Lightsaber Props with REAL light.
 

Hey guys. Filming of the final scene for my fanfilm will most likely occur in about 3 weeks to a month from now. We need to quickly build our lightsaber props. Here's what I've come up with. We want to have the blade actually cast light onto the actors face. We have thought up of two ways to do this, and I need advice on both of them.

1. We build the blade prop from clear polycarbonite tubing and fill it will roadside glowsticks for illumination.

2. We build the blade prop again from clear polycarbonite tubing, but store a battery somehow in the hilt and use those "neon tubes" you see to light up the inside of someones car, or to go underneath the car to illuminate the road underneath. At Target, they have some that are not made of glass, and wouldn't break on contact with another blade.

The problem is, Number 2 would be harder to pull off. The problem with Number 1, is that we are not sure the glow sticks will be bright enough to put out enough light. After all this is filmed, I will use Adobe After Effects to add the visual effect of the glowing blade. But to tie that effects into reality, the blade needs to cast light onto the actors.

If we want to go with number two, do you guys have any suggestions? Heck, do you guys in general have any better suggestions? Come on guys, help me out here.

Well what I see here is that the neons will work fine but you need. a tube of some sort to diffuse the light from it....try getting a tube that's been frosted on the inside...

Take lexan, scratch one side up pretty good and make that into a tube...

experiment!

Use the clear polycarbonate for the light. Line with Rosco gels of your favorite color. For a handle (and light source) get a big Maglite (big flashlights cops use). The big ones are very bright. Put a mirror on the end to reflect more light back through the tube.