Undertaker's lightning bolts
 

Are they special effects? Do the live crowd actually seem them?

It's magic

It's a television effect.

Not true. I was at the RAW when Takers casket was hit my lightning and I can tell you first hand that THERE WAS in fact a bold of lightning, generated from a Tesla Coil from the rigging to a Super Conductive Receiver on the casket. It is a simple "pyro" rigging.

The term Lightning in a bottle has to come from somewhere right?

Always just assumed it twas some kinda fancy lighting schtick.

all lightning (for film and tv) is done with large strobes that flash off camera

we can not generate actual bolts of electricity flying through the air

Not with that attitude you can't.

no attitude, but you guys don't seem to realize how dangerous that would be

arcing high voltage through the air in a crowded arena using a telsa coil

27 people died when GWAR tried to do that

nah j/k

GWAR never played a crowded arena

He's a Sith Lord.

They prop your mom up above the rafters and give her titty twisters so she shoots them from her vagina, Guru Dave

beat me to it.

Please. We used to pull off theatrical lightning in the fucking Boy Scouts.

Electricity shooting through the air, no problem, it can even play tunes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1O2jcfOylU

You can also use a wire to give the electricity a path to follow, much like a lightning rod.

Clearly faked.

And there goes that last bit of a magic I happily accepted with pro-wrestling. Thanks for killing Santa Claus, I should have never read this thread.

You're a bright man, Kal. You should have already known there was no such thing as lightning.

It was real to me, dammit.

Yes telsa coils work, doesn't mean a company would build one 20 times that size to shoot high voltage over a crowd of paying spectators..

Just going to float the fact that it's entirely possible to create the appearance of lightning without current levels significant enough to be dangerous to people.

Well, under normal circumstances. But WWE uses pyro, and even Owen Hart's stunt would normally be safe.

so the tampa bay lighting do a similar thing to the video posted, but it doesnt arc between two points (meaning it's uncontrolled) and seems fairly tame

talked to my dad who told me some crazy shit

back in the day alot of movie lighting was "arc" lighting, meaning they ran DC.. DC is high amprage, lower voltage, and safer than AC, which is higher voltage, lower amprage (ohm's law of resistance).. anyway, misunderstanding my question about making lightning, my dad proceeded to tell me that "back in the day" they used to tie 2 carbon rods to a "hot" DC run (having cut notches into one of the rods) and they would rub them together to make lightning effects for movies.. he said the "arc's" would throw about 2'-3'..

that seems insane to me

I was just gonna mention when I was at the lightning game a couple of weeks ago they had lightning. So I imagine the Undertaker is a fan of theirs.

I get the feeling you don't understand a word you just wrote.

Watch out, he'll ban you!

That's what I said.

You use that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

And an expert disagreed with you. :p

DC is more dangerous than AC. Purely because if you touch a DC live wire, the current will make your muscles contract tightly, and more than likely stick you to the live wire.

Touch a live AC line and it will rapidly contract and extend your muscles, more than likely throwing you away from the live wire.

And you mention Ohms law, well Ohms law is valid whether DC or AC. If you have 100 Watts of power it could be 10 Volts at 10 Amps or 100 Volts at 1 Amp or 1 Volt at 100 Amps.

Personally I would rather be zapped by a high voltage at low current than a low voltage at high current. (Car batteries are only 12v, but have a discharge of 300+ amps in bigger cars).

Lightning is generally very high voltage at relatively low current, though obviously this would vary from strike to strike.

you would rather be "bitten" by something that could potentially kill you, as opposed to something that could just hurt you

that seems smart

and you are absolutely wrong about AC "throwing you away"

anything suspect of being hot with AC you are supposed to hit it with the back of yr hand bc if you grab it, you might never let it go

my dad saw a guy die in the 80's off of 3/0 120 vac 15 amp run

meaning a regular SJO (number 8 3 wire) extension cord

i also know a guy who had 2 molars blown out of his head because of his fillings when he got bit off a 100 amp 220 (actually 208 in 3/0) vac run

That's not what he said. He'd rather be "bit" by the one that is less likely to kill him, which is high voltage at low current.

It's a common saying, that while incorrect is close enough: it's not the voltage, but the current that kills you. You also don't know what Ohm's Law means.

You've got that backwards. Though anything suspected of being hot period is best not handled by hands at all. I'm surprised they don't instrut you better in safety.

It's the alternating part of the term alternating current that should be the clue, for the record. AC rapidly changes the direction its field flows. When applied to a human muscle, the end result is expansion and contraction with the frequency. This is why RVDMark says it'll likely throw you away: muscle spasms at that frequency can do that.

The real danger of AC is its impact on your heart, since that's a muscle.

Now, that's not to say that it's guaranteed you won't latch on (The frequency of commercial power is high enough), but it's inane to think that alternating current would be more prone to this than direct current, which has continuous strength. If your ilk was to get this wrong, you'd think they'd go for the folk wisdom version, which is the "blown away" Hollywood version.