men didn’t take kindly to women being the boss of men they saw as the epitome of masculine, let alone the owner, the ultimate boss if you will. You would never forget the way his eyebrows shot up when you said you were the owner, a small grin on his lips as he asked if he could get his tattoo from you instead.

That was for his snake tattoo, and he was so excited at how it turned out that you did his rose tattoo as well. Ashton kept coming back to you, insisting on the rest of the guys coming to get tattoos from you; it wasn’t until you finished touching up Michael’s finger tattoos did he ask you out.

“I appreciate the boost in clientele, but if you wanted to take me out you could’ve asked sooner,” You had replied, slipping him your card with the business phone number crossed out and your personal written above it.

After that, the two of you had talked nearly every day while he wasn’t on tour, and he often slept over, leaving you being taunted from your employees the next day due to marks on your skin.

It wasn’t until the lockdown did you truly see how wild Ashton could be; he had chosen to quarantine with you, the most responsible option you felt because you would have tried to find a loophole to see him anyways. Ashton encouraged you to try new things with him you never thought were possible, and you were surprised at how much you loved it.

You were shocked to realize that he enjoyed not just the pain of being tattooed, but he had a little bit of a pain kink in general. He tried to shy away from it at first, but when the two of you seemingly had run out of exciting news hobbies to learn, Ashton brought up the idea of watching porn together, to get a feel of what the other person liked. You wish you had felt safe enough to record his reaction when you put on a favourite video of yours, watching him take an invisible pencil from behind his ear and pretending to jot it down.

A few moments after that, with Ashton and you definitely quite in the middle of something, your phone went off, alerting you that you would be allowed to reopen with a set list of guidelines. You’d tried to get as many of your clients in before the shutdown as possible, so you didn’t have too many to reschedule when you got back.

You and the rest of your team had decided to operate on a weekly basis, your employees being allowed to have the shop for the week, with the rules of you setting up additional cameras so you could check in to ensure they were following sanitary guidelines, and all transactions were cashless unless absolutely necessary.

The reopen was going well so far, from what you could tell. Your week had finally rolled around, and you made sure that you left yourself a free day so that you could deep clean the shop; however, that didn’t exactly go according to plan as Ashton asked if you could tattoo him, stating how it had been so long since he’d gotten one and he missed it. Of course, you immediately agreed, pulling up the list of ideas you both had brainstormed throughout the course of the lockdown.

When he got there, you enthusiastically unlocked the door, greeting him with a kiss. You were excited to use him as your canvas, even though it would likely only be something small.

“You ready love?” You asked him, scrolling through the list before looking back up at him.

“Mhm, I’ve been thinking about the list and I’ve really wanted that coin of mortality piece you drew, would you do that one on me?” Ashton had placed his hands on your thighs, tracing his thumbs in small circles against them.

“Well that makes it a bit easier for me, since it’s already drawn, let me just pull it up. Where do you want it?”

You cocked your head, your eyes slowly scanning down his body, checking him out in a way, but also curious where he would say to put it.

“M’thinking on my ribs, yeah?” He pulled back, eagerly lifting his shirt to show his left side.

You nodded, reaching out to gently trace your finger over where you thought the tattoo should go, “Like here, maybe?”

Ashton shivered at your touch, simply nodding before letting his shirt fall back down. With that, you went to print the stencil, definitely not unaware to Ashton’s eyes burning a hole into your skin.

When you turned to him with the freshly printed stencil, you grinned, “You know the drill, Irwin, hop on the chair.”

Rolling his eyes, he made a big show of stripping off his shirt and sitting in the chair. You decided it was probably the best option to have him lay on his right side with his arm just out of the way. You prepped his skin, cleaning it and shaving it to make sure that no stray hairs would be in the way before you laid the stencil. Ashton shivered once again, this time at the cool touch of the cleaning solution.

“Okay baby?” You asked gently, tattoo gun poised in your hand and ready to begin.

He hummed in acknowledgement, licking his lips though you couldn’t see. You started with one small line, not missing the way Ashton sucked in a breath at the drag of the needle. Pausing to wipe at the ink, you briefly glanced up at him to see if he was alright. Since you didn’t hear him oppose, you continued on with the outline.

Once the outline was completed, you wiped the area once more, sitting back to admire it so far, “Wanna see the outline or do you wanna wait till it’s done?”

Ashton’s breathing was slightly irregular, goosebumps raising on his skin as you cleaned off the area some more, looking for any spots in the outline that you may have missed, “I think I’ll wait til the end, thanks love.”

“Are you doing okay? We can pause you know, I know the ribs are a bit harder.”

“No, no. It’s not that,” He was quick to say, glancing over his shoulder at you. You could see something in his eyes, but it wasn’t pain or discomfort, instead his pupils were blown wide and he seemed aroused, maybe? “I’m just kinda enjoying the pain and I’m bracing myself for the shading.”

As you continued on, Ashton would occasionally, which would cause you to pause instantly to check on him. He would wave you off, saying instead to keep going, that it felt good. Had the two of you not been dating, Ashton may have felt a little embarrassed the way his cock was straining against his pants, but he knew that should you have free time afterwards, you could make complete use of the empty shop - or at least, he hoped you would.

With the shading completed, you wanted to finish off with some small white detailing. Glancing up at Ashton, you sucked in a breath, “It’s time to do the white. You gonna be alright or are you gonna cum in your pants if I do it?”

Ashton let out a laugh, swatting at your hand holding the paper towel, “Would rather cum in you, so hurry that ass up.”

You laughed, but the way he spoke made you press your thighs together as you changed the gun for the white detailing. It took you a moment to get everything switched over, your mind continuously wandering to the very man whose back was facing you, lingering on the night before. His bite marks on your breast and collarbone were still sore, but it made the anticipation of what was to come after you finished the tattoo even better.

Ashton let out quiet curses as you started the white detailing, the goosebumps returning to his skin. He couldn’t believe how on edge he was, just from the sensation of the tattoo alone. It was almost as if he understood now what Calum had meant when they discussed his chest tattoo, the vibrations sending chills up his spine.

He had to remember to keep breathing, that was the only way he was going to even be able to hold out long enough to make it through the tattoo, using your breaks in tattooing to take a deep breath, rolling his lower lip between his teeth. Once you were done, you smiled brightly at the piece you had just finished, enjoying the fine detailing you were able to fit within the tattoo.

“Alright baby it’s done, go look in the mirror,” You spoke, touching his shoulder lightly so he could come down out of the daydream like state he seemed to put himself in.

Ashton stood, and you couldn’t help but chuckle at the very obvious bulging in his jeans, your eyes unable to look up from that as he headed to the mirror to check it out. “Shit, baby, it looks amazing. You did a really good job.”

“Don’t I always?”

Ashton chuckled, nodding his head and headed back over so that you could clean it one final time and put the protective bandage over it. As soon as that had been completed, you looked up at him.

“Alright, Irwin, sit in the chair laying flat,” you demanded, standing to your full height and looking him in the eyes.

“Oh she wants to be in control, does she?” Ashton asked with a quirk of his brow, but sitting in the chair and doing as he was told to anyways.

“I mean, sure, but it just makes the most sense to ride you while we’re here. Also it’s easier to clean this up than the floor.”

“How do you know all of this?” “You wanna ask dumb questions, or do you want to fuck me?” You asked, hands on your hips.

Ashton smirked, running his fingers through his black locks before he reached down to undo the button on his jeans, tugging them down. By the looks of it, he had gone commando, almost as if he was anticipating this.

You shimmied your leggings and panties down, checking behind you to make sure that you had the curtain fully closed. Though the door was locked, you didn’t want passersby on the street to see into the shop. Taking Ashton’s hand, you straddled his waist, placing your hands behind his head on either side of the chair once you got your balance.

“Finally can check something off our list, hm? Fucking in my shop.” You spoke next to his ear, removing one hand from behind his head so you could line his cock up with your entrance, sinking down slowly. Both of you moaned at the feeling, now all too familiar for you.

Ashton grabbed your hips, keeping you steady as you got adjusted. He had only been in you 12 hours before, but the size of him made you take a moment to adjust almost every time. It was something you weren’t sure you could handle the first time you and Ashton had slept together, but that was also one of the first times that you didn’t need to be afraid of sex if it was with the right person.

Rolling your hips as a test, you groaned at the pull of his length against your walls, clenching around him.

“Keep that up kitten I really am not gonna last long,” He purred, squeezing your hips as you began a slow and steady rhythm.

You pressed kisses to his lips, his neck, just below his ear, anywhere you could reach really; you also took to tangling your fingers in his hair, tugging gently at each delicious thrust. The pace of slow and steady didn’t last too long though, Ashton usually the type for hard and fast, which anyone could have guessed just by looking at the drummer.

While you were on top, Ashton decided he needed to take control, so his hands slipped to your ass, gripping tighter as he started to meet your hips at a brutal pace. Tossing your head back, you gasped, digging your nails into his scalp; this only seemed to drive Ashton more, an almost animalistic growl tearing from his throat.

His right hand left you for a split second, only to come crashing down against your cheek in a harsh slap that brought you forward so you could bury your face in his neck.

“So good for me kitten, you like being spanked, don’t you? You love the pain almost as much as I do.” Ashton’s words were low in your ear, causing you to shut your eyes and nod in response.

“Yes, fuck. Please more,” You begged, fingers clutching at any expanse of skin you could, dragging your nails across. You began to nip at his neck as he delivered more slaps to your ass, the sting bringing you closer and closer to the edge. “Ash, so close…”

“Yeah, baby? You gonna cum for me?” He moved lower in the chair, giving him a different angle so that his cock was dragging against your g-spot each time, “You wanna fuckin’ scream for me? Come on, who’s gonna hear you?”

His words drove you over the edge with you calling out his name, loudly at first, but then softly whispered like a prayer as he fucked you through it. Ashton wasn’t far behind, his thrusts only growing more and more sloppy until he finally came with a low curse, your body shivering as he filled you.

When the two of you came down from your highs, you lifted off of him, whining at the loss of him, and also the warmth beginning to trail down your leg.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Ashton chuckled, still panting from the exertion.

“Please,” You laughed, bending down to pick up your pants when you had a thought. “Hey Ash?”

“Yeah love?”

“Ever wanted to make a sex tape?” You asked, biting your lip to keep from laughing.

“Never really thought about it, why?” Ashton looked at you, confused before brought over a dry paper towel and a wet paper towel to clean up the mess.

“Because we’re on not so candid camera,” Motioning to the newer camera you installed, the two of you burst out in a fit of laughter at the idea that you almost didn’t need to watch porn together, as you could watch yourselves if you really wanted to.

tag list: @haikucal @talkfastromance4 @calmlftv @canyon-moan @wildflowerirwin @irwindoll @notinthesameguey @heavenisapeach @ridingcthood @loveroflrh @mantlereid @irwinkitten @n-ctarinenga @g-l-pierce @thecurlsofgod @idontneedanyone @boomerash @clemmings @cthofficial @ashtonsos @yikesguys @blackbutterfliescal @mashlums @ohhoneyofmine @monimickell @petunias-pet @treatallwithkindness @castaway-cashton @tea4sykes @begluketostay @wheniminouterspace @another-lonely-heart @ghostofmashton @myfavfanficsever @xsongxbirdx @stardust-galaxies @karajaynetoday

#ashton irwin #ashton irwin one shot #ashton irwin smut #ashton irwin fanfic #ashton irwin blurb

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breakingbadfics · 3 years

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Death of the author

CW: Light discussion of politics, mentions of the Alt-Right, and White Supremacists.

Consider this a “Change of Pace” entry. I’m trying to figure out what the next essay is to be about as well as the eventual long term for this blog.

I wrote this essay back in mid 2019, long before the idea of this blog would come to mind, it’s been lightly edited prior to posting and added to. and I think this essay shows some of my influences much more heavily than my other writings.

What does My Little Pony and The Matrix have in common? Death of the Author.

Death of the Author is not to be confused with “Separating the Artist from the Art,” a self explanatory concept to distance a work from a creator who’s beliefs are more than a little unpleasant, easiest example is acknowledging that, yes, H.P. Lovecraft was a Mega-racist, however, his contributions to the horror genre have created a base that is nearly ubiquitous with the genre to this day, like wise with Orson Scott Card. this concept in itself is an especially controversial subject, but is not the focus of this piece.

Death of the Author is what allowed The Matrix, a movie with a collection of metaphors about being an lgbt person, and an activist for the rights of yourself and your allies to be grossly misinterpreted as a way to justify being a bigot, the most egregious misinterpretation being that of “The Red Pill Scene.”

In the context of the film, The Red Pill Scene is the part of the traditional heroes story where the hero “accepts the call”, Neo is quite literally making the choice to leave the safe world he’s been living in behind and embark on his adventure that will result in a death and rebirth into being The One who will save humanity. In the now very much understood to be the direct metaphor, it’s a scene in which Neo, the stand-in for a lgbt person, specifically a trans person, is being told by a much older lgbt person “You are trans, you have the choice to embrace it, but regardless of what choice you make from here on out the road ahead is going to be bumpy and rough on you, because the system around you is designed to make sure people like us aren’t able to prosper, and if you join us, you won’t be able to opt out.”

That is the very understood metaphor that most people accept with the modern understanding after The Wachowski’s came out as Lily and Lana in the “post-matrix trilogy” reality of the real world.

However due to the Moral Neutrality of Death of the Author in other circles the Red Pill(and all the other metaphors in the film) takes on an alternative meaning. And I can be “polite” in my explaing the bad take on how this scene plays out, but just to hammer the point home we’ll get dirty so you can know where the take is coming from, The Red Pill Scene for White supremeacists, and The alt-right (but I repeat myself) is such. Neo, a disgruntled white person is being told that the world is controlled by soulless machines. Jews, people of color, etx. Everyone around him is mind controlled and can and will attempt to stop him from saving the people smart enough to also realise they’re being held captive by non-whites and save them all. This of course, all being told to him by Morpheus, a black man. So have fun working your head around that.

This of course the most extreme example being the most ubiquitous, poke around on chan sites and sooner or later you’ll see the phrase “red pill” having been memetically adjusted to mean “hey tell me about this thing” or even more specifically “I already had an opinion about this but either way I want you to confirm my choice.” But I digress.

These two interpretations are so wildly on the opposite ends of the spectrum that the only commonalities between them is “You will likely need to be violent at some point”

I’m naturally only covering the two interpretations, the matrix itself has been picked apart by an untold number of people and people interpret it in as many ways as possible in terms of philosophical meaning. That is the nature of Death of The Author.

Death of the Author also covers in a round-a-bout fashion, selective canon, a subjective acknowledgement of canon elements throughout a long lived franchise- see; Star Wars, Star Trek, the belief that there was never any sequels to The Matrix. This variant of the philosophy allows one to be able to continue interactions with a text, specifically a text that consists of multiple volumes (or contributions, each one made by an individual author) but also deny interactions with parts that they personally dislike.

More often than not, you can attribute the death of the author to a bad take in a case of fiction, another primary example being Fight Club, often missed for the scathing critique of unhealthy male behaviour and propped up as some sort of moral guideline for how to live your life. Which is again, not to say this is the fault of Death of The Author as a philosophy, it is morally neutral, these bad takes can more often be attribued to the simple fact that unless directly stating it most attempts at satire or parody will have a contingent of people who agree with what is said, not what is meant, and death of the author unfortunately does make that..very easy, for good, or ill.

Where does My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fit in with all this? Well there are certainly alt-right members of the brony fandom who are painfully missing the point, but we’ve already dwelled on the negative enough, so let’s get happy.

In Episode 1 of Season 1, the first part of a two part pilot, in the background of a shot during a party scene; a pony with a grey coat and blonde mane and tail is seen in the background. This particular pony stood out the most amongst other background characters due to a mistake caused by the animation staff. According to the supervising director at the time, this particular error was spotted after hasbro greenlit the episode for air, and because it amused him he chose not to order a correction so it was left in as a nice little easter egg.

The nameless background pony would eventually be caught by 4chan among other places and very rapidly developed a following of fans and given a nickname, Derpy Hooves. This particular following and new nickname would echo back to shows staff becoming the name internally referred to by the show’s staff.

Friendship is magic creator Lauren Faust, who also enjoyed the popularity of the character when asked in an interview would state that a character named Ditzy Doo existed in an unaired episode, that would be implied to be this particular background pony, So naturally now depending on the fan this particular character would be reffered to as either Derpy Hooves, or Ditzy Doo.

Ditzy Doo would go on to become a recurring easter egg with in the show, something similar to that of “where’s waldo” but with horses. This practice would continue until episode 14 of season 2 where the character would have a set of spoken lines and would be addressed by name. This however resulted in a degree of controversy in which some people expressed concern that the presentation of the character was an offensive attempt at portraying people with mental or physical disabilities. This event resulted in the episode being altered in future airings and the character disappearing from the show for the vast majority of Season 3. Beyond Season 3 the character would continue to appear until season 5 where they would finally have a voiced role in the 100th episode of the show, and then eventually having another speaking role in the christmas special “The best gift ever.” It is also worth noting that Hasbro never gave her an “official name” with almost all of Ditzy’s merchandise either having no name present, or more often than not a singular image of a muffin in place of a name, even going so far as to have “Muffins” be the credited name she was given in all voiced instances of the show.

Muffins, Ditzy Doo, or Derpy Hooves isn’t the only case of background characters growing a large following of fans with in the show; a variety of characters have been swept up by the fans, given names and personalities built entirely out of bit gags. Lyra, Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia Melody, and who knows how many more have all been seen in background moments which would be built on by fans and then echo back into the staff to be integrated into the show further. One would say this is fanon but at the end of the day, the writers and show staff had very little more intent with the characters beyond “does this background character look good?” and “Does this bit part character stand out enough to automatically be recognizable for the bit they need to be doing” it is still what I believe to be an example of Death of The Author, an act of choosing to ignore the intended meaning,and giving what amounts to window dressings a full life as fleshed out characters in fan content and in small instances of the show; an interpretation separate from the writers original intent.

Now the question is does someone need to actively defy the author to participate in The Death There-of? No. I don’t believe so. In much the same fashion no one need actually be a clan member to inadvertently say or do something that's passive aggressively racist(yes a bit of an extreme, I know) one need not actively defy the author, merely ascribe to an alternate interpretation of a work of fiction. Refer to Fight Club, the film does everything it can with out directly stating “most of the people in Fight Club and later Project Mayhem are bad people, because they were already doing the things Tyler Durden was ascribing to” and almost unilaterally all the bad takes are built around this idea that they’ve achieved the perfect ideal masculine because they’re the “living in the moment, violent psychopath” nihilist the movie is actively condemning.

The simple fact is that death of the author ultimately, in a grand scale amounts to this; did a writers intent show through hard enough for their intent to be heard? And Subjectively, how much does a person believe in the meaning that they, or the writer themself have imparted into the story?

#change of pace

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milady-milord-lj · 7 years

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Community Re-Watch Season 1: Advanced Criminal Law and Social Psychology

Community Re-Watch: Season 1 Hello everyone! Once again, watching in intended order. Which means this week we've got "Advanced Criminal Law" and "Social Psychology" (yes in that order). Advanced Criminal Law

Commentary by Dan Harmon, Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, and Andrew Guest (co-writer with Dan)

Dan says the script for this episode was pretty much written on-set. Andrew confirms that the script went through a lot of changes. There was originally a secondary story involving Professor Duncan. According to Dan, Duncan just had a paper published called “Born to Leave,” which was about why women always leave men. Andrew clarifies that the comedy about the paper was that it was clearly Duncan publicly grinding an axe.

Dan says that a lot of people didn’t get the exchange between Jeff and Duncan where they talk “in code” using sitcom titles. Joel is kind of shocked by that statement.

Dan admits that Abed is loosely based on a friend of his (side note: original Abed did make an appearance as one of the custodians during S5 in “Analysis of Cork-based Networking). He said Original Abed (the guy’s name is actually Abed) is incredulous. That was the basis of the Abed-Troy storyline in this episode. Joel points out that Original Abed actually read for the part of Fictional Abed.

Starburns’s first line in the entire series is said in Spanish class. It’s, “My name is Alex, dude.” According to Dan, this exchange was originally longer and descended into a huge argument between Chan and Starburns. Unfortunately, NBC hated the argument and it got cut as a result.

Gillian said during the day they were shooting in the Spanish class, Ken Jeong was doing a lot of Andrew Dice Clay impressions.

Joel actually doesn’t remember which episode he’s commenting on. He sheepishly admits that during the break when no one is talking he was quickly looking up on his phone to see which episode it was.

Dan once again repeats that this is one of the episodes where Jeff gets his one-on-one with each character in the study group. This episode is meant to be Jeff’s one-on-one with Britta. This is the episode where we discover that Britta is a character who cuts and runs “because she’s a skank.” Gillian cheerfully agrees that Britta is a skank-y, cheating, ‘ho, “which is what the people want.” Dan assures Gillian that she is selling herself short, and that he is in negotiations about that stuff with “the people.”

Dan says there were multiple re-shot scenes between Pierce and Annie at the piano while Pierce is trying to write a school song for Greendale. He mentions that some of the scenes will be included in the DVD extras. The point was to say something about Pierce (not Annie, apparently). Dan repeats that Pierce is Dan’s avatar representing him as an artist. Namely, that he’ll shut himself up in a room and procrastinate, then go around and lie about what a genius he is.

Joel notes that Alison’s neck is bright red in the scene where Chang threatens to flunk the class unless the cheater comes forward. Gillian points out that it’s because Alison just screamed. Joel asks Gillian if the same thing happens to her, and Gillian confirms that it does. She adds that she bruises very easily.

Gillian says that during the scene where the class throws balled up paper at her, some of the extras in the scene whipped the balls at her pretty hard. Dan admits that he ended up debating the scene with Joe Russo during editing. Joe wanted a beat before people starting flinging paper at her, and Dan wanted it to happen right away. Dan won.

Joel calls the scene where Jeff approaches Britta in the Cafetorium as “the battle of the awesome coats.”

Dan asks if Joel was the one who ad-libbed the line that a dirty bum is higher on the totem pole than Britta. Joel and Gillian say that the line was actually in the script.

Dan says that Jeff is based on a combination of his friends. In addition, Jeff Winger is both the voice of “the dorky writer who created him” and Joel McHale. He credits McHale with really highlighting Jeff’s “pomposity, narcissism, and shallowness.” (Umm, compliment? I guess?)

Dan says the dirty bum line to Britta was the point at which he realized that they had managed to successfully create a very flawed character as their Jeff protagonist and they had to commit to it.

Andrew says that there are a couple of different versions of the Jeff-Britta conversation that were put into the script, but that writer Neil Goldman was the one who locked it down to its current form.

Andrew also says that writer Hillary Winston came up with Britta storyline, and that she came into the writers’ room with the plot almost fully formed before they even wrote the script. Dan confirmed the storyline was Hillary’s. Although he adds that he always had the idea in his head that he wanted to do a trial storyline where the trial takes place next to a swimming pool. He notes that if the idea had come from Joe Russo, it might get shot down as being too expensive. But because Dan wanted to do it, people were willing to make it happen.

The pool-side trial was apparently a long day of filming. Gillian points out that on that day, Alison was on-set for 16 hours, and only worked for a half-hour. Turns out, Alison had a scene as a witness at the trial, and she ended up being cut from the final version of the script/episode.

Dan says that part of it was that when he went down to the set, he thought the pool-side trial scenes weren’t working. So he and Andrew basically sat on the bleachers and re-wrote the trial scenes. Then they were printing out the re-written pages to give to the actors, while they were still shooting the original script. Andrew jokes, “It’s really not the way you want to work.”

Gillian points out the guy diving into the pool in the background at the end of the first pool-trial scene made that dive 30 times.

Dan says the scenes between Annie and Pierce were originally much darker in tone. All of the scenes had to be reshot because NBC because they felt the scenes were too dark. Dan admits that NBC may have had a valid point. However, he says that the whole point of the Annie-Pierce storyline was to “find the Pierce character” that both Dan and Chevy would be happy with.

Dan goes off on a tangent and says that Chevy basically wanted to be Fletch. Dan’s argument was that Pierce wasn’t Fletch, he was meant to be a buffoon and that Chevy had been warned that Pierce was the target of jokes. But Chevy insisted that he wanted to be “Fletch-y and sexy.” So the Pierce-Annie storyline was Dan’s attempt at finding a happy medium. Pierce was written to be an angry character because he’s not getting what he wants in life.

Dan says in the original scenes between Pierce and Annie, Pierce is very abusive towards Annie throughout their storyline. In the final piano room scene between the two of them, Annie snaps and dresses down Pierce. Actual Dan quote describing the original scene where Annie finally confronts Pierce: “You know why you have seven wives? Because everyone who gets close to you, you shit on them. Now I’m one of one of those people, and I accidentally thought you were a decent guy. Now I’m out of here too, and that’s just the way it is.” As Dan put it, Annie was supposed to be Pierce’s first real friend. Dan admits that the storyline was inspired by Malcolm in the Middle.

Back at poolside again, Gillian says she got great joy out of the seeing posters of the Human Being in his swimming form. Andrew adds that the art department did an amazing job on the set. Both Joel and Gillian pipe up and say that the set was infested by very large cockroaches.

Gillian says that it was her idea to crawl up onto the platform to give Britta’s testimony. Joel says he thought it was kind of adorable.

Dan says that he had a real problem with Gillian’s boots. Gillian adds that he seemed upset that she was wearing heels. Dan counters that he has a problem with dishonesty, and it seems to him that if someone is short they should own it. He had a hard time wrapping his head around why someone like Britta would wear high-heeled boots, because Britta was supposed to be a character that represented practicality and honesty. So, why is Britta stumbling around on stilts? Gillian interrupts and says it’s because she’s not very good at walking in heels.

Andrew points out that this is the first episode where the writers actually address Britta’s character. Gillian agrees that this is the first episode where you see Britta is flawed (Ummm, did we forget Britta admitting to being a hypocrite in “Spanish 101?”).

Dan says that this episode is one of his favorite episodes, however, it’s also an episode that had a huge number of problems during production and post-production. There was “political” pressure on him, plus a lot of second-guessing and over-correction. For example, a lot of the act breaks got shuffled around in the edit bay to improve the flow of the episode, so as a result none of the act breaks we see are the original act breaks in the script, which seems to drive him crazy. In short, filming and putting this episode was, in Dan’s word, “a mess.” Plus he was in the middle of the learning curve of learning to work with his team and the network. There was not enough confidence on his part.

Gillian says that both she and Joel got to really enjoy watching Jim Rash, John Oliver, and Ken do improve during the poolside-trial scenes. She says that it was like being at a comedy show that never ended.

Joel says the shower scene between Chang and Duncan and Jeff and Britta was shot about 20 minutes before they were about to be thrown out of the pool. Gillian says that both scenes were shot very quickly, with only two takes for each scene.

Dan calls Gillian’s acting in the scene between her and Jeff “brilliant.”Dan thinks that looking back at the Jeff-Britta scene after 25 episodes of pounding on Britta by pointing out that she’s humorless and joyless, you realize in this scene that Britta is “a crazy person.” He says that Gillian’s performance informs that realization, because it’s “so real.” Britta is the character on Gilligan’s Island who sticks out because she’s different from “all these sitcom characters.”

Andrew says that the Jeff-Britta scene was shot at the end of a 16-hour day and Joe basically had to tell Gillian, “Okay, this is your big scene!” Gillian repeats that they had to do the scene in two takes.

Dan’s still complaining about act breaks.

First appearance of Leonard (By the fabulous Richard Erdman! I recommend you see him in one of his most famous roles in Stalag 17. Great movie! Somehow it served as the inspiration of Hogan’s Heroes. If you squint, you can kind of see it.).

Everyone talks about how Dan almost drowned Richard. Gillian says it was fascinating to see two people swim out with Richard to guide him to his mark and then he’d sink about five inches down the second they let him go. Dan says “the legend” is that Richard had to do 20 takes of his “Busted!” line, but the thing is, he nailed it on his first take while Dan was in the bathroom. And then when Dan came back, he kept asking for more takes. Eventually, the first assistant director took Dan aside and said, “He’s going to drown!” Dan admits that the ended up using his first take. Gillian starts laughing that Richard is basically “eating water” during his scene.

Dan starts singing Richard’s praises and urges people to look him up on IMDb to see what he’s acted in and what he’s directed. He’s basically a museum of early television and a living legend. Gillian says that Richard was Marlon Brando’s roommate at one point when they were both starting out in Hollywood. Dan says everyone on the set should salute Richard when he comes on set. Gillian says he’s always in a good mood, and is always happy to be there.

Gillian says that she loved watching Danny shoot his scene where he’s pretending to be an alien communicating with his home world. She says that for the “alien twin,” Danny insisted that make-up draw in his eyebrows really heavy so he’d have a more alien look.

Dan says the scene between where Troy confronts Abed about trying to fool him into thinking he is an alien was re-shot as well. Originally Troy bought it, but Dan thought it was too implausible that Troy would think Abed was an alien. Andrew jokes that now the writers know Troy well enough that they’d probably go for the original storyline.

Dan says that in the first season of any freshman show, everyone involved has the correct feeling that it’s their job to save the show. This sometimes leads to the equivalent of a car crash at a four-waystop. But the thing is, everyone is right because it is everyone’s job to save the show. So everyone has to learn to work together. Eventually people learn over time. But early on “you think you’re writing the Constitution and everyone if Thomas Jefferson.”

Gillian says that Chevy loves playing the piano. Joel adds that he’s actually very good at it.

Dan clearly isn’t feeling the scenes between Annie and Pierce and calls them “watered-down.” However, he adds that writer Liz Cackowski did a good job re-writing the scenes between the two characters. Turns out that Annie’s final speech to Pierce about being a cheerleader is actually taken from a combination of Hillary’s and Liz’s real lives.

Dan says he actually loves Annie’s cheerleader story because it’s so specific of a backstory and it allowed them to learn stuff.

Andrew says adapting the Bruce Hornsby song “The Way It Is,” came about because someone in the writers’ room thought the name of the song was “That’s the Way It Goes.” And they got to talking about what if Pierce thought that was the name of the song.

Dan says they tried to get Bruce Hornsby and The Range to play the closing song of the episode, but was turned down. Dan adds that he hopes to get Bruce on the show at some point.

Gillian says that Luis Guzman posed for the Luis Guzman statue.

Dan thanks Luis. He adds that he originally asked Mark Hamill to pose for it. Although Mark said no, Dan still got an awesome letter in response to his request. Dan said it actually made him love Mark, because he he’s one of the few people who can say “no” without coming off like a dick. He said Mark came across as fairly reasonable in his rejection.

Social Psychology

Commentary by Dan Harmon, Joel McHale, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Anthony Russo. Danny Pudi watched them do commentary from outside the recording booth.

Anthony states that the episode was aired out of order. It was moved up, which resulted in a rushed post-production.

Dan says that Liz Cackowski wrote the draft. It was apparently a big milestone for Dan. He felt that this was the first script that was just “ready to go” and he felt from the start that they could actually do this story.

First appearance of Vaughn (Erik Christian Olsen). Yvette notes that he’s (as of when they were recording the commentaries) a full-time cast member of one of the NCIS shows. Yvette says he was a great guy.

Anthony says that commentaries were recorded out of order from when the episodes aired. Apparently they had just finished commenting on later episodes and this was a return to the earlier episodes for them. Antony says that part of the fun of the early episodes is that you’re getting to know the characters, and in this case, exploring the relationship between Jeff and Shirley. He adds that another part of the fun is finding characters outside your core cast. Some of those characters wound up having “lives” in the first season, despite the fact they were originally cast as a one-shot guest.

Everyone loved the character of Vaughn, and they’re kind of sorry they didn’t get to explore him more. Dan mentions about making Vaughn a musical rival to Pierce (which only sort of happened).

Yvette says the nice thing about this episode is that she got to spend time with Joel. She says that just as Shirley and Jeff were getting to know each other, she and Joel were getting to know each other at the same time.

Dan credits Liz for coming up with the idea that the basis of the friendship between Jeff and Shirley is their mutual love of gossip, specifically talking smack behind people's backs.

Dan repeats that this is part of the series where “in the first six episodes” (umm, it took longer than six episodes for Annie,just sayin’), where Jeff would interact with each member of the study group and become inextricably tangled in each character’s life. This was the Jeff-Shirley episode. The problem they were trying to overcome was how to make that happen with Jeff and Shirley. That’s why they leaned into the whole thing where Jeff says at the open of the episode that he hates walking with Shirley and making small talk with her. However, he likes the fact that Shirley is the first to really bond with Jeff.

Yvette points out that Jeff and Shirley are really toxic together, so does that mean that they shouldn’t be together in future episodes? Dan disagrees, since the whole point is for “the family” to grow together so much that, if they want, Shirley moves up from being Jeff’s “least favorite family member” to someone he likes more.

Joel points out that the name of the coffee shop is Hot and Brown. Dan says it was tough coming up with a new coffee shop name after going through 15 names of coffee shops used on other sitcoms. Yvette jokes that she thought it was in homage to her. Dan points out that it’s racist. Yvette asks how it’s racist. Dan says, “It’s not racist if you say it.”

Yvette says that John Oliver has the cutest dimples ever. Joel adds that comedy just flows out of John and Jim Rash like a broken Roman fountain. Dan says that both John and Jim are amazing in different ways. He calls Jim “a machine” who hits every mark in exactly the same way if you want him to, which makes it easy to edit his scenes. John does a different thing every time and it’s amazing every single time.

According to Dan, there were a lot of shots (that were cut) where Duncan was leering at Annie, and it just made him feel very uncomfortable. He is very protective of the idea that Annie was an innocent little girl.

Yvette says that during this episode, a writer from Entertainment Weekly was on the set.

During S1, the exterior shots were shot at LA Community College. They also did outdoor shots on the Paramount lot. The Paramount lot was dressed to mimic the exterior of LA Community College. In this episode, they were shooting on the Paramount lot.

Joel points out that during his and Yvette’s first walk-and-talk scene, they were walking across the street from the office of the President of Paramount.

First official onscreen appearance of Garrett (Erik Charles Nielsen) is in Duncan’s group of lab rats for the Duncan Principle! (Although, he does also appear in “Advanced Criminal Law,” but from an airing order perspective, this episode is his first appearance.) Dan admits that in this episode, Garrett didn’t have a name. He was just a background character in the scene. Dan says Erik is “a darling of the underground stand-up comedy scene in LA.”

Troy’s meltdown was completely improvised by Donald Glover, to the point that the script only said "Troy melts down." Everyone on the commentary track just bursts into laughter. Yvette says that Troy's meltdown just makes her happy.

Dan notes that this episode runs longer than all the other episodes in S1, because NBC let them “super-size” the episode. Anthony says that even with the super-sizing, this episode was eight minutes too long. NBC waived the length requirements on the episode because this episode got moved up in the airing order, which meant they had a very short post-production window. So NBC took pity on them. Anthony says the version on the DVD is the as-aired longer NBC version. However, on streaming sites, they use the chopped-down syndicated version that’s only 22 minutes.

Yvette is convinced that Jeff is in love with Britta.

Dan feels this episode has a weird effect. He notes that the critics had a weird reaction as well, because they commented that suddenly Jeff Winger is Jim Halpert from The Office, and it’s now a rom-com and Jeff is so devastated because some girl he likes is making out with another guy.

Dan feels that Jeff is very, very inexperienced when it comes to feeling anything genuine about women. He’s had a crass, collector mentality when it comes to women. That as soon as he gets what he wants from them (he calls it “validation”), they become disgusting to him and he moves on. However, Britta, for whatever reason is different. He’s got a big crush on Britta, he likes her, he’s attracted to her “dirtiness,” and the eclecticness of her. In short, (and this is Dan’s actual words) Jeff “believes Britta is the girl he’s supposed to be with.”

Joel asks Dan if he thinks Jeff leaning his forehead against the vending machine was over the top. Dan admits they cut it down, but that he likes the fact that privately, Jeff is bummed out that Britta is “the one that got away.”

Joel says that when he read the script he was heartbroken in a “how could she” kind of way.

Dan says that Britta reminds him of so many of his ex-girlfriends. That one of things he finds attractive is that Britta is that tough girl you can throw into a suitcase and bring with you around the world. Then she turns out to be a mattress full of bed bugs and gives you ringworm. (This is greeted by groans and admonishment from Yvette.)

Dan admits that Duncan’s breakdown is him doing a "take that" against doctors and therapists because he hates people in white coats.

Yvette said she was very nervous about making Shirley making fun of Vaughn because she’s not really a physical comedian and she had to physically make fun of him.

Erik (Vaughn) was wearing tiny fake nipples. Anthony said that they weren’t actually prosthetic nipples. It was actually a trick of the make-up because they couldn't really afford the prosthetics.

Dan really likes the scene of Jeff and Britta sitting on the couch together. Dan mentions that the focus groups had a really simplistic view of Britta and the Jeff-Britta relationship. Focus groups felt that Britta was “the normal one” in the ensemble. Also, they really weren’t on board with the will-the-won’t-they between Jeff and Britta, but they liked the sibling vibe when they hatched schemes together and hung out as friends.

(Dan is obviously unhappy with that feedback as he stumbles a little bit over his explanation over whether or not to pay attention to the feedback. On whether or not Dan really wanted to know what the focus groups said, and he admits that early on he did. He kind of closes the discussion with “to me, you could get good feedback form a fire hydrant.” Anthony adds that NBC never “misused” the focus group information. They only shared the feedback.)

In the scene where the study group reassembles in the study room and the shit hits the fan, Joel jokes about Alison’s costuming by saying that she walked onto the set directly from her audition for Dukes of Hazard II. Dan adds that it’s subtitled, The Prep-ening.

Dan says that the study room scene is the first time they had a “shit hit the fan” scenario, and he now considers it a Community staple. Dan and Yvette said they both felt bad during this scene. Dan points out that in this scene, Vaughn becomes the most likeable character. Dan says it was also part of his “beating up on Britta to make her more likeable” campaign so she'd become the group Charlie Brown. It’s also the point where you realize the Study Group is made up of bad people.

Yvette says the scene following the Britta-Vaughn break-up scene was hard to do with Joel. However, it was due to behind-the-scenes reasons. Joel was being a sarcastic ass, and Yvette thought he was being mean to her. (She stresses that at this point they didn’t know each other very well.) Joel admits that he makes jokes and is sarcastic with people he doesn’t know people all that well. Dan points out that Joel just admitted that his defense mechanism is to be an ass.

Dan comments that Joel and Yvette have good chemistry. Yvette jokes with Joel and asks when she’s going to be getting a kiss.

Dan says that the scene between Annie and Abed where she gives him the apology DVD set was longer. In the cut scene, Duncan comes back and tells Annie that she’s brilliant and wants her to come with him to help him continue his work. Annie turns him down because she decides that she’d rather watch the DVDs with Abed. Anthony says that the point of the scene was to show that Duncan realized his meltdown actually confirmed the Duncan Principle. By cutting it, the storyline didn’t get paid off. Plus, Anthony adds, it was one of the funniest scenes that John Oliver had ever done. Dan says that this was part of the learning curve of learning how long a script needed to be to essentially make a 20-minute movie. The tragedy was they had to “kill their children” early on, the children in this case being scenes and jokes.

Dan says that a lot of the cool songs in the show comes from Joe Russo’s Ipod.

The tag between Troy and Abed was shot at 4 a.m. Joel says he had to leave directly from the shoot to catch a flight to New York.

Anthony said the episode needed to be locked two days later on a Saturday at 9 p.m., so he was up for 36 hours straight in editing to make the deadline.

#jeff x annie

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daf21media · 6 years

Text

L.A.D.S.

Whats up tumblr its your boy! i say that like i have tons of followers, i do not, this is to the 150 of you who have been following. i use to post directly from IG but my link isnt working. so from now own im gonna be posting articles on the work i do, with the exception of the stuff i cant contractually talk about.. ill be going over the project, from shoot to edit and post some BTS when available, as well as the camera, and lenses i used. hope you guys enjoy and without further ado i bring you the first post.......

Project: Music Video

Song: L.AD.S.

Artist: The Honey Farm

Location Edinburgh, United Kingdoms

Director/Cinematographer: Douglas Ferguson

Editor: Douglas Ferguson

CONCEPT:

So a bit of back story i met THE HONEY FARM while i was in Scotland working on my documentary entitled “beats and bagpipes.” I met them through a mutual friend of theirs who i connected with on Tinder of all places. It really was fortuitous, as i was shooting this doc i kept running into alot of male artist, and couldn't find not a single female rapper and then boom i found three. Went to interview them and knew they had something, they reminded me of a female version of the beasty boys.

and its not intentional on their part its just their swag.. seriously

that was not on purpose, it wasnt till after i edited the music video that i saw the similarities between that shot and the one from the beasty boys video.

So fast forward a few months later i was coming back to Scotland, to give a lecture on being a working filmmaker and to hang out with my friends. the girls contacted me about shooting the video for this song and the concept they had and i thought it was brilliant. The song deals with Toxic masculinity LAD/BRO culture in a satirical and sometimes sadly truthful manner, as a man its hard for us to see the dumb and often hurtful things we do and say to women, and so to that effect the ladies thought it would be a good idea to do some gender reversal where they dressed as the titular LADS and they had some guys dress as ladies, the results were hilarious take a look at the full video:

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While i would love to take credit and say it was the way the video was shot and edited that makes it worth watching, it was really all them, i gave very little direction and just worried more about blocking and camera position, my job was easy. the only footage that wasnt originated by me was the club footage which was shot after i came back to the states.

CAMERA/Lens:

I shot with what has become my favorite combo.

Camera Black Magic Cinema Camera 2.5k with metabones speedbooster

Lens: Sigma Art 18-35mm 1.8

Format 2.5k RAW

this is hands down my favorite and go to combo for most projects, i rarely shoot with any focal length over 35mm, with my sweet spot being between 21-28mm on cropped sensors on a full frame id be between 35-85. with my sweet spot being 35-50mm. but for the bmcc you cant get any better. Sigma has stepped its game up with its Art lens series giving you clean crisp slightly cool images from end to end. i shot in RAW because when it comes to this camera you wanna use all 13 stops of dynamic range, one of my biggest concerns while shooting were the weather conditions in Scotland which can go from sunshine to cloudy with the drop of a hat having that full dynamic range available meant that i didnt have to worry about my highlights, the trick to shooting with the black magic is really getting as much light to the sensor as possible or exposing to the right side of your histogram or ETTR:

This process allows you the best image quality and the most color range, its not something i always follow, but its good rule of dumb when shooting with this camera.

EDITING/Colorgrading

the editing of this music video unlike others i shot was fairly simple mainly because i didnt really need to any kind of special effects like you would for most hip hop music videos, i just let the images and costumes dictate my cuts, for this video thought i wanted fast cuts and for the performers to be often mid sentence.

by adding edits mid sentence it makes the audience feel like they are going on a journey and apart of the narratives being told, my first edit actually had a cut every 4 seconds but i thought it was excessive and instead went for a 4-8 second ratio.. the song is unusually long for todays hip hop standards, with most songs falling in the 2-3 minute range lads clocks in at just over 4 minutes, so my plan was really to treat the video like an action scene in a movie, it really did help with the overall flow it. The coloring process was easier. i used one of my own LUTS(Look,Up,Tables) based on KODAK KODACHROME 64

youtube

You can purchase the package from me if you like it: https://sellfy.com/p/BhI7/

and i combined it with Red Giant Universes Retrograde

but before i that i had to color correct the footage and i wanted to do it based off the final look...so in Davinci Resolve i went:

using resolves LUT feature in a node i was able to adjust the RAW footage bringing down the highlights and the shadows boosting the midtones, to create the best footage to match the final look, this was the tedious part of the whole process as it required me to toggle on and off the LUT to make sure the footage would look great and the skintones were fine.

CONCLUSION:

This was probably the funnest video i ever had a chance to shoot and look forward to shooting another with the honeys, hopefully stateside. hopefully you found this post informative ill try and keep them breath but no promises. hopefully someone reads these things. goodbye and good luck shooting.

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