The Tube

From Blushes 23, a fascinating description by Alan Bell of the making of Sally’s First Lesson. Sadly I can’t find any other articles in this series so I’m not sure they were ever published. It would have been good to read his thoughts on the filming of Half-Term Punishments etc. Don't worry, by the way, I'm not going to "over-analyse" every video I post.

When it was first suggested that I might consider writing a series of articles about the dozen or so ‘Spanking Video’s I have been involved with over several years, I have to say that I was dubious; it seemed to me that there would be little that I could say which would be of interest to readers. The whole thing was, after all, only a theatrical event — the girls weren’t real schoolgirls in real situations; they were models, professional and amateur, pretending to be actresses pretending to be schoolgirls, with my own ‘on screen’ role even less interesting, as it appeared to me.

But a remark made to me by a writer of my acquaintance gave me something to think about; ‘It’s a wonderful idea!’ he said. ‘Don’t you realise that you’re one of the few — the very few — people around in 1986 who can put his hand on his heart and say truthfully that he has actually spanked, caned, strapped and otherwise corporally punished dozens of teenaged girls — bare bum, tears, the lot! And no-one can say you’re a liar — the proof is there on video-tape, isn’t it!’

And so I thought about it, and eventually persuaded myself that it was, after all, a viable project; the reader will be the judge of whether or not it is interesting.

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This first part of the series I have been requested to write deals mostly with a video in which I played the part of a tutor, given charge of the education of a girl called Sally; the film was called, Sally’s First Lesson. I have written about that particular film because I know that a lot of Blushes readers will have a copy of it; which I hope will give my article particular interest for them. In subsequent articles I shall deal more generally with my experience both behind and in front of the camera; for the present then, it is to be a small insight into my part in the making of Sally.

The first scenes were to be played between myself and a chubby little blonde girl, Tracey, called Angela in the film. The two memorable things about Tracey were that she was too little to be able to keep her toes on the floor and bend over the front of her desk, so she had to stand on a book (which was kept out of the shot), and that her fat little bottom went redder, by far, than any other girl’s bum I have ever seen! A spanking — not particularly hard — had her cheeks glowing absolutely crimson!

She took her preliminary spanking bravely, I remember, with only a few squeals — which she said was ‘acting’ although I knew better — and she stood up rubbing her bottom like any schoolgirl would. It was only when she looked in a mirror at her crimson bum that the shock of the sight of her buttocks made her burst into tears! She would not be pacified either, and she still had a whole caning to go before her part was finished! She cried and cried — what was to be done? A fifty pound note appeared in someone’s hand; it was thrust into Tracey’s little pinkies — her fingers closed round it and she stopped crying. Amazing! The bonus payment had done the trick! We did the caning as quickly as we could before any more ‘bonuses’ had to change hands, and that was the first part of the film in the can! (A good look at Tracey’s Remarkably Rapidly Reddening bottom can be had on pages 38, 39 and 49 of Blushes Issue 4 [these are all featured in the previous posts]).

Then it was Sally’s turn. The first part, a good, hard spanking, was easy enough. It involved Linda learning a silly little poem by heart, which she had to do across my knees, knickers down, with a hefty spank or two for each mistake. (It is remarkable how effective this learning technique proved to be. When I met Linda six months later, she still remembered, word perfect, the eight lines of poetry I had spanked into her bottom, although I recalled hardly any of them!) Lunch break was announced. Linda rubbed her bum, giggled a bit, and that was a bit more filming finished. After lunch we would be doing the big bit — Sally’s caning; she smiled a little dubiously and stuffed a sandwich into her mouth.

During lunch it was discussed, what form exactly should the ‘lesson’ take; I was asked for my opinion, all contributions being welcomed. Having enjoyed thoroughly the poetry-learning sequence earlier, when I’d had the pleasure of being able to spank Linda for her actual mistakes and inattentions rather than for arbitrarily contrived misdemeanours, I wondered if we might do an impromptu spelling session, with the words to be spelt being selected by me, on camera, leaving Linda the opportunity to save her bottom from punishment if she got her spellings right, and putting her in the dilemma of knowing that every mis-spelt answer would earn her more strokes of the cane, all for real!

Back on the set, Linda was told what was planned. Whilst lights and microphones were set up, she and I had a discussion as to how precisely it would be done, during which she came out with the charming and entertaining statement that she, ‘should know how to spell, shouldn’t she, and it would serve her right if she got caned for not knowing the words,’ confiding that she had not been the most industrious of students when she had been at school, which she had left a year or so previously. The reader will place his own interpretation on this girl’s ‘sporting’ attitude to the prospect of being brought to book, finally, for her idleness at school; for myself I thought it a charming demonstration of her buoyant, devil-may-care-spirit.

I shall set the scene as it was after lunch, as I saw it unfold before me.

After one or two changes of camera angle, with a close-up to do as well, I am at last allowed to make Linda get up on her desk, knickers down to thigh tops, tummy against the desk, knees together, hands holding on to the woodwork. This final few minutes, when the camera is being focussed, the lights adjusted, people chattering all at once about everything to do with shot, all happening around the two central characters who, suddenly, have nothing left to do but compose themselves for ‘Roll Camera’. Then ‘Action!’ is when the ‘Action!’ really begins, not when the director says the word.

The cane is in your hand. You listen to last instructions, say something amusing to make the girl laugh, a private joke between the two of you perhaps, and she does laugh, as girls always will in that situation, out of nervousness, out of a kind of gratitude that for a last few moments she can still let you be someone nice and friendly, before she has to become that wretched, unfortunate girl who on film and, most poignantly, in the flesh too has to be brave and obedient and must say nothing more than ‘Ooogh!’ or ‘Oooow!’ without forgetting the ‘sir!’ on the end, and you become the nasty, frightening character who really is going to make her bottom wriggle!

Your eyes wander to her bottom, then somewhere else, then back. Bare girl-flesh a cane’s length away. ‘Will I have room to swing this thing?’ Someone finds time to listen to you. You demonstrate, an excuse to rest the cane across her bottom. ‘Will that lamp be in the way?’ You swing the cane, it clears the lamp, you tap the bare bum-cheeks again. The girl’s eyes are on the cane; she is pretending an interest in what is going on film-wise, but really she’s thinking about how that cane is going to feel across her bum! Someone says we might be ready in thirty seconds or so. ‘Places, everyone.’

People are still talking; everyone talks all the time as the shot gets closer to being ready. Anyone else who speaks to the bare-bottomed girl across the desk will get a vague, inattentive answer and a slightly wide-eyed look; anyone except you, because you are the one with the cane, and a caning is what she knows she is about to get. A few quiet words from you, however, amid the bustle, and she will hear them. Her pale face, pale no matter how brave she is being, will turn to you at once; she is tuning in to the her/you situation, other things are fading out of focus.

‘Could you shuffle your knees forward a bit, d’you think?’ She shuffles, no questions asked. ‘And lift your bum up a bit sweetheart — bit higher.’ You pat her bottom with the cane, patronising her, indulging yourself, and whereas if you’d talked down to her ten minutes ago, or dared to take liberties with her bum like that, as if she really were some helpless little schoolgirl, she would have bitten your head off, now she seems to have forgotten that she and you are actors. She does lift her bottom, and you say, ‘Bit more yet, please,’ and she thrusts her bum up and looks at you for confirmation that she’s done it right. These last few moments are private between you and she, private amid the talk and the moving about, and, believe me, she does slip into the character, she does half-believe you are the teacher and she the helpless schoolgirl. It is only this mutual awareness of each other that will let it work, will make it possible for reality to be suspended in her mind so that another reality can take its place and obtain until the director says ‘Cut!’; without this suspension of normality, she would be unable to let herself be bare-bum caned, in public, by someone she hardly knows.

‘Ready, everyone?’ says the director.

‘Yes,’ you say. The girl looks up at you, her eyes bright. ‘OK?’ you say, between you and her. She nods, licks her lips because her mouth has gone dry. Her bottom looms plum and bare; the cane bounces off its tautness as you tap it — gratuitous taps, even a little pretend stroke, nothing to do with the script, just you playing teacher with her. She makes no objection; what she knows she’s going to get — she’s seen the other girl get caned, of course — is going to hurt!

Her normal reactions to being flicked across the bottom with a cane and altering as ‘Action’ becomes imminent — the sensation fails to excite her resentment or indignation in the presence of the greater threat to come. A hand stroked across her bottom will be accepted without protest — even an adventurous fingertip where it oughtn’t to be will pass unremarked, if not unnoticed. She is slipping into her role, not because she’s an actress and it’s her job, but because she is a girl and she’s frightened, of the cane and you, because as she becomes the schoolgirl she automatically begins to see you as ‘teacher’, an authority figure. Even the bit of you she still perceives as non-teacher still has that authority; she knows hardly anyone; you, because you’ve worked with the crew many times before, are on friendly terms with everyone. You have been consulted about camera angles, voice levels, the script, both your part and hers — she has been consulted about nothing. She feels like the inferior player in this two-actor piece. She feels like a girl with a bare bottom, there to be caned. She is.

‘Roll tape! Quiet, please, everyone!’

‘Action!’

The girl gulps — yes. She really does. You pace around behind her for a moment or two. You swish the cane. You don’t look at the camera or the crew — you exist in the arc covered by the lens, nothing outside is allowed to affect you; it is you and the girl, and you both know it.

And here’s a funny thing; because although you are both there to serve the purpose of the director and the producer, although you are only players in their drama, for those moments or minutes while the camera is on you and running, you are completely in control of everything. Because the scene is set, they have all done their bit — what they are doing is waiting to see what all the joint effort will produce, and what it will produce is not what they see in front of them now, it is what they hope will unfold before their eyes. The potential is the important thing —

And while you are there, before the camera, they must leave it all up to you, if they are to see the potential realised. Not even the director will be in a hurry to interrupt. You have the floor, you have the cane, a teenaged girl’s bare bottom waits for it’s first-ever stroke.

This is not a moment to be hurried. You stop pacing; the girl’s knees press together — only you notice it. She makes nervous, fretting little movements. You hear her hold her breath.

You decide to ‘ad lib’. You stroke her bottom, lewdly, deliberately, taking advantage. It’s the kind of thing the director expects you to do, to ham it up a bit. The girl would have kicked you in the shin if you’d touched her like that twenty minutes ago; now, she is caught in the same trap of having to realise the potential of the shot, and she’s having to cope with feeling half like a real schoolgirl, under your half-real authority. So you stroke her bare bottom again. You pat it, you play the lecherous teacher up to the hilt. Then you decide — you decide — that you’ll give her that first, long awaited stroke.

You bounce the cane off her bum; she stops breathing again. You give those plump bum-cheeks an experimental little flick. She starts — not much, frightened of ruining the ‘take’.

‘Now then, my girl —’ She looks at you, at the cane.

‘You deserve this caning, don’t you? Hmm?’

It’s in the plot, this is the scene. She nods. Says ‘yes’. You give her a half-stroke, it stings her bottom.

‘Call me sir, Sally — don’t forget now!’

‘N-no. No sir —’ That was for real. She did forget. Now you’re going to give her that first stroke. The first that ever she’s had.

You tease her bent-over bottom with another pat-pat of the cane. You draw it back. You give her a good, firm stroke, square across the middle of her bum.

She jerks. You watch her for the two fifths of a second or so that it takes for the pain to bite in. She gasps. Her eyes are wide, really wide. She stifles a yelp. She grips the edge of her desk, squeezes her thighs together; you can see it in her wild eyes. How is she going to get through the next six, twelve, twenty-four strokes if they’re anything like that one! She doesn’t know how many she’s supposed to get because no-one’s told her. In an agony of expectation she clings on to her self-control — just like a real schoolgirl would — and waits for the next dread stroke.

And that was all he wrote (or at least published) on the subject.