Star Wars: 10 Secrets Of The Lightsaber You Need To Know
3. The SFX For The Lightsabers Were Painstaking
As difficult as it was to construct the lightsaber props, inserting the SFX for the blades was a whole other nightmare. Without the aid of computers, many people assume the animator drew in the blade frame-by-frame. This is a tedious process but still simple in concept. Although it's true the animator, Nelson Shin, rotoscoped in the blade in every single shot, it was far from simple.
First off, the blade had to consist of a three-sided rod, which was wrapped in a reflective material. The rod was then spun around using a motor built into the hilt, which generated a glowing effect. Because this effect was inconsistent depending on how much light was visible, Shin had to vary how much light he traced in on every frame with pen and ink. Not only that, Shin had to deliberately make the blade's light wobble like a fluorescent tube since the lightsaber's movements looked unnatural if the glow was too smooth.
Even though this process sounds mindbogglingly exhausting, Nelson Shin completed all the lightsaber special effects for the original film in a single week.
Check the video below for a more in-depth explanation of how each lightsaber effect changed movie by movie.