Friday, January 14, 2011

Jeff Bridges' Tron Trench Coat

I'd like to start by stating a fact: no one saw Tron: Legacy without wondering how they can make their own Tron trench coat Jeff Bridges sported when he clicked on the bad ass switch.

Image courtesy of the Internet. No really why couldn't the whole of the Internet give me a better picture? Thanks Internet.
As the fact stated, I left the theater with my head full of light-up jacket lining dreams. Later, when I was killing time at work, I decided to look up how they heck they did that.

Being a nerd the first thing I thought of was some form of flat EL wire. After many different attempts I failed to find anything of merit.

I found a video with the costume designer. While an interesting watch, gave no clues to the fabrication of this particular vestment.

Low quality image courtesy
of an over priced VHS tape. 
I found a forum post with some sap asking where he can find the jacket Mr. Bridges wore in the first Tron. Really dude? I'll grant you that the posting was pre-Tron: Legacy, but it's not that cool.

After seeing so many others looking for the same answer, on the edge of giving up, I stumbled on light tape. They make a sample kit that would be perfect for would be Tron trench coat makers. The kit is a strip 2" wide and a foot long that runs off a 9 volt power pack the size of a trench coat pocket*. You might need two kits.

So get to it Internet. Make some Tron coats that light up from the inside. Make so many they go for cheap on ebay because there is no way I have the tailoring skill required to craft it.

*May fit in other coat pockets as well.

4 comments:

  1. Interesting thought: I've been looking into EL wire because at some point, I'm going to build a tron-themed guitar. I figured I could use some orange EL wire and embed it into the body and neck of the guitar and see how that works.

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  2. In tron they used an el fabric material like this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFC83Uv8wlE

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQpkIGIaE8Y&NR=1

    Way more flexible than el strips made from plastic but hard to get hold of.

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  3. That is so amazing!

    We got a comment from someone not us.

    ReplyDelete