ANH Stunt Lightsaber "Blades"--Triangular??? Gil Taylor sez so...

[dcarty]

Was reading through this article about digital effects that a friend forwarded to me and found this an interesting quote:

"Gil Taylor was the cinematographer on the first Star Wars back in 1977. In fact, he's the man who made the lightsaber glow. "It was very do-it-yourself," he says. "The lightsabers were just triangular bits of wood which were covered in reflective material that I projected a spotlight on to. They've gone over to digital now, which I never used and I don't believe in. Personally, I'm incredibly bored with those effects; they've taken over everything."

I know there has been some contention over the years about what shape the blades were and this is a nice bit of evidence. (I don't recall if any conclusion was ever reached the last time I saw this hashed out)

At any rate there's Gil Taylor's unsolicited recollection.

Here's the link to the full article (mainly about the over-use of CGI):

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2281466,00.html

Cheers,

Dave C

 

[MaddChinaMan]

Re: ANH Stunt Lightsaber "Blades"--Triangular???

From when I read the article, I got the impression that it was tiny "wood bits" that covered the blade itself. Creating a surface with many reflective surfaces so light bounced off of it, I dunno maybe I read it in the wrong way.

 

[dcarty]

Re: ANH Stunt Lightsaber "Blades"--Triangular???

Well, we know for certain that the blades were basically just a pole with light-reflective material wrapped around them. If you watch any of the behind the scenes footage before they added any rotoscope effects to the sabers it's pretty obvious (which is why they added the animated effect). The debate has centered around whether the blade was just a standard round dowel with a black strip down one side or if the blade was faceted in some way (either three or four sides). Peter Diamond said in one interview that they were always breaking blades when filming the duels which makes the application of tiny bits all over the blades seem like a lot of work for something that would need to be replaced on the fly.

I've read convincing arguments for both faceted and round dowels (though I've always favored the faceted myself) and seen pics that could go either way--which doesn't mean that they didn't use both in a pinch.

Dave

 

[franz bolo]

I always heard it was a triangular shaped length ow wood, never a round one.
You can see it spin in the movie.

FB

 

[MaddChinaMan]

What if... it was triangular blades covered in the bits?! haha yea I dunno what I'm talking about:lol

 

[dcarty]

I always heard it was a triangular shaped length ow wood, never a round one.
You can see it spin in the movie.

FB

That's why I've always favored the "faceted" argument myself--that's just what it looks like to me. But there's a pic of Alec Guinness holding his stunt saber in the recent "Making of" book that looks very much like a round dowel which was one of the sources of contention so who knows if both types were used or it's an optical illusion in that pic or what. (I just remember a pages long thread of people going back and forth about the idea soon after the book was published)

Dave

 

[kurtyboy]

I thought they were squared blades with two sides coated and two not. You can see that not all sides were coated if you look closely.

 

[Serafino]

You guys have summed up the issues nicely. The only thing I’d add is that the ‘bits’ is no doubt someone’s misinterpretation of what the reflective material is– projection screen material, which has lots of small glass ‘bits’ adhered to it.

Here's the relevant reference that I know of:

Spinning, so probably doesn't count for much:

Whether this is a blade or not has been debated:

Again, probably spinning, so the dark line is probably just shadow:

 

[KitSmasher]

That's interesting. To me round has always made more sense. If they were round, there would always be an edge pointing directly into the camera reflecting the light.

Triangular would make sense for the spinning blades. A round blade spinning really wouldn't appear to shimmer like a triangular blade would. It would just look like a round blade.

 

[Serafino]

One of the interesting points to consider in all this is the relationship between the rpms of the blades and the fps of the film. It seems very likely that that relationship was a strong consideration when they chose to use square or triangular blades, but why exactly is not obvious (there are multiple possible explanations, some biased towards flicker, some biased towards edge-to-edge brightness in the resulting image of the blade).

 

[obiwan2]

I always thought they were round

 

[franz bolo]

This photo seems to suggests that there is a flat edge. The other edge is washed out which is probably the reflective part.

FB

 

[Serafino]

Well I wonder--there has often seemed to be a black 'stripe' down the blades which can appear (now I think about it) right in the middle of a lit blade, it doesn't act like the effect of a flat plane being under-lit and therefore always appearing in the same place, it acts more like a feature which rotates with the blade, in and out of the light? Am I remembering this right?

 

[p0sitr0nic]

Well I wonder--there has often seemed to be a black 'stripe' down the blades which can appear (now I think about it) right in the middle of a lit blade, it doesn't act like the effect of a flat plane being under-lit and therefore always appearing in the same place, it acts more like a feature which rotates with the blade, in and out of the light? Am I remembering this right?

That black line is probably where either the triangular or whatever edged blade turned a corner onto the next facet.

 

[kurtyboy]

I always thought that was an uncoated side of the blade.

Well I wonder--there has often seemed to be a black 'stripe' down the blades which can appear (now I think about it) right in the middle of a lit blade, it doesn't act like the effect of a flat plane being under-lit and therefore always appearing in the same place, it acts more like a feature which rotates with the blade, in and out of the light? Am I remembering this right?

 

[Serafino]

That black line is probably where either the triangular or whatever edged blade turned a corner onto the next facet.

Awfully thick for that, and why *black*, why not wood-colored or some other random color from the construction?

I always thought that was an uncoated side of the blade.

Right, but why black? Trick of the lighting? Unlikely since they went to so much trouble to shine a light parallel to the axis of the camera lens for maximum reflection.

 

[LZeitgeist]

I read many years ago that the original blades were, in fact triangular in cross-section, covered in reflective material, and they were rotated by a motor build into the lightsaber grip. The rotation caused the flat sides to flash momentarily as the lights hit them.

They then rotoscoped over the flashing, spinning blade effect that the camera captured.

 

[p0sitr0nic]

Awfully thick for that, and why *black*, why not wood-colored or some other random color from the construction?



Right, but why black? Trick of the lighting? Unlikely since they went to so much trouble to shine a light parallel to the axis of the camera lens for maximum reflection.

Could simply be a trick of the light, it may be dark wood, or perhaps the wood was covered in something before the reflective was added? (what was used to make the reflective stuff stick to the wood?) I honestly dont know, but im betting that the dark lines are simply where the reflective stuff ISNT. Where the corner on the blade is, and the strip of reflection ends.

 

[Serafino]

Perhaps so. For me it is too early for bets, feels more like we're in the realm of fire sprinklers and sprocket gears with this stuff.

 

[Dann]

:lol