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New Star Wars Parody Just Finished

September 15th, 2009 | Posted in Cool Videos, Entertainment, Misc Assorted General Stuff | 6 Comments

Something over a year ago I began work on a short Star Wars parody, partly because I wanted to have some fun with lightsabers in a video and partly because I just plain liked the idea.  Besides, once I thought of it, it just wouldn’t go away so I got out my (at the time) new camcorder and shot some footage and began work on frame by frame rotoscoping to create the lightsabers.

After about a month and a half or so of working on it in my spare time I was actually close to finished when the project had to be sidelined because of more important things going on.  I’ve only recently found the unfinished project and completed it.  And yes, it actually did take that long in spite of how short the action really is.  I realize that this kind of video looks like it’s be some of the best fat burner exercises around but in truth shooting the original footage only took about three minutes.

The part that took so long was the rotoscoping work to create the lightsabers.  They had to be inserted into each frame of video and at 30 frames per second that’s a LOT of editing to do.  Each blade has at least one and sometimes two layers of editing, each layer represents another trip through every frame of video so that’s four editing passes plus a fifth to add in the sparking flashes when the two blades meet and then a sixth to add the force lightning.

It’s painstaking work and I’m not even CLOSE to being as skilled as the guys at Lucasfilm or ILM but I think that the results are easily worth it and yes, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

[Edited 11/19/09 Because I decided to take the original video down, replace the music and re-upload.  Click the (more info) link on the YouTube page for this video for full details]

[Tags]filmmaking, star wars, young jedi, jedi training, jedi, lightsaber, force lightning, star wars parody, ls maker, wax 2.0, remix, music, replaced[/tags]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 19:50 and is filed under Cool Videos, Entertainment, Misc Assorted General Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “New Star Wars Parody Just Finished”


  1. The specials effects are nice. Great video !


  2. I think it turned out pretty good given what I was using for lightsaber props.


  3. Nice video i enjoyed it.
    .-= sus@heirloom beds´s last blog ..The truth behind the demise of cabinet made furniture pt3 =-.


  4. Glad you liked it.  I had fun creating it.


  5. Brilliant, all the hard work paid off. I have rotoscoped a lightsaber into a still image and that was hard enough to do so with video I can imagine the work.
    .-= Mik´s last blog ..I had a dream – matey =-.


  6. Thanks. I have to say though that the work wasn’t really “hard” at all.  Tedious as all get out, yes but not hard.  Making this little clip gave me new respect for the guys that did the much longer lightsaber fight scenes in the Star Wars movies.  Especially the ones like in a battle in Attack of the clones where there were easily a dozen active sabers in one scene!