Toree Feeling Comfy | Our First Week Together
Toree Feeling Comfy | Our First Week Together Backstage
Toree Feeling Comfy takes me back to our first work week together, when I met Toree for the first time. I still have a special place for this film. Some shoots become important because of what you make. This one also matters to me because of who I met while making it.
Of course, I didn’t know then that Toree would become one of my best models. That would have been a useful thing to know in advance. I could have looked very wise and said, “Yes, I had a feeling.” :)
What I did know was that she gave me plenty to work with in front of the camera. Toree has a way of playing with it that makes me want to keep watching. She brings her own energy to the film, and I get to do one of my favourite parts of the job: pay attention and try to catch it.
That sounds easy, doesn’t it?
A model gives her best, David holds a camera, everybody goes home happy. I wish photography and filming were quite that simple. When someone is really engaged with the camera, I have to be engaged right back. I can’t just stand there admiring the view, however tempting that might be.
And with Toree, it is tempting. She knows how to make that connection feel playful and sexy without losing the natural feeling that makes her so enjoyable to film. There is room for me to guide the work, but also room for her personality to come through. That balance is a lovely thing to find with someone you’ve only just met.
The title, Feeling Comfy, makes me smile for that reason. I’m not talking about a chair or a quiet afternoon. I mean the kind of comfort that lets a model play with the camera instead of treating it like a piece of equipment she has to satisfy. From my side of it, that changes everything.
It also makes the video version especially dear to me. A photograph can hold one expression, one beautiful instant. In a film, you can spend more time with the way someone interacts with the camera. Toree gives her best to that connection, and I love having the chance to follow it.
I’ve worked with her since that first week, so it would be easy to remember this film only through everything I know about her now. But I like going back to the beginning. It reminds me what first caught my attention: not some complicated idea for a shoot, just Toree being wonderfully present with the camera.
I probably should have been concentrating on looking like a serious director. Instead, I was enjoying myself. I think I can live with that. :)
Feeling Comfy is special to me because it was our first meeting, the start of working with a model I value so much, and a chance to see that playful side of Toree for the first time. Whenever I return to the video, that’s what I remember most.
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