How do you film this?

I'm no film maker but at an ( I hope) educated guess - Action -cut- make up- action. Cutting room. Editing. Splicing. Computer Graphics. Do you think it's real?

Is it important for your writing? Or are you trying to shoot this scene?

There are a number of ways it can be accomplished. The most often way is to frame it so that the victim's face is in the forefront, the arm or body of the assailant is in the background. We can't actually SEE the whip landing. The action is performed, falling well short of the victim's back, usually slapping on some object interspersed. The actor 'reacts' to the sound. Cut to the reverse angle, the makeup and FX are applied, showing the stripe. We see the assailant wind up again - cut to the front.

These days, it's possible to CGI the entire action from the back. Simply put a whip handle in the assailants hand, have them 'whip' at the back - someone cues the actor's reactions - the whip, stripe, blood and sound are all added in post.

One should NEVER attempt to 'whip someone' lightly - with a real bull whip.

Notice in the first few flogs in the classic scene from GLORY - it's not a 'bull whip' - it's a flogger. Likely made of felt. The few strokes are used to set the action. The camera doesn't dwell on it. Instead - it's all in the sound, and the face.

http://youtu.be/nDOPJawut4Y

In this old scene from Rawhide - they use a bull whip. Again, one stroke to establish the hit. If you look carefully - the whip goes over the indian's right shoulder. This is something a TRAINED whip expert could do - but not something an amateur should try. The end of the whip is moving faster than the body. The end passed over his shoulder - but COULD have hit him in the face. Very dangerous - but typical for fifties era stuntmen to do.

http://youtu.be/9LxwPSgPnOo

Again - the drama is in the sound, and the reactions on the faces.


If you're WRITING the scene - just write the drama of the moment. The actual camera work and stunts will be worked out by the director and stunt co-ordinator.

Nataanii said:

How do you film a whipping scene? Like a scene where someone is being whipped with a whip? I heard you can put a board on someone's back but then how do the bruises and slashes and cuts appear with the board on the back? So does anyone know how to film a whipping scene?

Click to expand...

If you want to film this, the easiest way is to make a latex back and layer it with your colorings so that when the whip lands, it tears the flesh from the latex to expose the shot. Take it into Magic or some other editor and clean it up in post.

There are other ways, but that is the simplest I know.

'writeknight' has a good point - you are talking about flogging, not whipping

'Master and Commander' has a scene with a sailor being flogged for insubordination. It looked pretty convincing from where I was sitting.

'The Proposition' also has a flogging scene that is not for the squeamish. I thought the scene was more powerful due to two clever cutaways - one where the onlookers are splattered with flecks of blood from the cat-o-nine-tails as it is swung backwards, and the second watching the perpetrator wring out the blood from the twisted ropes.

Hire a good Make-up FX artist and let him worry about it.

I'm no expert, but I've seen some really good "The Making Of..." documentaries that go behind the scenes of a particular movie. Perhaps think of a movie with the type of scene you're working with and get ideas that way? I don't know that many movies made today have those sorts of documentaries, but I know that HBO and Showtime did quite a few of them in the past that you may be able to find. IMDb sometimes give little trivia 'tidbits' on movies that mention things like that. It won't go into detail, though. That's for if and when you go to produce this movie.

Nataanii said:

How do you film a whipping scene? Like a scene where someone is being whipped with a whip? I heard you can put a board on someone's back but then how do the bruises and slashes and cuts appear with the board on the back? So does anyone know how to film a whipping scene?

Click to expand...

If you're talking about flogging -- like with a cat o' nine tails -- first, they don't use the real thing but something that's made of light strips of silk or cloth that you could basically hit somebody with all day long and it wouldn't really hurt at all.

Then what you do is simply, presuming that the cloth is black to simulate leather or whatever it is that real flogging things are made out of, you simply apply your stage blood judiciously to the flogging thing so that when you whip your poor actor, the strips of the cat leave bloody trails on the actor's back.

Thus, drama is achieved and nothing even remotely sleazy or exploitative.

NMS

Make sure you have a good foley artist? I don't know really. If you just have to write the whipping scene, then it's up to the make-up, effects guys to do all the logistics (and the directors and the camera guys as well). Just depends on who's filming it, how it's described and what you want I guess, lol...