I will most often write out a position chart, trying to give us a variety of them each time.  I send that to Juliet, along with my choices of gag, type and color, for each scene.  If she has any suggestions or different ideas, she'll get back to me with that and I'll do a final draft for shoot day.  Sometimes something throws us a curve ball but we generally know exactly what we are going to do and wear well before shoot day. 

5.         Describe one of your typical photo and video shoots from start to finish.

I pick up whatever the model wants to eat and drink at the shoot and hit the road from my home to Juliet's. Juliet lives across Puget Sound from Seattle, so most of the models take a one hour ferry ride across the sound, and Juliet drives down to pick them up and bring them to her home where we shoot.

We talk with the model a while, explaining to her how we work and what we will be doing.  We've talked about much of this with her during pre-shoot phone calls, but we go over it all again. We talk safety, go over wages and get to know her a bit more if she is new.  When we send her back to change into her first outfit, Juliet and I go over things again, check cameras and batteries and get ready to rock.  When the model is changed and made up, we go over the script with her and then begin the shoot. We are very laid back while we shoot, with lots of joking and laughter.  While we take our business very seriously, we take very little else that way.  It's too much like work otherwise.  We always tell the girls that if they leave the shoot thinking how much fun they had, then we've done our job.

We shoot with two cameras, both video and still.  Basically Juliet is getting full body shots of the entire position while I'm taking the close ups and medium shots.  We do the same things with the video footage, so we're always covered with a great variety of shots and film, which we combine when we edit.  To me, nothing is much more boring than footage that was taken totally on a tripod or that never changes angles or positions.  Models are not cheap to hire, so this two camera practice also doubles our amount of video footage and still shots, giving us a lot more bang for our buck.

We generally shoot two positions or scenes, then take a snack break.  We often have the model hired for a full day because otherwise the distance and time involved for them wouldn't be worth it for a couple hour long shoot.  So mid-day we have a full blown lunch and sit around and bullshit with the model while we eat.  We keep her on the clock during lunch and breaks, so she is getting paid from the moment we first start shooting till the final cut at the end of the day.  We never schedule a hogtie for right after lunch because you don't want the model lying on and rolling around on a full tummy!

We move from room to room shooting as the script dictates until the shoot is finally done.  We'll usually take the model back to the office where we can all preview a few of the shots we took, and we'll print out a few for the model, or let her pick a few shots we can email her later.  The model gets back into her street clothes, and we make sure she gets paid and has signed all the releases and stuff.  Sometimes they will hang around for dinner.  If not, and if they took the ferry, Juliet drives them back to the dock while I start wrapping rope and picking up the mess we created while shooting.  When Juliet gets back, I hit the road for that long drive home.  For most of my career, the next day was often a work day at my vanilla job, and yes, you're usually pretty sore that next day.

 6.         What has been the most memorable moment for you out of all the shoots you’ve done?

I've done so many shoots over all these years, that I can't think of just one, but a couple that pop to mind:

In “Caravan of Cheerleaders” (DKB-11), I snatched the gorgeous Sinja Wells, who was dressed as a cheerleader, right off a neighborhood street as cars went by, hand gagging her and dragging her inside our van as folks whizzed by us.

In “Taken!” (DKB-2), we had sexy Robbie Valentine tied & gagged up in the back of her car.  It was a hatchback and the whole rear area was a big glass window.  I drove while Juliet filmed her struggling.  We suddenly got caught at a stop sign at a “T” intersection while a massive amount of traffic kept us from moving anywhere.  While sitting there I looked in my rear view mirror and saw to my horror that a huge pickup truck had pulled up right behind our tiny hatchback, and the two guys inside were looking straight down on a bound and gagged blonde lying in the back of our car.  I just about shit!  When traffic finally allowed us to move we headed for home, untied Robbie and waited for the cops to show up.  Luckily they never did, but holy smoke, what a scare.

We had a similar incident years later when we were filming Kristyna Dark for the still unreleased “Gagged Screams!” She was wearing shorts, tennis shoes, rope and a big old ball gag in the back of our SUV.  Again, I was driving while Juliet filmed.  We were on a two lane wooded road with no place to pull off when we came around a big curve and ran smack into a road crew, complete with traffic cones and a guy right in the middle of the road holding a stop sign.  Again, no room to turn around or pull off to untie Kristyna.  We had no choice but to pull up to this guy with Kristyna in plain sight thru the windows of the SUV.  We said “Hi” and he said “Hi” and gave us a strange look and finally let us drive by.  And once again we waited for police that never showed up.  But I gotta say, I was sure I was going to be on my way to the house of many doors.

7.         What is your policy about models bringing escorts or chaperones to your bondage photoshoots?  What is the rationale for that policy?

While I would always prefer that they didn't bring anyone, they are always welcome to do so as long as they let us know ahead of time.  We then give them the rule set of how we expect an escort to behave.  We've been pretty lucky not getting many jerks, and a few times when the escort was another lady, we've actually ended up getting another model when the escort met us and saw what we did.  That always feels good.  And I've found that sometimes just the fact you are willing to let them bring an escort is reason enough to signal to the model that you must be okay, and they don't even bother to bring one then.


Jewell Marceau

8.         What is the dream shoot you have not yet done during your career as a rigger and site producer?

As a movie maker, it's always been a dream of mine to shoot an actual straight to video style horror or action/adventure style film with the aim of getting it released on video to the mass market.  Of course I'd work all kinds of tied up ladies into it, but it would be shot with a budget and a film schedule of days or weeks, not a single day or two, and be a movie with lots of bondage, not only a bondage movie.

9.                  What are your favorites:  gags, type of restraint, model wardrobe, bondage position for the model?

Gags: Ball gag followed closely by the cleave gag.  Restraint: Rope, always.  I'm not much into straps, chains and cuffs, tho we do use them every now and then.  Model wardrobe:  I do love me some nylon stockings and garter belts.  More of a high heel fan than a barefoot guy.  Sorry Rob.  Bondage Position: A plain old chair or stool tie is my fave.  I'm a huge gag fan and I like to be able to look, and film, straight at her face.  It was the massive lack of close up shots of the girls’ gagged faces that got me so fired up I started making my own stuff way back in the day.

10.       How did you acquire your technique for rigging and photography? 

Back when I was trying to learn to tie there was no internet or other sources I was aware of on how to do it.  I'm still amazed at all the instructional sources folks learning to tie can lean on now.  I basically looked at bondage magazines and tried to figure out how they did it.  After a while I was introduced to Jason Cord, creator of all the Sally Roberts & Susan Blair films.  He was great with rope, took me under his wing long distance, critiqued what I was doing (we traded video letters by mail.  No email then, remember) and he just helped me tremendously. I actually traveled to Missouri from Seattle, stayed with Jason and his wife for a week, met and tied up Sally Roberts and Susan Blair and co-starred in a Jason Cord bondage movie with Abby Nash, who became a very close friend.

On the photography end, I had 2 years of it in school and was one of two photographers for our high school yearbook.  In my senior year we won a first place national award for yearbook photography from a company that judged that sort of thing every year.  It was a big enough deal that I got my name in the local paper for it.  I've always had a really good eye for photos, as does Juliet, so once I learn how to use a particular camera, still or video, I am ready to rock.

11.       Can you describe your very first bondage shoot and then describe how you’ve seen your style/technique evolve since that first shoot?

My first shoot attempted was with a 19 year old blonde beauty that was a friend of my Godson.  Back then video cameras were the size of a suitcase, very heavy and carried on your shoulder.  I paid $1,300 for my first one, and that was in 1990 dollars.  I was scared to death of course, cuz this was before Jason Cord, and I had almost no idea what I was doing.  She arrived and while she was changing I got a bright idea. Batteries were $75 apiece then so I thought I'd save money by plugging my camera into the wall instead of using the battery.  I did that and set it standing up on my dining room table.  A couple minutes later, before I'd shot a foot of film, I walked by the table.  My foot caught the camera cord and yanked by brand new $1,300 camera off the table.  It landed right on its lens, which broke.  I didn't know whether to start screaming or crying.  I had to pay the model and send her home and I was sure I'd never see her again. (I did though, and got a lot of great shoots with her).  And me, I was now the proud owner of a $1,300 paper weight.  And thus began the career of David Knight.

My style hasn't really changed all that much from the beginning I don't think.  I've just gotten a lot better with practice and experience.  It's amazing how much you improve when you finally figure out what the hell you are doing.  And still after all these years I try to always be learning.


Paige Richards and David Knight