Expert Bullwhip Channeler Cindy Adams Has the Dirt on Every Nasty Prop in Hollywood
No one combats Indy 4 fatigue like our batty, beloved gossip aunt Cindy Adams, who today grilled one of the blockbuster's key consultants in an attempt to discover the sexy mystique of — wait for it — the bullwhip. Not just any bullwhip, of course, but Harrison Ford's $1,000 bullwhip — all 13 feet and two-and-a-half pounds of it, said whipmaster Anthony De Longis:
[T]his is a supersonic blade traveling 1,400 feet per second, 700 miles per hour. It can slice you in two at 14 feet. Once you hear that explosive gunshot crack, you never forget it. It's intimidating. Scary. Makes a big noise, but that's what it's intended to do.
I taught Harrison how to stay safe and never hit himself. Work in parallel lines. Think of railroad tracks outside your hand and body. Stay outside those tracks. I worked on his vocabulary. Vertical is a clock's 12-to-6, horizontal is 3-to-9, diagonal's 2-to-8. I broke the whips in for him so they'd develop muscle memory then taught him, listen to it. Don't rush it. It's an ally not an adversary. Use as little effort as possible. Stay absolutely relaxed. Slow its motion. Align it, form the loop above the head, and it's a rolling wave of energy that multiplies. The power is in the shoulder and arm.
Civilized man's oldest tool, the whip, dates back 5,000 years. If you listen, the whip will whisper its secrets.
Well, this is a gossip column, after all. We can't wait for tomorrow's edition, when Aunt Cindy brings us the truly scandalous back story behind Shia LaBeouf's painstaking switchblade training.
