At Home With The Furries
Sep. 24th, 2017 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeEight years ago I got involved with Tom Broadbent's 'At Home With The Furries' project, which has since been turned into an art exhibition and a pull out for the Sunday Times. For 2018, he is hoping to take the project further, and rang me up last month requesting my assistance. Back in 2009, we took a photo in fursuit under my Dad's car, and he wanted to turn this into video. Unfortunately, that car is now long gone, and I have a better suit these days - more fursuit than mascot suit - so I offered to do the shoot again and get some fresh pictures. This is what we did this weekend.
I went up to my Dad's on Friday evening, with Tom scheduled to swing by on Saturday lunchtime. This gave me an evening with my Dad, which we spent at a rather nice pub in Appleton Whiske, where I had a glorious steak and a rather average pint of English real ale. We then headed back to the local pub in my village, which hasn't really left 1983, with the same decor from the Sixties and all the beers you would expect to see in a North-East pub from thirty years ago. The views were from then too, with the local paper and the Daily Mail the only real reading options. It was very much a local pub for local people, frequented by people who had never left the village, so it was all rather unsettling really. We only had one pint, largely due to the bloatedness induced by the meal, although we did crack open a few craft beers when we got home, including a couple I had brought specially for my father. It was good catching up, both here and on the walk we did the following morning, taking advantage of the warm autumnal sunshine to go around the field where we used to walk our dog when she was alive. The narrow track which used to be frequented by cocaine users has since become overgrown - a sign of council cuts I guess - but aside from this it was largely the same as it was twenty years ago, which, along with the pub, sums up the general dullness of where I grew up.
We picked Tom up at the station at around 1pm and headed back home for a lunch of bread and soup, before I donned my suit and headed back under the car. It had far less open space than the 2009 equivalent, and I ended up spending an hour and a half under there, with my Fitbit even registering I had slept for 55 minutes of it (which was untrue). We took some shots and then filmed a video, advertising the project on Kickstarter, which is where it will be come the New Year. We had to do thirteen takes for a variety of reasons, but we managed to nail it in the end, after which we headed outside to film the interview section for the Kickstarter entry. As I don't speak in suit, I had to do a lot of miming, and it was rather weird performing with my father watching, but it was also great fun and we soon got the takes we needed. My Dad was incredibly helpful and really got into it, while afterwards we had just enough time to show Tom the town where I grew up before we headed back to the station.
Saturday evening consisted of meeting up with Wolfie before heading to the supermarket to get some suited. We then went to Bradford, where a lot of nutters seemed to be out and about, far more than usual. Leeds Station had been particularly ripe, but Bradford was something else, with people trying to start fights and randomly high-fiving us in the street. We went to the International for a curry, with Tom's parents having taken him to the Karachi in the past, as this was where they had had their first date. Tom wanted somewhere different though, so we headed to the International, surprised by the fact that the last time we had been must have been something like three years ago. The curry was just as good as it has always been, and the same older guy served us, which was like being reintroduced to a familiar friend. Alas there was no strawberry lassi and the place was quite quiet - at least until a group of the nutters headed in around the time we were finishing - but the meal was rather fantastic. We also showed Tom the new fountain development in the city as he had not seen that before, before heading back home to discuss all of the weird photoshoots he had done when working at Bizarre magazine, even reintroducing him to some of his former work as I still have a few copies of them.
Tom's train was scheduled to leave at 2:05pm which gave us a little time for some more photoshoots. We had thought of doing a guitar one but we didn't have time in the end as the main one was us doing a BBQ. As it was all rather last minute, we didn't get an awful lot of time to arrange it, but I did manage to call upon Cosmo to come and join the shoot with his Syruss fox outfit. This went down very well and soon we were in place, shooting more photos and videos as the neighbours watched on. They were quite supportive in general, but didn't really know what to make of it, while it was great to get a number of good takes. I must admit I wasn't aware of quite how much work goes into professional photography and videography and we had to do a lot of takes, but the end result was definitely worth it.
After this, we dropped Cosmo and Tom back at the station then headed for a canal side walk, taking advantage of one of the last warm days of the year. Aside from this, it was just gym and guitar, before finally watching the hilarious furry episode of The Crystal Maze, which we had missed the other week due to being in Buxton. This, along with our photo weekend, did highlight to me just how accepted furry has now become and that most people are completely fine with it. Indeed, 'The Cosplay Team' demonstrated just how familiar many now are with such subcultures and even our elderly neighbours were enthused about what we were up to. It's a far cry from back in 2009.
I went up to my Dad's on Friday evening, with Tom scheduled to swing by on Saturday lunchtime. This gave me an evening with my Dad, which we spent at a rather nice pub in Appleton Whiske, where I had a glorious steak and a rather average pint of English real ale. We then headed back to the local pub in my village, which hasn't really left 1983, with the same decor from the Sixties and all the beers you would expect to see in a North-East pub from thirty years ago. The views were from then too, with the local paper and the Daily Mail the only real reading options. It was very much a local pub for local people, frequented by people who had never left the village, so it was all rather unsettling really. We only had one pint, largely due to the bloatedness induced by the meal, although we did crack open a few craft beers when we got home, including a couple I had brought specially for my father. It was good catching up, both here and on the walk we did the following morning, taking advantage of the warm autumnal sunshine to go around the field where we used to walk our dog when she was alive. The narrow track which used to be frequented by cocaine users has since become overgrown - a sign of council cuts I guess - but aside from this it was largely the same as it was twenty years ago, which, along with the pub, sums up the general dullness of where I grew up.
We picked Tom up at the station at around 1pm and headed back home for a lunch of bread and soup, before I donned my suit and headed back under the car. It had far less open space than the 2009 equivalent, and I ended up spending an hour and a half under there, with my Fitbit even registering I had slept for 55 minutes of it (which was untrue). We took some shots and then filmed a video, advertising the project on Kickstarter, which is where it will be come the New Year. We had to do thirteen takes for a variety of reasons, but we managed to nail it in the end, after which we headed outside to film the interview section for the Kickstarter entry. As I don't speak in suit, I had to do a lot of miming, and it was rather weird performing with my father watching, but it was also great fun and we soon got the takes we needed. My Dad was incredibly helpful and really got into it, while afterwards we had just enough time to show Tom the town where I grew up before we headed back to the station.
Saturday evening consisted of meeting up with Wolfie before heading to the supermarket to get some suited. We then went to Bradford, where a lot of nutters seemed to be out and about, far more than usual. Leeds Station had been particularly ripe, but Bradford was something else, with people trying to start fights and randomly high-fiving us in the street. We went to the International for a curry, with Tom's parents having taken him to the Karachi in the past, as this was where they had had their first date. Tom wanted somewhere different though, so we headed to the International, surprised by the fact that the last time we had been must have been something like three years ago. The curry was just as good as it has always been, and the same older guy served us, which was like being reintroduced to a familiar friend. Alas there was no strawberry lassi and the place was quite quiet - at least until a group of the nutters headed in around the time we were finishing - but the meal was rather fantastic. We also showed Tom the new fountain development in the city as he had not seen that before, before heading back home to discuss all of the weird photoshoots he had done when working at Bizarre magazine, even reintroducing him to some of his former work as I still have a few copies of them.
Tom's train was scheduled to leave at 2:05pm which gave us a little time for some more photoshoots. We had thought of doing a guitar one but we didn't have time in the end as the main one was us doing a BBQ. As it was all rather last minute, we didn't get an awful lot of time to arrange it, but I did manage to call upon Cosmo to come and join the shoot with his Syruss fox outfit. This went down very well and soon we were in place, shooting more photos and videos as the neighbours watched on. They were quite supportive in general, but didn't really know what to make of it, while it was great to get a number of good takes. I must admit I wasn't aware of quite how much work goes into professional photography and videography and we had to do a lot of takes, but the end result was definitely worth it.
After this, we dropped Cosmo and Tom back at the station then headed for a canal side walk, taking advantage of one of the last warm days of the year. Aside from this, it was just gym and guitar, before finally watching the hilarious furry episode of The Crystal Maze, which we had missed the other week due to being in Buxton. This, along with our photo weekend, did highlight to me just how accepted furry has now become and that most people are completely fine with it. Indeed, 'The Cosplay Team' demonstrated just how familiar many now are with such subcultures and even our elderly neighbours were enthused about what we were up to. It's a far cry from back in 2009.
