Superman Jor El crystal staff.

i'm planning upon building a Jor El crystal staff from the original christopher reeve superman movie, (shows up about 6 mins into the movie)
greatest superman speech - YouTube here is a youtube link that shows the action of the staff.
it's clearly a clear plastic/resin staff, but the tapered tip at the end?
it has some kind of light element hidden inside it, i can see no wires, no power source..

basically, i'm stumped!
and i could really do with some fellow fans to give me some advice on how they might try to construct a staff like this with the light element?

Here is a freeze frame i found of the staff lit

It was a simple on set effect, the staff acted likea fiber optic, an off camera light was placed at the base of the staff transferring the light to the tip.

Are you sure?
a very specific portion of the staff lights up, and after a half inch to an inch, the light just cuts off and in a second scene (one i cannot get a hold of a youtube video one sadly) it has a much closer shot of the light, and it seems the light source is set in the center of the 'head' of the staff, with the portion below the center being slightly less bright to the upper half of the 'head'

would it some how be possible to manage something like this perhaps? for a similar effect

with the cover of the electronics being a reflective surface such as some flat aluminum/tin foil covering the internals?

It looks like a solid acrylic rod (which is very fragile) with something like a crystal glued to one end. A light held at the base would only light up the crystal as well as bubbles or other imperfections in the rod. I'm gonna have to go with Captain April on this one.

Kind of reminds me of Castor's cane from Tron: Legacy

Yep. The "lit" portion is at an angle, and sanded down to allow it to "glow" when the light held in his hand is on. You can see in the pic you have where all the various nicks and dents are light up as well as the top of the staff.

Someone here owned the staff, but damned if I can remember who it was. Haven't seen it for a long time though.

Chris

hydin said:

---

Yep. The "lit" portion is at an angle, and sanded down to allow it to "glow" when the light held in his hand is on. You can see in the pic you have where all the various nicks and dents are light up as well as the top of the staff.

Someone here owned the staff, but damned if I can remember who it was. Haven't seen it for a long time though.

Chris

really? interesting, since in the other (first) shot in the movie you can really clearly see a circular light source emanating from the head in the remastered version.


oh well, any ideas on how to make it work-able?

Take any piece of clear Pespex, tape some card at one end to form a V and shine a light into that. Only the edges light up. Now scratch something into the surface and that lights up as well. I would suggest that the end of the staff was roughened up so that when the external light was turned on, only the tip would light up.

That is something I did a while ago!