Whipcraft in Movies

[BullWhipBorton]

No worries Mike, it's an easy misunderstanding to make. Terry Jacka made the bullwhips used in Batman Returns, they where his dark brown Australian model but David Morgan is the one who supplied them to the studio where they where later dyed black and had the wrist looks removed.

For those wondering about the stock whips used in "Australia" where specially made for the film by Mick Denigan, a whip, cracker/maker and affianado who is located in Noonamah, in the Northern Territory not too far from Darwin. Mick made around 20 whips for the film and was also brought in to train the cast in how to crack them.

The sound seemes alright when I seen the film, but at times the cracks did sound a bit muffled when they where cracking out in the wide open, thats actully pretty normal though.

Dan

[thefish]

DELETED

No need to double what The Other Dan wrote about Batman Returns...

Oh, and thanks for the info on who supplied the stockwhips for Australia!

-Dan

[Magno]

Instead, the big fight scene is Li w/Chinese Broadsword vs. Anthony with European Hutton Saber.

Interestingly enough, I figured out that the blade used by DeLongis was a Patton saber. I'm a big fan of the Patton, so I was thrilled, but a bit put off by the fact that such a high-quality film would make a mistake so obvious as that of an American sword in an English fighter's hands...

[ST]

Miracle on 34th street, the whip is only cracked twice but it's there.

[thefish]

Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion.

Christmas Special for 2005.

The Sycorax leader has a @#$% whip that is used badly.

[thefish]

Also, the upcoming Quentin Tarantino film, "Inglorious B@$tards" will feature a bullwhip by a good friend of COW, as well as the live action adaptation of "Prince of Persia." I'll let them spill the beans when they're good and ready.

Oh, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Frank N. Furter uses a whip on Riff Raff when he finds out that his servant has let his creation, Rocky escape. If memory serves, it looked to be a fairly good black snake whip, and it looked like Tim Curry was actually cracking it, (could be wrong, it's been a while.)

Deadwood Episode 1. Calamity Jane is cracking what looked like about a 10 foot bullwhip. She is doing overhead cracks while she and Wild Bill are waiting for the wagon train into Deadwood to start moving again.

(and the whip she was using was an Australian-type bullwhip. Looked a bit like a Jacka in design, but it was a bit too chunky. Truth be told, the historical Calamity Jane WAS a talented whip cracker, but what she used was rather large muleskinners or bullock whip, which are a SERIOUS pain to crack. All you can really do is plant the butt of the handle on the ground and crack it overhead in kind of a "Figure 8" pattern, and it tires you out VERY quickly, so it's no wonder they decided to use something else for the series. In fact, the whip that Calamity Jane was using in the show DIDN'T ACTUALLY exist during the time period!)

-Dan Trout
(Who puts the "DAN T" in Pedant!)

[kooniu]

do you know about this movie? http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... id=2938610 . The official page is not working and movie should be ready in this year

[thefish]

Yes, actually I do.

Long story.


But, don't hold your breath on it's release.

[kooniu]

I have time for long story

[thefish]

That's one of us!

[FloatinJoe]

(EDITED TO ADD: Yeah, there's some whip stuff by Savini in "From Dusk Till Dawn." That's Tom's personal whip, too. I THINK it's either from Axel Wright or Vic Tella. I'm not sure.)

In '98 I was working Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando as a makeup artist and met Savini. He was hanging with the makeup guys in between the BiLL and Ted show. His girl friend had her REAL Zorro whip given to her by Anhony Hopkins. Tom let me take it for a spin.

sithspawn,
Are you saying that you had access to the candle snuffing scene whip (that doesn't fit into the history of the whip as I understand it)? Or was this some other whip that Anthony Hopkins had given her? Perhaps it was the replica that Hopkins had been presented with by Alex Green.

[thefish]

(EDITED TO ADD: Yeah, there's some whip stuff by Savini in "From Dusk Till Dawn." That's Tom's personal whip, too. I THINK it's either from Axel Wright or Vic Tella. I'm not sure.)

In '98 I was working Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando as a makeup artist and met Savini. He was hanging with the makeup guys in between the BiLL and Ted show. His girl friend had her REAL Zorro whip given to her by Anhony Hopkins. Tom let me take it for a spin.

sithspawn,
Are you saying that you had access to the candle snuffing scene whip (that doesn't fit into the history of the whip as I understand it)? Or was this some other whip that Anthony Hopkins had given her? Perhaps it was the replica that Hopkins had been presented with by Alex Green.

Maybe Joe Strain can clarify, but the whip from the movie was Alex Green's personal whip. Either during production, or immediately thereafter, Alex had Strain make one for Anthony and gifted it to him.

At least, that's MY understanding of it. Paul Nolan, (who had the screen-used one that Alex owned for a while,) or Joe Strain, (who made them,) might be able to shed a little more light on it.

[BullWhipBorton]

I wonder if it’s the same whip that Savini used in this video, http://www.listal.com/video/100618589
It’s pretty clear that it’s either a Zorro or Alex Green whip.

The whip that Paul had and now has a new owner came directly from Alex Green, it was his personal whip and and as I understand it was confirmed to be the whip used onscreen to snuff the candle. But as already stated, Alex had Joe Strain make another whip like it , to give to Anthony Hopkins as a gift before filming on the Mask of Zorro ended.

Maybe it was that whip Sithspawn seen, though why would Anthony Hopkins give away a gift from a friend? That doesn’t make much sense to me which makes me suspect it was more likely one of the other Zorro or Alex Green bullwhips readily available from Western Stage props, that he gave Savini's girl friend.

Dan

[thefish]

I have time for long story

And to summarize from the several posts above, I wrote the first and second drafts of the screen adaptation of Rich Hoffman's "Symposium of Justice," and I was going to direct the 60+ minute feature.

The author and I had ironed out a pretty tight, interesting story, and I had some really talented folks lined up to lend their expertise to doing a very MODERN, gritty, larger-than-life adaptation of Rich elaborate meta-narrative of the book, achieving it in the same way as those old Republic Pictures Serials, just relying on the skills of the guys with the whips, knives and swords, and using primarily in-camera and editing tricks. It was going to be our homage to all of those.

but the budget necessary to produce it didn't materialize as planned, and I bowed out partially do to some creative and technical planning disagreements with the writer, but mostly due to needing to take care of some personal business... Including a more-than-full-time college teaching/administration job, health problems, a former-student-turned-stalker, (court case currently pending plea change of "not guilty by reason of insanity" to whatever psycho-girl decides to change it to this week,) and a divorce.

So, yeah...

I gave Rich the script I'd done and walked away. To my knowledge, he's dropped it to work on other projects.

You know, there's a reason that "May you live an interesting life" is a curse in Chinese culture...



There's the whole, ugly story. Well, most of it that's fit to print.

BUT if you REALLY wanted to know about the whipcraft that was to appear in that:

3 Jacka "straight-handled" bullwhips. Two in 6' length, (one two-tone, and one mahogany,) and one 10' in mahogany.

2 6' Jacka-copy "Stunt Whips" in dark brown 12 plait cowhide by Jim "RacerX" Jarrell

2 6' Firewhips by Riz.

There ya go! Happy Crackin!

[Raider Of The Lost Ark]

Wasn't there some 'whip action' in 'City Slickers'?

[Indiana County Jr.]

Flash Gordon (1980)

Some decent whip action between Flash and Baron on Vultan's floating fortress.

Not sure who made those, not enough of a close up to tell.

Crack On!
Allen

[JMObi]

Well, here's another one to throw into the collection (it's an oldey but a goodey).

'The Plainsman':

Jean Arthur in fine form with a bullwhip, in amongst other things a classic scene where someone is disarmed of a bottle he had stooped to pick up. Also a bit of a Cairo bazaar type scene as well. Although the actress has some difficulties doing the forward flick she makes up for it with accuracy and great attitude.

[fatcatrocky]

its kinda in the name... Bullwhip Griffin.

[rawvoodoo]

the trainer in Spartacus blood and sand used a whip throughout the entire season

[rawvoodoo]

next season or Spartacus on and the whip is seeming to be more prevelant in the story. It is a stockwhip handed down to a character who doesnt know how to use it yet.