Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Jonathan Strickland, and I'm here to introduce
Speaker 1: a playlist of ten episodes of my podcast tech Stuff
Speaker 1: that are all about entertainment and entertainment related fields, from
Speaker 1: video games to television series, two films to internet videos
Speaker 1: from yesteryear. So I hope you guys enjoy these episodes.
Speaker 1: You can go to the tech Stuff podcast page and
Speaker 1: subscribe to listen to all sorts of episodes about tech
Speaker 1: from all realms, and hopefully this will provide a little
Speaker 1: bit of entertainment, a little bit of education, and probably
Speaker 1: more than a few puns, because that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I roll. Enjoy this playlist. Welcome to text Stuff, a
Speaker 1: production from my Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive
Speaker 1: producer with I Heart Radio, and I love all things
Speaker 1: tech and one of the things I'm doing as I
Speaker 1: am sequestering myself in my home is going through and
Speaker 1: watching stuff, including of course, all the Star Wars lights
Speaker 1: of Star Wars. So I thought it would be good
Speaker 1: to replay this classic episode that published back in that
Speaker 1: is all about how lightsabers work. Chris and I break
Speaker 1: it down for you enjoy. So we're gonna start off
Speaker 1: this podcast with a little listener tweet. This listener tweet
Speaker 1: comes from Jacqueline Hyde, who says, I got a listener
Speaker 1: request for you, how lightsabers work. The force is strong
Speaker 1: with this one, So we are going to talk about lightsabers.
Speaker 1: This is kind of an interesting subject and the sense
Speaker 1: that really it belongs and stuff you missed in history
Speaker 1: class because it did happen a long time ago. Any
Speaker 1: galaxy far far away, yeah, um, or technically it could
Speaker 1: be fans stuff, but they don't have a podcast. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna tackle it before anyone can grab it from
Speaker 1: our cold dead paddawan hands. As the Jedi would say,
Speaker 1: Niner naner, Yes, the Jedi would say that. So of
Speaker 1: course we're talking about the civilized weapon from a or
Speaker 1: the elegant weapon from a more civilized age. The light
Speaker 1: Saber as introduced to us through George Lucas's brilliant work
Speaker 1: Star Wars A New Hope Um or just Star Wars.
Speaker 1: When it first came out in n it was not
Speaker 1: American graffiti as many people think. No, no, there was
Speaker 1: no cameo of the lightsaber in American graffiti. Although that
Speaker 1: would have made that movie that much more awesome. So lightsabers,
Speaker 1: of course, this is the weapon the Jedi used, the
Speaker 1: the magic sword of the Star Wars series. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when uh, most of the interviews I've seen with Lucas,
Speaker 1: he just refers to it as a magic sword. You know,
Speaker 1: I just said, it's that's what the purpose of it is.
Speaker 1: It's just it happens to be called a lightsaber, but
Speaker 1: it's a magic sword. So the problem with magic is
Speaker 1: that there's not a whole lot to how it works
Speaker 1: other than magic. You know, you're you're just totally getting
Speaker 1: into that early. I thought we were going to go
Speaker 1: ahead and talk about how it works, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: this has not stopped people from telling us how it works,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that it's magic. So let's talk. There
Speaker 1: are people who will argue exactly how this works. It's not.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, we have an article on
Speaker 1: how it works. It's not cannon, and cannon is important
Speaker 1: to me. But then again, you know what is canon
Speaker 1: jar binks. So let's just move on into how lightsabers work.
Speaker 1: So a lightsaber is made up of several different parts.
Speaker 1: You've got the handle, which is pretty much where everything
Speaker 1: is right. Yeah, so the handle has at the base
Speaker 1: of the hand. You've got the power cell and it's
Speaker 1: a it was it diecium, Yes, the diecium crystal. All right,
Speaker 1: So you've got the diection power cell that's in the base.
Speaker 1: That's fine. You know what if they correct us, if
Speaker 1: they take that time, more power to them. Uh diaction
Speaker 1: power cell is in the middle of a power of
Speaker 1: vortex ring and a power field conductor. Now where does
Speaker 1: all this power go? You've you're generated. That's essentially like
Speaker 1: the battery of the lightsaber. That's the very base. So
Speaker 1: and it's got a lot of energy stored in it,
Speaker 1: lots and lots of energy. Now where does this energy
Speaker 1: go once it starts to emit from the power cell?
Speaker 1: It goes into the crystal energy chamber, right where you
Speaker 1: have your primary crystal. Now, depending on whom you ask,
Speaker 1: this crystal may or may not determine the color of
Speaker 1: the lightsabers blade. Yes, Now, some would argue that the
Speaker 1: real determiner for the lightsaber color is lies with the
Speaker 1: Jedi him or herself and the force that that Jedi
Speaker 1: abuse the crystal. So in that case, you could have
Speaker 1: any crystal and essentially have a lightsaber of any color.
Speaker 1: It would all be up to the individual Jedi. Others
Speaker 1: would argue, nay, tis not so. The lightsaber color is
Speaker 1: dependent entirely upon the color of the crystal you select
Speaker 1: to focus this power. Um, I'm gonna go with that one, okay,
Speaker 1: So you know, of course, we we also need to
Speaker 1: talk about how Jedi lightsabers are different from Sith lightsabers
Speaker 1: because they are, yes, they are so. The crystals that
Speaker 1: Jedi use tend to be natural crystals. They're crystals found
Speaker 1: in caves throughout the galaxy. Um. And so these crystals
Speaker 1: are they can take the power and create the the
Speaker 1: the force of the I guess the actual lightsaber blade.
Speaker 1: It's the best way of putting it. Um. And the
Speaker 1: Sith what they do is they'll they'll make a they'll
Speaker 1: make their own crystals, they'll create a forge, and they'll
Speaker 1: build a synthetic crystal. And there's tend to be red, yes,
Speaker 1: which is why you see Sith while like like Darth
Speaker 1: Maul or Darth Vader or Darth Tyrannis walking around with
Speaker 1: a big old red lightsaber, whereas Jedi they tend to
Speaker 1: stick with blue and green, although other colors are also available. Yes,
Speaker 1: so there are more that, but there are there are
Speaker 1: more than one crystal though the primary crystal is uh
Speaker 1: is just one part of that. There are second there
Speaker 1: are secondary and smaller crystals. And it sort of depends
Speaker 1: on the Jedi who builds the lightsaber, because the lightsaber
Speaker 1: is Creating a lightsaber is part of becoming a Jedi. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's actually the final step of Jedi training. According to
Speaker 1: a Darth Vader, yes so. But but what the additional
Speaker 1: crystals do is they actually help focus the energy into
Speaker 1: a blade form, right right, So, the energy coming from
Speaker 1: the power cell, once it passes through the crystal, that's
Speaker 1: what gives it the the destructive for that we see
Speaker 1: from lightsabers. The other crystals focus that into the blade
Speaker 1: um and depending also on upon whom you ask, they
Speaker 1: may also give the the lightsaber other certain powers, like
Speaker 1: it may enhance certain certain aspects of the lightsaber. For example,
Speaker 1: we know that lightsabers can deflect blaster fire. Some of
Speaker 1: these crystals are apparently more effective at deflecting blaster fire
Speaker 1: than others, and others may be better at cutting through
Speaker 1: certain kinds of material. So uh Now, other other scholars
Speaker 1: will argue that's not the case. The just focuses the blade,
Speaker 1: doesn't imbue it with any other powers. Um. Personally, I
Speaker 1: haven't had my hands on the lightsaber in a really
Speaker 1: long time, so it's kind of hard for me to
Speaker 1: tell you exactly what what which ones are right. And
Speaker 1: also I have only ever really used one, so with
Speaker 1: that small sample size, it's impossible to say yes. And
Speaker 1: and it's probably a good time to point out that
Speaker 1: if you do have the opportunity to use lights remember
Speaker 1: it's it's not the kind of thing that you just
Speaker 1: want to play around with, because it can be a
Speaker 1: very very dangerous weapon. It turns out serious damage and
Speaker 1: when you can cut through, you know, a foot of
Speaker 1: steel that it's not the best thing to you know,
Speaker 1: swatterfly with no um. After it goes through the christ
Speaker 1: the focusing crystal, it passes through the blade energy channel again,
Speaker 1: further refines the blade and directs it into a straight
Speaker 1: line that would emerge from the hilt um. And then
Speaker 1: at the very top of your blade, you've got your
Speaker 1: your cycling field energizer's your energy modulation circuits, uh, and
Speaker 1: then you've got your your controls. Your controls adjust the
Speaker 1: power of the blade, and it also adjust the length
Speaker 1: of the blade. So even though we normally see lightsabers
Speaker 1: used at at a pretty standard length, most people have
Speaker 1: it at a whenever they turn on their lightsaber, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much the same length each time. Technically you can
Speaker 1: adjust that so you can make it longer or shorter
Speaker 1: using the blade length adjustment. UM. And then there's a
Speaker 1: magnetic magnetic stabilizing ring and a blade shroud emitter UM
Speaker 1: at the very top which helped control the blade so
Speaker 1: it doesn't just zap out when you turn it on. UM.
Speaker 1: That's your basic anatomy of your lightsaber hilt, all right,
Speaker 1: and then the worst Then there's the activation matrix, which
Speaker 1: is the Star Wars term for the on switch. I
Speaker 1: just I love that part. They're the handle is about
Speaker 1: thirty centimeters in length, so they're not ridiculously long, right, um,
Speaker 1: which is good to know. It generates an arc wave
Speaker 1: energy field, and this is why the blades actually have
Speaker 1: a stopping point. Yes, and it has it. It produces
Speaker 1: sort of a gyroscopic effect to which is why you
Speaker 1: have to be very careful with it because it you know,
Speaker 1: it has it has a pull to it if you will, right,
Speaker 1: But that also makes it easier to use, because otherwise
Speaker 1: it would be like swinging a flashlight around. There'd be
Speaker 1: no feedback from swinging the handle, and it would make
Speaker 1: it much more difficult to master a lightsaber if you
Speaker 1: didn't have that gyroscopic effect when you started swinging it around.
Speaker 1: Chris and I will have more to say about lightsabers
Speaker 1: in just a second, but the force is calling and
Speaker 1: we must take a quick break. So the blade arc tip,
Speaker 1: that's the very end of the lightsaber um, and it's
Speaker 1: it's the arcommitter is what's keeping it from becoming like
Speaker 1: a blaster. Actually, lightsabers pre date blasters um before it
Speaker 1: was a more civilized after all, as it was, and
Speaker 1: you know, I guess civilized means that you loved each
Speaker 1: other's limbs off, as opposed to shooting each other from
Speaker 1: very far away. Uh. Never never bring a lightsaber to
Speaker 1: a blaster fight. Oh wait, no, you could do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah you can't do that because yeah, all right, so
Speaker 1: let's just talk about about that's us the basics of
Speaker 1: building your lightsaber um. Now, each Jedi builds his or
Speaker 1: her own lightsaber as part of their training. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they're gonna build it according to their own particular fighting style.
Speaker 1: Now do you have you heard about the different Jedi
Speaker 1: fighting styles? No? I haven't. There are seven major forms
Speaker 1: of lightsaber styles. Yes, okay, well why don't you. I
Speaker 1: wanted to tell this all right, I'm gonna go into
Speaker 1: a little detail, but I mean, I'm just gonna do
Speaker 1: this as a pretty high level thing. We don't need
Speaker 1: to get into depth. No, this isn't Jedi fighting style stuff.
Speaker 1: You know. That's right. Yeah, that's another podcast that we're
Speaker 1: starting next month. You'll start requesting now. Um, next month
Speaker 1: being April. I can't imagine when the first episode will
Speaker 1: come out. So so the the fighting styles that you
Speaker 1: can think of it kind of like martial arts styles. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, not all martial arts styles are alike. Cut
Speaker 1: on day is very different from jiu jitsu, which is
Speaker 1: very different from a keto, which in turn is different
Speaker 1: from hap keto. Um, there is their drunk Jedi style. No,
Speaker 1: there's no drunken master Jedi style, although I hear Yoda
Speaker 1: can get up to some y he shenanigans on a
Speaker 1: Saturday night. Uh. The seven forms of lightsaber combat are
Speaker 1: actually listed as you know, Form one, Form two, Form three,
Speaker 1: They each have their own names, but I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna try and pronounce them because they're all alien and
Speaker 1: I don't have the capability. I don't actually know what
Speaker 1: the pronunciation is for most of them. But if you
Speaker 1: hadn't spilled your mini chlorine, you'd be fine, I know.
Speaker 1: In general, Form one is the foundation. It is the
Speaker 1: basic form of lightsaber combat. It's your basic strikes, your
Speaker 1: basic defenses. Um. It teaches you how to view the
Speaker 1: body as a series of targets, like you think of you.
Speaker 1: You divide up the body like the heads a certain
Speaker 1: uh certain target, the arms, the torso, and you know,
Speaker 1: attacks are very specific to each target. You know, different
Speaker 1: slashing techniques and hacking techniques. So Form one is kind
Speaker 1: of lightsaber combat one oh one, everyone pretty much through that.
Speaker 1: Form two is dueling. Now, this lightsaber combat really concentrates
Speaker 1: on finesse, blade control, footwork. This is the kind of
Speaker 1: of style that cal Dooku slash Darth Tarrannis used. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: that is why his lightsaber handle actually has a curve
Speaker 1: at the end of it. It's so that he can
Speaker 1: hold it kind of like a pistol grip. Gives him
Speaker 1: a lot of control over the tip of the blade,
Speaker 1: and that's just his style of dueling. Now, this was
Speaker 1: much more popular before blasters came out because it was
Speaker 1: just really meant for lightsaber to lightsaber combat. Once blasters
Speaker 1: came out, people Jedi began to realize that the in
Speaker 1: order to deflect these these blaster bolts, they would need
Speaker 1: to adapt their fighting style. This is not the best
Speaker 1: style to use if you're being shot at by stormtroopers,
Speaker 1: for example. So, uh, but that was tarrannis is favorite form.
Speaker 1: Then there's four three, which is defensive where you are
Speaker 1: trying to feel the least amount of target space on
Speaker 1: your body. So it's really good for defending against blasters
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Form four is an acrobatic style,
Speaker 1: lots of flips and spins. You're using the force to
Speaker 1: boost your your physical abilities, so you're you're depending more
Speaker 1: on uh, these acrobatics than on your blade at that point.
Speaker 1: So Yoda uses that a lot. Um if you've seen
Speaker 1: him fight Count Dooku, he's like a little queens and art.
Speaker 1: And then uh, Form five that uses the deflective nature
Speaker 1: of the lightsaber to reflect blaster fire. Um, you you
Speaker 1: use use strengthen your attacks. So it's a more brute
Speaker 1: force kind of of approach. This is the style favored
Speaker 1: by a certain Skywalker family. Both Anakin and Luke used
Speaker 1: Form five. Form six combines elements of Forms one through five, um,
Speaker 1: but it also teaches that you should be detached from emotion.
Speaker 1: You should be using very calculating ways of of moving.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't let your emotions dictate what you're doing. Form
Speaker 1: seven is kind of the opposite. That's leveraging your emotion
Speaker 1: into power and using that to fight your opponents. This
Speaker 1: was what Darth maul Uh used with some reliance on
Speaker 1: on on Form H four as well, the acrobatic style. Now,
Speaker 1: of course he had a double bladed lightsaber. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: those don't work all that differently than a regular lightsaber.
Speaker 1: They're just basically two lightsabers attached together at the hilt. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's there's four crystals instead of two or a
Speaker 1: minimum of four, because you have to have for you know,
Speaker 1: two of the generator type and two of the focusing
Speaker 1: type at minimum in order to create the two blades.
Speaker 1: By the way, those focusing crystals are usually add again
Speaker 1: crystals usually, but you can also find them on Dantweine
Speaker 1: as well as many many other uh planets within the
Speaker 1: Star Wars galaxy. Yes, until Center Star comes after you
Speaker 1: and you know calls you a coward. Right, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I switched. Okay, you lost me? You lost me? Seriously,
Speaker 1: you never played SENTI Star, I rarely played anyway. Also,
Speaker 1: um depending, uh way, way way way back in the past,
Speaker 1: back when the Jedi we were um much more numerous.
Speaker 1: The color of your blade also would indicate what what
Speaker 1: kind of Jedi you were. For example, if you had
Speaker 1: a blue blade, that signified that you were a Jedi guardian,
Speaker 1: and so you're much more you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: physical you would get into the fights, you would you know,
Speaker 1: defend people with your your prowess. Uh. Green would suggest
Speaker 1: that you were a Jedi consular, and this would be
Speaker 1: someone who was much more thoughtful, kind of contemplative. And
Speaker 1: then um, yellow would indicate that you're a Jedi Sentinel.
Speaker 1: And that's someone who kind of was in between the
Speaker 1: other two. So so not as physical as the guardians,
Speaker 1: but not as brainy as the others either. So yellow
Speaker 1: and blue, dummate green, this is true. I learned that somewhere.
Speaker 1: So should we go into the other aspect of lightsabers.
Speaker 1: So you mean we're actually gonna step outside of the
Speaker 1: realm of Star Wars just looking at the time and
Speaker 1: thinking that maybe we should do that. That's pretty good idea,
Speaker 1: all right, So that's within the Star Wars universe, of course,
Speaker 1: that's how they supposedly work. And I should also add
Speaker 1: none of that is cannon. And when I say cannon,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the stuff that Lucas himself has signed
Speaker 1: off on as saying, yes, this is officially part of
Speaker 1: the Star Wars history. Um, most of that is just
Speaker 1: the movies. Um. To some extent, you could argue the
Speaker 1: books as well. Some of those Lucas has more or
Speaker 1: less said, yeah, even though that didn't appear in the movie,
Speaker 1: that is cannon as well. But he never goes into
Speaker 1: explaining the blades in the movies. And so this is
Speaker 1: really other people trying to um rhet coon really to
Speaker 1: explain why the stuff works. Yeah, um yeah, basically, and
Speaker 1: if you're unfamiliar with the term in cannon is uh
Speaker 1: like basically, they're written instructions for how a magical or
Speaker 1: you know, fantasy or science fiction universe operates. It kind
Speaker 1: of helps you write the stories and the Star Wars,
Speaker 1: Cannon sort of came about after some of the stories
Speaker 1: had already been in practice, so it's a little looser
Speaker 1: than some of the other universe. So if you were
Speaker 1: to read some of the comic books or some of
Speaker 1: the other books that have been written in the Star
Speaker 1: Wars universe, you might notice that they sometimes contradict what
Speaker 1: happened in later movies, and that's because they're not Cannon,
Speaker 1: all right. So moving on to how they actually created
Speaker 1: this effect, which is really which is really fascinating too,
Speaker 1: I think right now now, First of all, in a
Speaker 1: New Hope, the first film, they hadn't originally considered animating
Speaker 1: or adding any light to these at all. The original
Speaker 1: idea was that the lightsabers were going to have There
Speaker 1: were these these uh I think it was three sided
Speaker 1: three sided poll that came out kind of a triangular
Speaker 1: poll on each side was was coated with a very
Speaker 1: reflective material, and they used a lamp that was on
Speaker 1: the same side as the camera and focus the light
Speaker 1: so that it would reflect off of it be really shiny,
Speaker 1: and there was a motor inside the handle that would
Speaker 1: direct the side to be aligned properly for the camera.
Speaker 1: But the effect was not as a zippy as Lucas wanted.
Speaker 1: So um, they started to cast about and see if
Speaker 1: they could find some other way of making this magic
Speaker 1: sword seem really magical, and they contacted an animator by
Speaker 1: the name of Nelson Shin. Nelson Shin took a week
Speaker 1: and looked at this footage that had been shot and
Speaker 1: used an effect called rhodoscoping. The the technique and animation
Speaker 1: technique is actually very old technique. A lot of people
Speaker 1: and myself, including associated with AHAs take on me video.
Speaker 1: I associate with Ralph Box She's um Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings movie. Yeah. Also Wizards was another movie he used
Speaker 1: it in. But it's it's where you take live action
Speaker 1: footage and then you overlay animation on top of it,
Speaker 1: sometimes replacing the live action footage entirely, sometimes enhancing it,
Speaker 1: and in this case it was enhancing it. So what
Speaker 1: he did was he used animation cells to create this
Speaker 1: this glowing blade effect on top of the actual physical
Speaker 1: rods that were in the shots, and then uh using
Speaker 1: you know, synchronizing the cells that he had created with
Speaker 1: the actual film, overlaying the animated effect on it, creating
Speaker 1: a new print that combined these two individual prints and
Speaker 1: that's how you you know, he sent that back to
Speaker 1: Lucas and said, well, here you can try this and
Speaker 1: see if this works. Lucas liked it. Um, they decided
Speaker 1: to go with that approach. They refined it a little bit.
Speaker 1: They added some color so you had different color blades
Speaker 1: because originally they were both white and uh. And that
Speaker 1: was the beginning of the lightsaber effect. We have a
Speaker 1: little bit more to say about lightsabers, but before we
Speaker 1: get to that, we're going to take another quick break. Now.
Speaker 1: In the first three films, which episodes four or five
Speaker 1: and six, UM, they use the rotoscoping technique where they
Speaker 1: would essentially hand draw these things on cells. Um. Basically,
Speaker 1: what they do is they put that cell over the
Speaker 1: original film and color it in and then but that's
Speaker 1: not but that's not all of it, because that does
Speaker 1: add some color to it. But from from there they
Speaker 1: have to shoot more film with the cell and the
Speaker 1: original and when they do that, they shoot it over
Speaker 1: a black background and use a light diffuser over the lens. Yes,
Speaker 1: they double exposed the shots, and that that makes them
Speaker 1: really pop, That make that makes them look sort of
Speaker 1: you know, gives them that sort of otherworldly effect. You
Speaker 1: know how bright they are in the shots. Sou and
Speaker 1: a sophisticated when you think about it, but very very
Speaker 1: time consuming, right, Yes, it took took a really long time.
Speaker 1: It took slightly less time by the time they got
Speaker 1: around to the prequels episodes one, two, and three, because
Speaker 1: they could do it all digitally, But somebody still has
Speaker 1: to go into the computer and you're doing it. You're
Speaker 1: doing it all in computer as opposed to doing it
Speaker 1: on hand handmade cells. Um. So, I mean it still
Speaker 1: takes time, it's just not quite as time consuming, except
Speaker 1: for the fact that Lucas decided to throw in about
Speaker 1: I don't know ten times as many lightsaber battles in
Speaker 1: those first three movies as the original trilogy combined. Um.
Speaker 1: The the actual hilts of the lightsabers were made up
Speaker 1: of old camera flash battery packs and other odds and ends,
Speaker 1: like stuff from hardware stores like plumbing um gaskets and
Speaker 1: things like that. Now, they shot these movies in England,
Speaker 1: so they were raiding various British hardware shops. So a
Speaker 1: lot of the materials that they used to build the
Speaker 1: the light superhandles are very hard to find or sometimes
Speaker 1: impossible to find in the United States, which is why
Speaker 1: it's kind of challenging to create a model of those
Speaker 1: those first Again, this is for the first trilogy four
Speaker 1: or five and six. Um, it's hard to make those
Speaker 1: faithfully just because it's hard to get those parts in
Speaker 1: the United States. Um. Now for episodes one, two, and three,
Speaker 1: those were all machined and so there's all like routed.
Speaker 1: They designed them in a computer and then and then
Speaker 1: made use a router to cut custom parts and then
Speaker 1: assemble them. So it wasn't like they were just grabbing
Speaker 1: whatever they could find and and sticking it together. Um,
Speaker 1: they came up with the concept and artists came up
Speaker 1: with the concept, and then they built it from scratch.
Speaker 1: That was actually one of my questions, like where the
Speaker 1: Jedi going to machine these parts? And you know, do
Speaker 1: they is electrical engineering part of their training. It's ral Tandriaandria.
Speaker 1: It's in the CAD system and yeah, very very nice.
Speaker 1: A lot a lot of rascals and the CAD system.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, I think Han Solo actually spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in the CADS system. Very nice.
Speaker 1: You know. It's funny because when I started doing the
Speaker 1: two of these, the two pieces of this, the fantasy
Speaker 1: part and the you know, special effect. How do they
Speaker 1: make it happen? I started thinking about that way, So
Speaker 1: who's actually making these, you know, because each one is different.
Speaker 1: Well that's one of the things too that uh um,
Speaker 1: and I think is at least somewhat cannon, is that
Speaker 1: it's all sort of individualized, you know, to the Jedi.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if you know, they have to go
Speaker 1: down to the shop, you know, on the thirty fourth
Speaker 1: floor and go, yeah, I need can you make the
Speaker 1: sort of the the arc tip sort of in this shape? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: not exactly like that. Yeah, yeah, uh, you know it.
Speaker 1: It's kind of sad because when I look at the
Speaker 1: props from the first trilogy, those look like things that
Speaker 1: have really lived in that universe for a really long time.
Speaker 1: I mean, the ships are all beat up, and even
Speaker 1: the Jedi, uh, the Jedi are beat up. The jedire
Speaker 1: beat up pretty bad. But no, even the lightsabers look
Speaker 1: like they've been well used. Whereas the if you look
Speaker 1: at the prequels, everything looks like brand new and sparkly,
Speaker 1: and it's just a little it doesn't feel to me
Speaker 1: it almost feels like it's two different universes. Well, you
Speaker 1: know they are like thirty years apart, and on thirty years.
Speaker 1: Come on, do you really want to go down this
Speaker 1: road because recording for like twenty four minutes, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna go for another fifty probably conservative that would be
Speaker 1: only because I'd have to stop and get a break
Speaker 1: to drink something. So let's we So we talked about
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, rotoscoping, either digitally or by hand,
Speaker 1: that replacing frame by frame. These these rods, the physical
Speaker 1: things that were in the shot, and you needed the
Speaker 1: physical rods because you needed to be able to make
Speaker 1: contact when you're doing lightsaber battles right now. I think
Speaker 1: that's a good point. The handles that they use in
Speaker 1: the movies right now are you know, plastic handles with
Speaker 1: aluminum rods and there they're basically cylindrical and colored red,
Speaker 1: blue or green. They actually had to wrap the the
Speaker 1: aluminum rods in construction paper because they were giving off
Speaker 1: too much dust when they were colliding during the lightsaber battles.
Speaker 1: The original trilogy used I think wooden dowls. I don't
Speaker 1: think they used aluminum, at least not in the first film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would imagine that would be a little hard on
Speaker 1: your wrists too, because they're actually, you know, having a
Speaker 1: sword fight with aluminum rods. And yeah, now laurds are
Speaker 1: are thinner than what you see on the screen. Um,
Speaker 1: they're not as they're not as thick as as the
Speaker 1: lightsaber blade appears to be. But yeah, they need that
Speaker 1: so that they can do these moves and and make
Speaker 1: it look convincing. Otherwise you would have lightsabers passing through
Speaker 1: one another and that would just not look right. So um,
Speaker 1: so there is a physical object there that you are
Speaker 1: are concealing with the the overlay, and um, before we
Speaker 1: get into how you can do this yourself, I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about the sound effects. Okay,
Speaker 1: sure they were designed by Ben Burt, who was He's
Speaker 1: a brilliant sound as miner um. Sound designers are. I
Speaker 1: think of them kind of like a very specific type
Speaker 1: of engineer. Sound designers are the kind of people who
Speaker 1: can walk into a room and just take a second
Speaker 1: and think of a billion different ways to use the
Speaker 1: sounds that are naturally occurring in that room. Most of
Speaker 1: us we walk into a room, we'll hear a noise,
Speaker 1: and then within a second we are already ignoring it.
Speaker 1: It's just been incorporated into what we think of as
Speaker 1: the background. But if you ever take a moment and
Speaker 1: really listen to your environment, you start to pick things
Speaker 1: out as as they happen. Well, he's one of those
Speaker 1: guys who can hear a noise and immediately say, hey, uh,
Speaker 1: this would be great for blah blah blah. And when
Speaker 1: he was tasked with finding a noise for the lightsaber,
Speaker 1: he actually says this was the first sound he designed
Speaker 1: for Star Wars was the noise of the lightsaber. And
Speaker 1: he did it with a combination of two noises. One
Speaker 1: was from an old projector. Uh, there was an old
Speaker 1: projector that would made this humming noise as it ran.
Speaker 1: And if you ran two of those projectors, you've got
Speaker 1: a good little harmonizing effect with the hum And that's
Speaker 1: so that formed the basis of the wow when you
Speaker 1: fire up your lightsaber. Um. The second was noise that
Speaker 1: you would get if you ran a microphone near a television.
Speaker 1: It would be this buzzing noise sort of feedback. Yes,
Speaker 1: that that gives it the kind of little crackle sound
Speaker 1: that you also hear. That's just sort of uh, kind
Speaker 1: of a light sound underneath the thrumb. And then whenever
Speaker 1: someone would wave a lightsaber, well you have to create
Speaker 1: the wow noise. The way he did that was he
Speaker 1: would move a microphone past a speaker that was playing that. Um,
Speaker 1: the the the humming noise, and the Doppler effect would
Speaker 1: take care of the rest. So you're just moving a
Speaker 1: microphone around a speaker and then it's translates into the
Speaker 1: womb womb when you're waving your lightsaber round. UM. Absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 1: One of the uh you know, there's there was no
Speaker 1: going into a a synthesizer or going into a studio
Speaker 1: trying to create this sound from scratch. He just found
Speaker 1: a practical way of creating it and uh and it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that is forever married with the
Speaker 1: Star Wars universe. You hear that sound, you know immediately
Speaker 1: what you're listening to. Now, let's say you want to
Speaker 1: do this yourself. It's quite possible. Well, you have to
Speaker 1: spend all that fuel getting to the other star system.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't mean building a real one, I
Speaker 1: mean like creating the effect in a video. Okay, so uh,
Speaker 1: you can do this yourself with the right kind of software.
Speaker 1: And uh, there are a lot of different video editing
Speaker 1: suites out there that have the effects that you would
Speaker 1: need in order to create a lightsaber Effectum, most of
Speaker 1: them are like things like Adobe has several There's even
Speaker 1: a tool that's called l S Maker, which allows you
Speaker 1: to create a lightsaber effect pretty easily. In fact, all
Speaker 1: you have to do is do two clicks and you
Speaker 1: create the basis of a lightsaber effect for a single
Speaker 1: frame of video, and then you can go in and
Speaker 1: tweak the effects so that it looks exact the way
Speaker 1: you wanted to. But again, you have to do this
Speaker 1: frame by frame, so it's not like you do two
Speaker 1: clicks and it magically turns something into a lightsaber. You
Speaker 1: actually have to go through each frame and replace the
Speaker 1: physical object with the lightsaber representation. And we refre it
Speaker 1: to work properly. Yes, but YouTube is filled with people
Speaker 1: who have done this successfully. Yes, yes, and some not
Speaker 1: so successful. Some of them are pretty awful. But uh,
Speaker 1: the same effect. You can use the same sort of
Speaker 1: technology to create other effects besides the lightsaber effect. It's
Speaker 1: just that's one of those that is pretty easy to
Speaker 1: to apply because really you're talking about a straight line. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not that complicated. Um. It is time consuming though.
Speaker 1: It can take hours and hours and hours to render
Speaker 1: a video that would only last maybe thirty seconds, especially
Speaker 1: if you have multiple blades on there. That can because
Speaker 1: each blade is going to require a different layer in
Speaker 1: your video, you know. So you're gonna if you have
Speaker 1: like six Jedi out there and they all have lightsabers
Speaker 1: at six layers of video right there in order for
Speaker 1: you to have all the effects come together properly. And
Speaker 1: then if you know, they clashed and you have to
Speaker 1: add the sparks and and you have to and it's
Speaker 1: it can be challenging. I mean it's it's not it's
Speaker 1: not something that you're gonna be able to whip out
Speaker 1: in an hour. It's gonna take a while, but it's
Speaker 1: it's doable. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode about lightsabers.
Speaker 1: If you want to reach out to me, maybe you've
Speaker 1: got a suggestion for future episode, or maybe you just
Speaker 1: have a question, or maybe you've got a comment, then
Speaker 1: do so on Facebook or Twitter. The handle for both
Speaker 1: of those is text stuff H s W and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Y text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Two