Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am the tech editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting next to me, as he always does, is senior
Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. I spilled my mini Glorians. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to get them up. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: start off this podcast with a little listener tweet. This
Speaker 1: listener tweet comes from Jacqueline Hyde, who says, got a
Speaker 1: listener request for you, how lightsabers work. The force is
Speaker 1: strong with this one, so we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about lightsabers. This is kind of an interesting subject in
Speaker 1: the sense that really it belongs and stuff you missed
Speaker 1: in history class because it did happened a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Any galaxy far far away, yeah, um, or technically it
Speaker 1: could be fan stuffed, but they don't have a podcast,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna tackle it before anyone can grab it
Speaker 1: from 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 Star Wars when
Speaker 1: it first came out in nine. It was not American
Speaker 1: graffiti as many people think. No, no, there was no
Speaker 1: cameo of the lightsaber in American graffiti, although that would
Speaker 1: 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: a magic sword. So the problem with magic is that
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot to how it works other
Speaker 1: than magic. You know, you you're just totally getting into that. Early.
Speaker 1: I thought we were going to go ahead and talk
Speaker 1: about how it works, all right. Well, this has not
Speaker 1: stopped people from telling us how it works, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that it's magic. So let's talk. There are people
Speaker 1: who will argue exactly how this works. It's not. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, we have an article on how
Speaker 1: it works. It's not cannon, and cannon is important to me.
Speaker 1: But then again, you know what is canon? Jar jar binks.
Speaker 1: So let's just move on into how lightsabers work. So
Speaker 1: a lightsaber is made up of several different parts. You've
Speaker 1: got the handle, which is pretty much where everything is, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the handle has at the base of the handle,
Speaker 1: you've got the power sell and uh it's a it
Speaker 1: was it dieci um, Yes, a dietium crystal. Alright, So
Speaker 1: you've got the diet sham power cell that's in the
Speaker 1: basic that's fine. You know what if they correct us,
Speaker 1: if they take that time more power to that uh
Speaker 1: diation power cell is in the middle of a power
Speaker 1: of vortex ring and a power field conductor. Now where
Speaker 1: does all this power go? You've you're generated that's essentially
Speaker 1: like the battery of the lightsaber. That's the very base.
Speaker 1: So 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.
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 so the crystals that Jedi use tend
Speaker 1: to be natural crystals. They're crystals found in caves throughout
Speaker 1: the galaxy Um, and so these crystals are they can
Speaker 1: take the power and create the the the force of
Speaker 1: the I guess, the actual lightsaber blade. It's the best
Speaker 1: way of putting it. Um and the Sith What they
Speaker 1: do is they'll they'll make a they'll make their own crystals.
Speaker 1: They'll create a forge, and they'll build a synthetic crystal.
Speaker 1: And there's tend to be red, which is why you
Speaker 1: see sith like like Darth Maul or Darth Vader or
Speaker 1: Darth Tyrannis walking around with a big old red lightsaber,
Speaker 1: whereas Jedi they tend to stick with blue and green,
Speaker 1: although other colors are also available. Yes, so there are
Speaker 1: more that, but there are There are more than one crystal.
Speaker 1: Though the primary crystal is uh is just one part
Speaker 1: of that. There are second there are secondary and smaller crystals,
Speaker 1: and it sort of depends on the Jedi who builds
Speaker 1: the lightsaber, because the lightsaber is Creating a lightsaber is
Speaker 1: part of becoming a Jedi. Yes, it's actually the final
Speaker 1: step of Jedi training. According to a Darth Vader, Yes so.
Speaker 1: But but what the additional crystals do is they actually
Speaker 1: help focus the energy into a blade form, right right,
Speaker 1: So the energy coming from the power cell, once it
Speaker 1: passes through the crystal, that's what gives it the the
Speaker 1: destructive force that we see from lightsabers. The other crystals
Speaker 1: focus that into the blade um and depending also on
Speaker 1: upon whom you ask, They may also give the the
Speaker 1: lightsaber other certain powers, like it may enhance certain certain
Speaker 1: aspects of the lightsaber. For example, we know that lightsabers
Speaker 1: can deflect blaster fire. Some of these crystals are apparently
Speaker 1: more effective at deflecting blaster fire than others, and others
Speaker 1: may be better at cutting through certain kinds of material.
Speaker 1: So uh Now, other other scholars will argue that's not
Speaker 1: the case. The just focuses the blade, doesn't imbue it
Speaker 1: with any other powers. Um. Personally, I haven't had my
Speaker 1: hands on the lightsaber in a really long time, so
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard for me to tell you exactly
Speaker 1: what what which ones are right, And also I have
Speaker 1: only ever really used one, so with that small sample size,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to say yes. And and it's probably a
Speaker 1: good time to point out that if you do have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to use the lights remember it's it's not
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that you just want to play
Speaker 1: around with because it can be a very uh very dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it turns out serious damage and when you can cut through,
Speaker 1: you know, a foot of steel, that it's not the
Speaker 1: best thing to you know, swatterfly with no UM. After
Speaker 1: it goes through the christ the focusing crystal, it passes
Speaker 1: through the blade energy channel again further refines the blade
Speaker 1: and directs it into a straight line that would emerge
Speaker 1: from the hilt. UM. And then at the very top
Speaker 1: of your blade, you've got your your cycling field energizer's
Speaker 1: your energy modulation circuits uh, and then you've got your
Speaker 1: your controls. Your controls adjust the power of the blade,
Speaker 1: and it also adjust the length of the blade. So
Speaker 1: even though we normally see lightsabers used at A at
Speaker 1: a pretty standard length, most people have it at A
Speaker 1: whenever they turn on their lightsaber, it's pretty much the
Speaker 1: same length each time. Technically you can adjust that, so
Speaker 1: you can make it longer or shorter using the blade
Speaker 1: length adjustment UM. And then there's a magnetic magnetic stabilizing
Speaker 1: ring and a blade trial emitterr UM at the very
Speaker 1: top which helped control the blade so it doesn't just
Speaker 1: zap out when you turn it on. UM. That's your
Speaker 1: basic anatomy of your lightsaber hilt. And then of course
Speaker 1: then there's the activation matrix, which is the Star Wars
Speaker 1: term for the on switch. I just I love that part.
Speaker 1: They are the handle is about thirty centimeters in length,
Speaker 1: so they're not ridiculously long, right, um, which is good
Speaker 1: to know. It generates an arc wave energy field, and
Speaker 1: this is why the blades actually have a stopping point. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it has it. It produces sort of a gyroscopic
Speaker 1: effect to which is why you have to be very
Speaker 1: careful with it because you know it has it has
Speaker 1: a pull to it if you will, right. But that
Speaker 1: also makes it easier to use, because otherwise it would
Speaker 1: be like swinging a flashlight around. There'll be no feedback
Speaker 1: from swinging the handle, and it would make it much
Speaker 1: more difficult to master allie saber if you didn't have
Speaker 1: that gyroscopic effect when you started swinging it around. Um.
Speaker 1: So the blade arc tip, that's the very end of
Speaker 1: the lightsaber, um, and it's it's the arc committer is
Speaker 1: what's keeping it from becoming like a blaster. Actually, lightsabers
Speaker 1: pre date blasters, um. Before it was a more civilized
Speaker 1: after all as it was and you know, I guess
Speaker 1: civilized means that you locked each other's limbs off, as
Speaker 1: opposed to shooting each other from very far away. Uh.
Speaker 1: Never never bring away lightsaber to a blaster fight. Oh wait, no,
Speaker 1: you could do that. No, yeah, you can't do that
Speaker 1: because yeah, all right, so let's talk about it's about
Speaker 1: that's that's the basics of building your lightsaber. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: each Jedi builds his or her own lightsaber as part
Speaker 1: of their training. Uh, and they're gonna build it according
Speaker 1: to their own particular fighting style. Now do you have
Speaker 1: you heard about the different Jedi fighting styles? No? I haven't.
Speaker 1: There are seven major forms of lightsaber styles. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: well why don't you I want don't you tell this?
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna go into a little detail, but
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do this as a pretty high level thing.
Speaker 1: You don't need to get into depth. This isn't Jedi
Speaker 1: fighting style stuff. That's right. Yeah, that's another podcast that
Speaker 1: we're starting next month. You'll start requesting now. Um, next
Speaker 1: month being April. I can't imagine when the first episode
Speaker 1: will come out. So, so the the the fighting styles
Speaker 1: that you can think of it kind of like martial
Speaker 1: arts styles. Um, you know, not all martial arts styles
Speaker 1: are alike. Cut on day is very different from jiu jitsu,
Speaker 1: which is very different from a keto, which in turn
Speaker 1: is different from hap keto. Um, there they're drunk Jedi style. No,
Speaker 1: there's no drunken master Jedi style, although I hear Yoda
Speaker 1: can get up to some wacky shenanigans on a Saturday night. Uh.
Speaker 1: The seven forms of lightsaber combat are actually listed as
Speaker 1: you know, Form one, Form two, Form three. They each
Speaker 1: have their own names, but I'm not even gonna try
Speaker 1: and pronounce them because they're all alien and I don't
Speaker 1: have the k ability. I don't actually know what the
Speaker 1: pronunciation is for most of them. But if you hadn't
Speaker 1: spilled your mini chlorine, you'd be fine, I know. In general,
Speaker 1: Form one is the foundation. It is the basic form
Speaker 1: of lightsaber combat. It's your basic strikes, your basic defenses. Um.
Speaker 1: It teaches you how to view the body as a
Speaker 1: series of targets, like you think of you divide up
Speaker 1: the body like the head is a certain uh certain target,
Speaker 1: the arms, the torso, and you know, attacks are very
Speaker 1: specific to each target. You know, different slashing techniques and
Speaker 1: hacking techniques. So Form one is kind of lightsaber combat
Speaker 1: one oh one. Everyone pretty much goes through that. Form
Speaker 1: two is dueling. Now, this lightsaber combat really concentrates on
Speaker 1: finesse blade control. Footwork. This is the kind of of
Speaker 1: style that Count Dooku slash Darth Tyrannis 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 them
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 Trannis's favorite form.
Speaker 1: Then there's four three, which is defensive where you are
Speaker 1: trying to reveal 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 spending more
Speaker 1: on uh, these acrobatics than on your blade at that point. Yes,
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 FOM 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 a of approach. This is the style
Speaker 1: favored by a certain Skywalker family. Both Anakin and Luke
Speaker 1: used Form five. Form six combines elements of Forms one
Speaker 1: through five UM, but it also teaches that you should
Speaker 1: be detached from emotion. You should be using very calculating
Speaker 1: UM ways of of moving. You shouldn't let your emotions
Speaker 1: dictate what you're doing. Form seven is kind of the opposite.
Speaker 1: That's leveraging your emotion into power and using that to
Speaker 1: fight your opponents. This was what Darth maul Uh used
Speaker 1: with some reliance on on on Form UH four as well,
Speaker 1: the acrobatic style. Now, of course he had a double
Speaker 1: bladed lightsaber, and those don't work all that differently than
Speaker 1: a regular lightsaber. They're just basically two lightsabers attached together
Speaker 1: at the hilt. So there's there's four crystals instead of
Speaker 1: two or a minimum of four, because you have to
Speaker 1: have for you know, two of the generator type and
Speaker 1: two of the focusing type at minimum in order to
Speaker 1: create the two blades. By the way, those focusing crystals
Speaker 1: are usually add again crystals usually, but you can also
Speaker 1: find them on Dantweene as well as many many other
Speaker 1: uh planets within the Star Wars galaxy. Yes, until Senti
Speaker 1: Star comes after you and you know calls you a coward. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I switched genres. Are you lost me? You
Speaker 1: lost me? Seriously, you never played Seni Star. I rarely
Speaker 1: played Star anyway. Also, um depending uh way, way way
Speaker 1: way back in the past, back when the Jedi were
Speaker 1: um much more new rus. The color of your blade
Speaker 1: also would indicate what what kind of Jedi you are.
Speaker 1: For example, if you had a blue blade, that signified
Speaker 1: that you were a Jedi guardian and so you're much
Speaker 1: more you know, kind of a physical you would get
Speaker 1: into the fights. You would you know, defend people with
Speaker 1: your your prowess. UH green would suggest that you were
Speaker 1: a Jedi consular, and this would be someone who was
Speaker 1: much more thoughtful, kind of contemplative. And then um yellow
Speaker 1: would indicate that you're a Jedi Sentinel, and that's someone
Speaker 1: who kind of was in between the other two, so
Speaker 1: so not as physical as the Guardians, but not as
Speaker 1: brainy as the others either, So Yellow and Blue domat Green.
Speaker 1: This is true. I learned that somewhere. So should we
Speaker 1: go into the other aspect of light tabers. So you
Speaker 1: mean we're actually gonna step outside of the realm of
Speaker 1: Star Wars at the time and thinking that maybe we
Speaker 1: should do that. That's where idea, all right, So that's
Speaker 1: within the Star Wars universe, of course, that's how they
Speaker 1: supposedly work. And I should also add none of that
Speaker 1: is cannon. And when I say cannon, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the stuff that Lucas himself has signed off on as saying, yes,
Speaker 1: this is officially part of the Star Wars history. Um,
Speaker 1: most of that is just the movies. Um to some extent,
Speaker 1: you could argue the books as well. Some of those
Speaker 1: Lucas has more or less said, yeah, even though that
Speaker 1: didn't appear in the movie, that is cannon as well.
Speaker 1: But he never goes into explaining the blades in the movies.
Speaker 1: And so this is really other people trying to um
Speaker 1: rhet coon really to explain why this stuff works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um yeah, basically, and if you're unfamiliar with the term,
Speaker 1: and cannon is uh like basically they're written instructions for
Speaker 1: how a a magical or you know, fantasy or science
Speaker 1: fiction universe operates. It kind of helps you write the stories.
Speaker 1: And the Star Wars cannon sort of came about after
Speaker 1: some of the stories had already been in practice, so
Speaker 1: it's a little looser than some of the right. So
Speaker 1: if you were to read some of the comic books
Speaker 1: or some of the other books that have been written
Speaker 1: in the Star Wars universeit you might notice that they
Speaker 1: sometimes contradict what happened in later movies, and that's because
Speaker 1: they're not cannon, all right. So moving on to how
Speaker 1: they actually created this effect, which is really which is
Speaker 1: really fascinating too, I think right now now, First of all,
Speaker 1: in a New Hope, the first film, they hadn't originally
Speaker 1: considered animating or adding any light to these at all.
Speaker 1: The original idea was that the lightsabers were going to
Speaker 1: have there were these these uh I think it was
Speaker 1: three sided three sided poll that came out kind of
Speaker 1: a triangular pole and each side was was coated with
Speaker 1: a very reflective material, and they used a lamp that
Speaker 1: was on the same side as the camera and focus
Speaker 1: the light so that it would reflect off of it
Speaker 1: be really shiny, and there was a motor inside the
Speaker 1: handle that would direct the side to be aligned properly
Speaker 1: for the camera. But the effect was not as a
Speaker 1: zippy as Lucas wanted. So Um they started to cast
Speaker 1: about and see if they could find some other way
Speaker 1: of making this magic sword seem really magical, and they
Speaker 1: contacted an animator by the name of Nelson Shin. Nelson
Speaker 1: Shin took a week and looked at this footage that
Speaker 1: had been shot and used an effect called rhodoscoping. The
Speaker 1: the technique and animation technique is actually very old technique.
Speaker 1: A lot of people and myself, including associated with AHAs
Speaker 1: take on me video. I associate it with Ralph Box
Speaker 1: She's um Lord of the Rings movie. Also Wizards was
Speaker 1: another movie he used it in. But it's it's where
Speaker 1: you take live action footage and then you overlay animation
Speaker 1: on top of it, sometimes replacing the live action footage entirely,
Speaker 1: sometimes enhancing it, and in this case it was enhancing it.
Speaker 1: So what he did was he used animation cells to
Speaker 1: create this this glowing blade effect on top of the
Speaker 1: the actual physical rods that were in the shots, and
Speaker 1: then uh using you know, synchronizing the cells that he
Speaker 1: had created with the actual film overlaying the animated effect
Speaker 1: on it, creating a new print that combined these two
Speaker 1: individual prints. And that's how you you know. He sent
Speaker 1: that back to Lucas and said, well, here, you can
Speaker 1: try this and see if this works. Lucas liked it. Um,
Speaker 1: they decided to go with that approach. They refined it
Speaker 1: a little bit. They added some color so you had
Speaker 1: different color blades because originally they were both white and uh,
Speaker 1: and that was the beginning of the lightsaber effect. Now,
Speaker 1: in the first three films, which episodes four or five
Speaker 1: and six, UM, they used 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 makes that makes them look sort of
Speaker 1: you know, gives them that sort of otherworldly effect, you know,
Speaker 1: how bright they are in the shots. So kind of
Speaker 1: sophisticated when you think about it, but very very time consuming, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: it took took a really long time. It took slightly
Speaker 1: less time by the time they got around to the
Speaker 1: prequels episodes one, two, and three, because they could do
Speaker 1: it all digitally, But somebody still has to go into
Speaker 1: the computer and you're doing it. You're doing it all
Speaker 1: in computer as opposed to doing it on hand handmade cells. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, it still takes time, it's just not quite
Speaker 1: as time consuming, except for the fact that Lucas decided
Speaker 1: to throw in about I don't know ten times as
Speaker 1: many lightsaber battles in those first three movies as the
Speaker 1: original trilogy and bind Um. The The actual hilts of
Speaker 1: the lightsabers were made up of old camera flash battery
Speaker 1: packs and other odds and ends like stuff from hardware
Speaker 1: stores like plumbing um gaskets and things like that. Now,
Speaker 1: they shot these movies in England, so they were raiding
Speaker 1: various British hardware shops. So a lot of the materials
Speaker 1: that they used to build the lightsaber handles are very
Speaker 1: hard to find or sometimes impossible to find in the
Speaker 1: United States, which is why it's kind of challenging to
Speaker 1: create a model of those those first. Again, this is
Speaker 1: for the first trilogy four or five and six. Um,
Speaker 1: it's hard to make those faithfully just because it's hard
Speaker 1: to get those parts in the United States. Um. Now
Speaker 1: for episodes one, two, and three, those were all machined
Speaker 1: and so there's all like routed. They designed them in
Speaker 1: a computer and then and then made use a router
Speaker 1: to cut custom parts and then assemble them. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't like they were just grabbing whatever they could find
Speaker 1: and and and sticking it together. Um, they came up
Speaker 1: with the concept and artists came up with the concept
Speaker 1: and then they built it from scratch. That was actually
Speaker 1: one of my questions, like where the Jedi going to
Speaker 1: machine these parts? And you know, do they is electrical
Speaker 1: engineering part of their training. It's in the CAD system,
Speaker 1: very very nice, a lot of a lot of rascals
Speaker 1: and the CAD system. As it turns out, I think
Speaker 1: Han Solo actually spent a lot of time in the
Speaker 1: CADS system. Very nice. No, it's funny because when I
Speaker 1: started doing the two of these, the two pieces of this,
Speaker 1: the fantasy part and the you know, special effects, how
Speaker 1: do they make it happen? I started thinking about that way,
Speaker 1: So who's actually making these? You know? Because each one
Speaker 1: is different. Well that's one of the things too that
Speaker 1: uh um and I think is at least somewhat cannon,
Speaker 1: is that it's all sort of individualized, you know, to
Speaker 1: the Jedi. So I'm wondering if you know, they have
Speaker 1: to go down to the shop, you know that thirty
Speaker 1: fourth floor and go, yeah, I need can you make
Speaker 1: sort of the the arc tip sort of in this shape? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: not exactly like that. Yea, yeah, you know it. It's
Speaker 1: kind of sad because when I look at the props
Speaker 1: from the first trilogy, those look like things that have
Speaker 1: 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 years apart and on and thirty years.
Speaker 1: Come on, do you really want to go down this
Speaker 1: road because we don't recording for like twenty four minutes.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go fortably conservative, but that would be
Speaker 1: only because I'd have to stop and get are to
Speaker 1: drink something. So let's we So we talked about the
Speaker 1: 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 they're 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 la rons
Speaker 1: are 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. They
Speaker 1: were designed by Ben Burt, who was he's a brilliant
Speaker 1: sound designer. Um. Sound designers are I think of them
Speaker 1: kind of like a very specific type of engineer. Sound
Speaker 1: designers are the kind of people who can walk into
Speaker 1: a room and just take a second and think of
Speaker 1: a billion different ways to use the sounds that are
Speaker 1: naturally occurring in that room. Most of us we walk
Speaker 1: into a room, we'll hear a noise, and then within
Speaker 1: a second we are already ignoring it. It's just been
Speaker 1: incorporated into what we think of as the background. But
Speaker 1: if you ever take a moment and really listen to
Speaker 1: your environment, you start to pick things out as as
Speaker 1: they happen. Well, he's one of those guys who can
Speaker 1: hear a noise and immediately say, hey, uh, this would
Speaker 1: be great for blah blah blah. And when he was
Speaker 1: tasked with finding a noise for the lightsaber, he actually
Speaker 1: says this was the first sound he designed for Star
Speaker 1: Wars was the noise of the lightsaber. And he did
Speaker 1: it with a combination of two noises. One was from
Speaker 1: an old projector. Uh, there was an old projector that
Speaker 1: would made this humming noise as it ran. And if
Speaker 1: you ran two of those projectors, you've got a good
Speaker 1: little harmonizing effect with the hum and that's so that
Speaker 1: formed the basis of the wow when you fire up
Speaker 1: your lightsaber. Um. The second was noise that you would
Speaker 1: get if you ran a microphone near a television. It
Speaker 1: would be this buzzing noise feedback yes, that that gives
Speaker 1: it the kind of little crackle sound that you also hear.
Speaker 1: That's just sort of uh, kind of a light sound
Speaker 1: underneath the thrumb. And then whenever someone would wave a lightsaber,
Speaker 1: well you have to create the wow noise. The way
Speaker 1: he did that was he would move a microphone past
Speaker 1: a speaker that was playing that. Um, the the the
Speaker 1: humming noise, and the Doppler effect would take care of
Speaker 1: the rest. So you're just moving a microphone around a
Speaker 1: speaker and then it's translates into the womb womb womb
Speaker 1: when you're waving your lightsaber around. UM. Absolutely brilliant. One
Speaker 1: of the uh you know, there's there was no going
Speaker 1: into a a synthesizer or going into a studio and
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. 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 and
Speaker 1: suites out there that have the effects that you would
Speaker 1: need in order to create a lightsaber effect. Um, most
Speaker 1: of them are like things like Adobe has several There's
Speaker 1: even a tool that's called l S Maker which allows
Speaker 1: you to create a lightsaber effect pretty easily. In fact,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is do two clicks and
Speaker 1: you create the basis of a lightsaber effect for a
Speaker 1: single frame of video, and then you can go in
Speaker 1: and tweak the effects so that it looks exactly the
Speaker 1: way you want it to. But again, you have to
Speaker 1: do this frame by frame, so it's not like you
Speaker 1: do two clicks and it magically turns something into a lightsaber.
Speaker 1: You actually have to go through each frame and replace
Speaker 1: the the physical object with the lightsaber representation and order
Speaker 1: for it to work properly. Yes, but YouTube is filled
Speaker 1: with people who have done this successfully. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: some not so successful. Some of them are pretty awful.
Speaker 1: But uh, the same effect. You can use the same
Speaker 1: sort of technology to create other effects besides the lightsaber effect.
Speaker 1: It's just that's one of those that is pretty easy
Speaker 1: to to apply because really you're talking about a straight line.
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. So you're gonna if you have like six
Speaker 1: Jedi out there and they all have lightsabers at six
Speaker 1: layers of video right there in order for you to
Speaker 1: have all the effects come together properly. And then if
Speaker 1: you know, they clashed and you have to add the
Speaker 1: sparks right there's and you have to and it's it
Speaker 1: can be challenging. I mean it's it's not it's not
Speaker 1: something that you're gonna be able to whip out in
Speaker 1: an hour. It's gonna take a while, but it's it's doable,
Speaker 1: and most of the software is you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: there's some software out there that's free that you can
Speaker 1: use to create this effect if you have the time
Speaker 1: and patients and a little bit of artistic ability. Yep,
Speaker 1: I have none of those three, I think. Um, well,
Speaker 1: the force is weak with Pulette. But uh, I guess
Speaker 1: we can wrap this up and we'll we'll finish with
Speaker 1: a little more listener mail. This listener mail comes from
Speaker 1: Matt and Matt says, Hey, Chris and Jonathan, thanks for
Speaker 1: taking my request about the dangers of Wikipedia. You guys
Speaker 1: are awesome and I am totally having a star struck
Speaker 1: moment right now. O m G. The tech stuff guys
Speaker 1: are talking about me. You two are great. Ps if
Speaker 1: either of you are Trek ease. I can't remember if
Speaker 1: you have mentioned it before. I just got done watching
Speaker 1: one of my favorite episodes called The Offspring from the
Speaker 1: Next Generation, where Data becomes a dad Data. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm sorry he hates it when he when you call
Speaker 1: him Data. I remember that episode. Great episode, check it out.
Speaker 1: So I figured we'd talked about star Trek for a second,
Speaker 1: since we talk about Star Wars for thirty minutes has
Speaker 1: a serious cannon, live long and prosper Thanks Matt and
Speaker 1: we it was our pleasure to talk about Wikipedia. We
Speaker 1: haven't received any hate mail on that yet. Time will
Speaker 1: tell if that'll change. If you would like to send
Speaker 1: us a message, please no hate mail, just tell us
Speaker 1: how much you love Star Wars and that you want
Speaker 1: to build your own lightsaber. Now you can write us
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and check
Speaker 1: out the website how stuff works dot com. We do
Speaker 1: have how lightsabers work right there on the site. Yes
Speaker 1: and uh. If you do decide to build a lightsaber,
Speaker 1: don't hit anybody with it or yourself. And may the
Speaker 1: Force be with you always for moral This and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: and be sure to check out the new tech stuff
Speaker 1: blog now on the how stuff Works homepage. Brought to
Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
Speaker 1: are you