How to use the marker based motion capture technique for the making of lightsabers?

So I watched star wars yesterday, and I got curious of how they did the light saber-effect. I watched some videos on youtube where people basically pasted a mask on the wooden stick or whatever, and then moved the mask as they skimmed though every single frame. This seems really time consuming and I figured that there must be another way of doing this.

In the making of star wars, I would guess that they used infrared cameras and that captures receivers attached at the bottom and the top of the light saber. That's how they make every video game and sci-fi characters nowadays, so I figured, why not use the same technique for the making of a light saber?

Does anyone have an idea of how they did it?

I doubt they had that technique back in the 70s when it was originally made

Adding automatic trackers to the light sabre in software (e.g. After Effects or Motion) usually works pretty well, and all you have to do it give a helping hand now and then.

Lots of links teaching how to achieve this effect in AE, but perhaps this one that uses iMovie can also apply to FCPX?

The video is a real hoot!


www.objectustech.com/SaberFX-iMovie-lightsaber-effect