Vegas Sabers - Filming the Duel

So how is it done? In summary: (1) film a duel, (2) create a saber, (3) overlay the saber, (4) add a glow, (5) spend an entire day animating the effect frame by frame and (6) polish the effect with sound and light. Easy, is it not?

Filming the Duel

is was simple for my test. I nabbed a co-worker and two sticks and shot some video. We shot against a green screen, but that was just happenstance; you'll notice the wall is not properly lit for chromakeying. Planning the choreography a bit and practicing would be a good idea, too. Fast swings aimed at the body and not at the other person's stick are required. In my example, we did none of this as I just wanted to see if the effect could be done. The saber handle itself is easy enough: you can buy replicas on the 'Net. But real lightsabers are constructed by their owners, so yours should be too. (Obi-wan's saber in Episode IV was the handle to a piece of photographic equipment.) Use pipe insulation around a stick to reduce injuries.

Create a Saber

This is probably the easiest step. All light sabers are basically white, with the color comming from the glow on the overlay in your video editor. I created two large sabers (400 pixels) with color fringes, but I don't think the fringe is really necessary (the roughness of the edge is completely hidden by the glow you'll add later). The color can be easily modified using hue and saturation controls. I used the PNG format since it supports alpha channel transparency to make the background transparent. I used PhotoImpact to create a selection area which I then specified to be the alpha channel. Other formats support alpha transparency, TGA for example, or you can generate a matte by keying in your editing app. The authenticity of the shape is up to you. I tapered mine. Sith sabers are tapered, some of the original art from the 1970s has tapered sabers, but the ones in the movies have either very subtle tapering or none at all.

Once you have your transparent background saber and some footage, it's time to fire up your editing application.

Creating the Effect -->