BTS Pics: "Antisemitism: An Analysis"

Hello lovely patrons!

I'm very excited for this next episode, it's one I've been meaning to do for a couple of years! Once again I'm filming the whole thing in my flat because of quarantine: I've had two shooting days (and nights) so far with one more half-day to go when the last little piece of costume arrives. Here are some behind the scenes pics!

Say 'bonjour!' to a brand new character, Mme. Y! 

Mme. Y is a member of the French Resistance, and the persona I'll be using for a lot of this video. These shots are from a makeup, costume, and lighting test I did, though I haven't yet decided whether I want her to be in colour or black and white in the actual video

It's quite a task to get her makeup looking the way it does. I had to use buckets of peach concealer to hide my beard shadow, then layers of liquid foundation, more  concealer, and two kinds of powder just to get the blank canvas onto which the actual look can be applied!

SO MUCH peach concealer and clever lighting to hide my dark, coarse beard shadow, and even then it's impossible for me to get all of it! A turtleneck dress was a great way to hide my Adam's apple though, over a waist trainer and a pushup bra, with a little rose necklace, both for symbolic value and to add some light 

Here's my main setup in the daytime. I wanted to create quite a moody atmosphere, so the dark glitter curtain really helps with that: at night you can see it shimmering gently in the blackness. I wanted to improve on the sound quality from my last video, which had a bit of an echo to it, so instead of using a clip-on lavalier this time I put a Røde NT2-A near my face, plugged into a Scarlett Solo pre-amp that captured sound separately. As well as improving audio quality, having it in the shot creates an old-fashioned feel that I love, almost like Mme. Y is broadcasting pirate resistance radio from a fabulous bunker somewhere?

I'll also be adopting my standard male presenter persona for some more bookish segments. Long-time fans will recognise the old Ikea bookshelf! I had fun incorporating little pieces of thematically appropriate stuff like some of the key books I'll be citing, bits of Mme. Y's costume and makeup, a tiny model spitfire, and an actual original playbill of Casablanca! It's nice to put a bit more effort into a bookshelf set rather than just be like, "Look at all my books, that means I'm clever!"

Here's an actual shot from filming night where you can see the look more clearly. On top of the blank canvas there's some highlighter and a little blush. (I think if I were to do it again I'd like to improve the contouring and highlights, they sortof got lost in the blending process, and with my skin type it's hard to do highlights precisely cause I get so oily under the hot lights I just end up with highlights everywhere!) Around the eyes there's plum coloured shadow framed in white, sculpted brows, eyeliner on the upper lid with a cat eye plus mascara, and down below there's orange/red lips and French tip nails.

Not that you get to see them much, but there's also a pair of absolutely killer heels in one shot!

I'm using a Manfrotto 536 tripod with a 504HD head (it's a beast! goes all the way up to nine feet!), and mounted on top is a Canon 70D camera. I'm just using a standard 18-55mm zoom lens for this video and it's really impressed me (I did have to do some reshoots at 1am cause it didn't focus properly but that's an occupational hazard of not having anyone behind the camera!) Not quite sure what that face I'm pulling is all about, mind...

I'm really excited for this one! It's certainly been an interesting challenge, and long-term patrons will know I like to challenge myself with each new project. I'm hoping this will be out sometime in the next two weeks, and once I've got the last little bit of filming done I'll have screenshots from the editing phase to show you!

Oh, also, Ian. N. Drivel is coming back :P

XXx