Club Obi Wan

Halle Berry I, for some reason, want one.

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I like the lack of a ring knot, it's a very interesting design. Goes with the costume I guess. Another question is, what happened to this movie? I was ready to love it for the whip work and all, yeah, the whip work, and was veeery disapointed on that point. I've heard Halley coudn't cut it with her signature weapon. Is there any truth to this? I do know it's on record that it took a WEEK of 90min classes under one of hollywood's greatest stunt/whip guys to get her first/reliable crack. Much of the whip work was CG, and even then it was mimimlaistic.
In reading these forums, I understand that Mr. Green had a special crack for Halle, and was demonstrated at one of hte WWAC confrences. Anybody know how this works?

I have a 5 ft “cat whip” and it is actually a very nice little whip. Light weight, quick as a hiccup and lays out very accurately. The thong is pretty heavily built up and reinforced as it leaves the handle compared to most bullwhips, making it stiff yet still springy so i find it works nicely as a target whip.

As I understand it, the producers of the film wanted Halle Berry's whip to look different then the bullwhips Michelle Pfeiffer used in Batman Returns so it was designed to look more like a sleek cat tail with out the turkshead knot at the top of the handle. Terry Jacka made the majority of them though and I belive that Joe Strain made a few of the whips as well.

Unfortunately the movie just flopped. It had talented actors but the story line was lame and that’s something you just can’t cover with special effects or skimpy black leather outfits, not that the producers didn’t try and no I didn’t not like her outfit A lot of us where very disappointed with the CG whip aspects they used though. It's strange because in a lot of the various interview with the cast and crew, Alex Green said that Halley was one of the best students he ever had and that she was a very quick study. He said she listened intently and practiced constantly and that not only did she seem to really enjoy learning to crack the whip but also did a very good job with it. As I understand it Alex began the training with the cattlemen’s crack, then progressed to the forward crack, the horizontal crack, the reverse horizontal etc. as she improved. She showed up on the Oprah Winfrey show with her whip to promote the movie and cracked it on stage for the audience, I thought she did a fair job.

I remember hearing about some surprise cracks that Alex cooked up but I never seen what they were. A couple of our members here attended the WWAC convention that year the movie came out and told me that Alex talked a lot about what he did with the film, did some demonstrations and even auctioning off one of the whips used. So if there was a special crack, hopefully one of them can add in and describe it.

Dan

although I thought the movie stunk like a month old litter box, I do recall Halle on Oprah and she was doing some cracks on-stage and demonstrating the different cracks that she had learned. She did quite well, in her defence!

(as for me seeing Oprah, the ex wife watches it, and called me in from the other room when the whip came out)

From what I've heard, Halle was a natural, and Alex really enjoyed working with her. She took to it quickly, and when she got the first crack out of it, she was hooked.

It's my understanding that she and Alex worked up a bunch of stuff with the stunt coordinator, and rehearsed it and had it looking really good, and Halle was really comfortable with it, (and was REALLY excited to have the chance to do all of it.)

But then, the director, (who I blame for the movie just being SO very craptastic, as if you actually LOOK AT THE SCRIPT, it's NOT bad. So, great cast+decent budget+workable script=bad movie? Then it's the director,) decided he didn't like all that, so he changed it all, and wanted Halle and the camera to do things with the whips that neither was quite capable of. So, they did a bunch of CG @#$%.

That's to be expected, I suppose, as all he'd really done before was visual effects. Also, I try to avoid trusting in the ability of directors who go by one name only.

What are the specs of the whip? Handle Length, etc?

The cat whip is a 12 plait; black Kangaroo hide whip, its finished with an 8-plait point and a black fall. The plaiting is done in the standard 4 seam plait in a continuous Herringbone pattern from the knot to fall. They used a range of different lengths for the film. The actual handle is about 10 inches long with an additional 8 or 9 inches above it heavily reinforced and very stiff. The handle is rather thin with a circumference of 2 ¾ “ around narrowest section and then goes up to a 3” circumference where the thong leaves the handle, this will very a bit on each individual whip. The turks head is small neat 2 pass, 7part 6 bight knot.

Dan

BullWhipBorton wrote:The handle is rather thin with a circumference of 2 ¾ “ around narrowest section and then goes up to a 3” circumference where the thong leaves the handle, this will very a bit on each individual whip. The turks head is small neat 2 pass, 7part 6 bight knot.

Dan

Dan, do you mean circumference? I can't imagine a whip with a 3" diameter!

Thanks for the catch Yes i meant circumference All fixed.

Dan