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If you watch any of our videos or subscribe to any of our Social Media platforms (like Instagram or Facebook) you might have seen our lightsaber video. We made it the same week that The Force Awakens came out, and admittedly it was thrown together pretty quickly.
The lightsabers were just LED strips wrapped around some cardboard tubes we had lying around the office, but one thing I noticed while shooting the video is how good the swords looked. It was because the lights were reflecting off of things and giving everything a unique glow. You can see the video here if you'd like.
Now today I came across an article on Inverse about how the newest Star Wars film went back to basics for a lot of their special effects. But one thing stood out to me. The lightsabers they used were actually LED tubes.
Which might not be that big of a deal for you, but any fan of the original series knows that the old school lightsabers actually looked less like this:
And more like this:
That's right, during the original series the actors were fighting with sticks attached to handles. However now with the advent of LED technology, the lights are small and bright enough to be put inside the swords creating a cool effect.
Before they lit up the swords using effects in post-production but that didn't get the light on the actors' faces and clothes like it does with the LED swords. It turns out how we made our little light saber battle wasn't that far off from the real thing.
