Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Video Inspirations

I left the post from Jan 13 at the top of the blog through the long weekend (Monday was the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in the US) to see if we could get more of a conversation going—and it worked:  We have a few new people beginning to make comments.  I ask everyone to go back and check out the comments on the earlier posts to see if there are new ones you might have missed.

I especially encourage everyone to read Richie’s comment on the January 10th post, “Discipline of the Lash”.  It is a powerful and detailed piece, and raises the important issue of the whip being used for behavior-modification.   I’m sure many of the regular readers will find something to remark upon—and I encourage you to get involved and post a comment!

I would like to thank everyone who has made comments on various aesthetic issues with the videos I have uploaded.  I have received some interesting input through the comments sections of this blog and the WhippingDudes YouTube channel, and through private messages and emails.  I really do appreciate the feedback—and have been working to incorporate those suggestions that I think will enhance viewer experience.  For example, on the latest video “Soldier’s Punishment:  Flogging”, we had the Prisoner count the strokes as they were laid on—this was not actually suggested as so much demonstrated by newlatigazos on one of his now-defunct videos.  We liked that element, so we used it—to popular effect.

I have received a few suggestions to have the whip laid on from both sides.  However, we are not yet able to film the whip coming from the right-hand side.  My Inflictor, being right-handed, doesn’t have the control for a hard left-handed application and doesn’t feel comfortable with the accuracy of a back-handed use with the right.  Until I can find a left-handed Inflictor, we are going to have to stick with a right-handed flogging from the left.   We do want to incorporate this aspect, but we just don’t have what we feel we need to pull it off yet.

Also, there have been several requests for what I call “dramatic” elements prior to the flogging, such as the reading of the sentence, the prisoner stripping off his shirt (or having the shirt ripped off), the prisoner being tied up, etc.  Because we are doing this for fun, and the current non-mainstream nature of this sport, we are concerned with how this might be viewed amongst our professional peers (if they should somehow happen across our videos), so we are proceeding with an abundance of caution and are careful not to have our faces filmed.  Some of these features (which are part of my long-term vision and would greatly like to incorporate) are incompatible with those concerns—for the moment.  Rest assured, though, that I am working on finding a way to incorporate as many of these dramatic elements as possible into future videos, while maintaining the anonymity of the actors.  Stay tuned!

2 comments:

  1. Men i have been in contact with for the whip were deticated to the purity of the scene. while the meeting was amiable and that is always interesting as first meeting and chatting calmly about one man would whip another
    but limits and scene desires are esstional
    The fact is going to the place of bondage and putting a man tied for the whip that walk to the place is like going down the steps of time.
    It is a place of the primal one man with the whip, one man tied for it. movies are not seen with naked men generally, but men strip for it naked not as an order but the most natural thing to occur one man helplessly bound for anothers pleasure of giving him pain, commonly
    warden prisoner scenerio as a prisoner punishment is self deserving he gets his deserts and no onis on the giver he doest deserve consieration. he is a man to be whipped by degree or for amusement and thats that. his stocic demeaner is only a challenge
    his pleas to be ignored, his wriothing entertainment his yells to be tolerated
    He is WHIPPED.

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  2. Buddy,

    Really good to see the whipping. In spite of my comments below, at its core in this video I saw 2 dozen good lashes being well applied and well received. To me that's the essence of a good whipping video.

    There's historical precedent for (at least) three counting systems: 1.) a third party who ranks above the whipper (e. g. an NCO, officer, prison guard supervisor, or warden) counts before the lash, so the count is a command to give the lash, 2.) whipper or third party counts, and 3.) prisoner counts. In my scenes, I'd prefer 1 or 2, but every thing is negotiable, and 3 does have its devotees. I would dispute the prisoner declaring "punishment complete." That declaration should come from the whipper or an official.

    I guess I'm spoiled by another forum, where the most frequent posters put out a zip package of videos, selected still vidcaps and high-quality still photos. I really like to see, and even study high-quality photos taken immediately after the flogging, and even a photo of the whip (bonus points for getting a ruler in the picture). I like to look for wraps, see the distribution of lashes, note whether they remain distinct or converge as a big blob, and see the length, depth and color to further judge the severity. Perhaps you could consider taking a few stills (back viewed from left side, right side, and straight ahead, and a shot of the whip hanging or lying on a table) after the camera stops, and posting them to the blog, or to Flickr or Picassa.

    As others, I'd like to see crossed lashes, but I realize they require a skilled whipper who practices his backhand, an ambidextrous whipper, or a second sinister whipper to supplement the dextrous one, any of which can be hard to find. One has to make do with what is available.

    Finally, and this is a minor point that I'm probably the only one who noticed (I tend to be easily distracted), the green screen artifacts at the boundary between the foreground and the background were quite visible to me, probably exacerbated by additional artifacts from Flash Video encoding. Even more distracting was the way the background did not zoom when the camera zoomed in on the person being whipped. Fortunately, the zooming was outside the whipping itself. This is a minor criticism of an otherwise excellent video. I really prefer the black background of your other two videos to the hokey-looking green screen faux background effect on your third.

    Overall: 4.5 stars out of 5.

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