From Walt Disney Pictures comes “TRON: Legacy,” a high-tech adventure set in a digital world
From Walt Disney Pictures comes “TRON: Legacy,” a high-tech adventure set in a digital world that is unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, “TRON: Legacy” stars Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Boxleitner, James Frain, Beau Garrett and Michael Sheen and is produced by Sean Bailey, Jeffrey Silver and Steven Lisberger, with Donald Kushner serving as executive producer, and Justin Springer and Steve Gaub co-producing. The “TRON: Legacy” screenplay was written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz; story by Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz and Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal; based on characters created by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird.
Presented in Disney Digital 3D™, Real D 3D and IMAX® 3D and scored by Grammy® Award–winning electronic music duo Daft Punk, “TRON: Legacy” features cutting-edge, state-of-the-art technology, effects and set design that bring to life an epic adventure coursing across a digital grid that is as fascinating and wondrous as it is beyond imagination.
At the epicenter of the adventure is a father-son story that resonates as much on the Grid as it does in the real world: Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), a rebellious 27-year-old, is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his father, Kevin Flynn (Oscar® and Golden Globe® winner Jeff Bridges), a man once known as the world’s leading tech visionary.
When Sam investigates a strange signal sent from the old Flynn’s Arcade—a signal that could only come from his father—he finds himself pulled into a digital grid where Kevin has been trapped for 20 years. With the help of the fearless warrior Quorra (Olivia Wilde), father and son embark on a life-or-death journey across a visually stunning digital landscape created by Kevin himself that has become far more advanced, with never-before-imagined vehicles, weapons, landscapes and a ruthless villain who will stop at nothing to prevent their escape.
THE VISIONARIES
First released in 1982, the original “TRON” was Walt Disney Studios’ groundbreaking high-tech film from visionary writer/director Steven Lisberger, who went on to become a producer on “TRON: Legacy.” “TRON” pioneered the use of computer graphics, virtual sets and backlit effects. Its unique blend of 70mm live action, CG, and hand-drawn animation was a major motion-picture studio first. As a result, “TRON” became a cult classic that has remained firmly in the currents of popular culture for more than 25 years and is now cherished as a defining moment for effects movies.
Today’s exciting technological advances led to some exhilarating possibilities in visualizing a “TRON” stand-alone follow-up film that would play to present-day audiences. With Generation XBOX hooked into the Internet, phones that are tiny computers and everyone playing games wirelessly, the world we live in was only dreamt of when “TRON” was made.
Steven Lisberger was instrumental in trying to get “TRON: Legacy” off the ground. “We started discussions at Disney about ten years ago...I’ve seen numerous Disney executives go from black hair to grey in those years, and the film itself has changed over the years and gone through many different phases. When it emerged more recently, I think there was a sense that the right group of people somehow had now all arrived at the right spots. We explored some roads before this, but after a while we realized they really didn’t resonate with the times. But this storyline did.”
Producer Sean Bailey, who was then president of Idealogy, Inc., takes up the story, revealing that he and his team were brought on board to speed up development around four years ago. “Disney had played around with a couple of drafts written in the ’90s and couldn’t find something they were satisfied with, so they brought us on to see what we could do. We were honestly just developing, coming up with ideas and meeting with writers.”
As the movie was bubbling along in early development, a lucky break saw co-producer Justin Springer discovering director Joseph Kosinski’s test reel almost by accident. Despite Kosinski’s lack of movie experience, his talent was clearly proven in his unique visionary approach as a commercial director on campaigns such as “Halo,” “Gears of War” and Nike.
Armed with a degree in architecture from Columbia University, Kosinski has a flair for design and aesthetics as well as a comfort level with digital technology that comes through in his work. “The whole way we make movies is changing, and I’m convinced Joe [Kosinski] is one of the leaders of that revolution,” says Bailey.
Sean Bailey recalls the early days with first-time director Joseph Kosinski. “I met Joe and was immediately struck by his vision, his story sense and his confidence. We then went into the studio and talked about how we wanted to advance the process. The confidence Joe inspired is what got us to that first VFX test.”
Kosinski, Bailey and the rest of the team convinced the Disney executives to authorize a proof-of-concept test, which was a short film showing what today’s technology could do with the iconic elements of the “TRON” digital world, such as Lightcycles and disc battles. The result was an amazing piece of footage that wowed the crowd at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con and the filmmakers got approval to start work on the film itself.
All the newest technology gives “TRON: Legacy” its cutting-edge look and feel, since the filmmakers had far fewer limitations for what computers can achieve. But even with the obvious visual advantages, the filmmakers have striven to keep the spirit of Lisberger’s dream intact.
To pull that off, the movie gathers together some of the most sophisticated filmmaking technology available today, including even more advanced cameras than those used on “Avatar,” a blend of computer graphics and practical sets.
With that technology put in the hands of talented, creative designers and visionary filmmakers, above and below the line, “TRON: Legacy” showcases cutting-edge design and astounding visual effects enhanced by the latest stereoscopic (3D) technology. The film blends live action and photorealistic computer animation in ways only dreamed of in the past. As producer Jeffrey Silver says, “It seemed obvious that ‘TRON,’ being the groundbreaking film that it was in the ’80s, had to be followed with a film equally as groundbreaking in the 21st century. If we were going to do ‘TRON: Legacy’ right, we would have to push the envelope. And we did.”
THE EVOLUTION OF THE STORY
In 1982, when Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) made it out of the Grid alive and back in control of Encom, the company he founded with his longtime friend and associate, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), everyone assumed Kevin would be content with developing and producing popular games.
On the surface of things, that appeared so: Kevin married, had a son, Sam, and settled into fatherhood while he and Alan grew Encom into a video game powerhouse. But unbeknownst to outsiders, Kevin was still experimenting with teleportation, making frequent visits back to the Grid from the privacy of his secret lab hidden beneath Flynn’s Arcade. Then one day Kevin simply vanished, and Sam was left alone with no father and no answers.
And twenty years later, “TRON: Legacy” begins.
When a pager signal draws the now-adult Sam (Garrett Hedlund) to Flynn’s Arcade and he is transported to the Grid where his father has been trapped for 20 years, he begins a journey that will change his life—and the life of his long-absent father.
Steven Lisberger feels that it is important to have a story that is as significant as all the technical aspects that go into the film. “I care about story and characters as much as I do the visuals. The story aspect of Flynn still being alive and the father-son story is really compelling in ‘TRON: Legacy.’ It will resonate with the fan base, but if someone hasn’t seen the first film, it doesn’t matter—the story will work for him or her too,” he says.
Jeff Bridges, who reprises his role of Kevin Flynn from the original “TRON,” comments, “One of the underlying elements of the story is technology. It’s so exciting to realize all the things that you can do. But what's happening with technology is that it is developing so fast that we haven’t really developed any ethics to go along with it, or knowledge of what some of the ramifications of this technology will be. So that’s also a theme that ‘TRON: Legacy’ deals with.”
THE MAKING OF “TRON: LEGACY”
Joseph Kosinski is very clear in defining his approach to the making of “TRON: Legacy”: “My goal was to really make it feel real. I wanted it to feel like we took motion picture cameras into the world of TRON and shot it. So I wanted to build as many sets as possible. I wanted the materials to be real materials: glass, concrete, steel, so it had this kind of visceral quality to it.”
To achieve the exciting, iconic look for “TRON: Legacy,” Kosinski gathered around him artists from diverse disciplines. “We pulled people from the world of architecture, from automotive design, people who have never worked in movies before. We flew people in from all over the world,” says Kosinski.
Kosinski and his team knew they would be pushing the boundaries of what current effects technology can achieve to make “Legacy” in the spirit of “TRON.” The result is a complicated blend of techniques, from blue screen to 3D cameras, that Kosinski and his team have melded together for the film. Kosinski explains, “I’m going more on instinct rather than experience, but a lot of the technology we’re using is stuff I’ve used bits and pieces of in commercials. However, this is the first time we’re using it simultaneously at this scale.”
According to Bailey, though, the driving force is still the plot. “We took every technology at its most cutting edge at the moment in time, but I always think it’s not just technology for technology’s sake, but as we do some twists in the movie, it enables us to write in a whole new way. I think we will be the first movie that has an actor squaring off against himself in two very different generations. I hope we will surprise the audience not just in an, ‘oh that’s a cool, glorious effect’ way, but also in an, ‘oh I never saw that coming’ way.”
In addition to the technological complexities of “TRON: Legacy,” it is also produced in 3D. As Bailey comments, “3D is definitely a challenge technically; the cameras are bigger and heavier and there are a lot of extra variables that you have to take into account, so it definitely slows the process down. But I think it’s a great reason to go to the movies because it’s an experience that you just can’t recreate on an iPhone or your laptop or at home.”
“It was important for me that this be a true 3D movie,” says Kosinski. “There are a lot of movies out there right now that are being converted from 2D after the fact. But with the environments we’ve created—the fact that we’re trying to get atmosphere and these long, distant vistas—we just can’t do it any other way than shoot it with real 3D cameras.”
Kosinski continues, “It is a lot more work to shoot in 3D; the VFX are being finished in 3D, which is also a challenge. Having to create separate imagery for both eyes makes it that much more work.”
For shooting “TRON: Legacy” in 3D, the filmmakers employed the newest generation of camera, built specifically for them, and used a 3D technique that is a combination of technologies—completely digital motion-capture of a character and the live-action camera system. The filmmakers searched for actors who could bring the vision of “TRON: Legacy” to life—whether they played “users” or “programs.” The first task was to draw Jeff Bridges in to reprise his role of Kevin Flynn, the genius game developer—and to play opposite his younger self as Clu. Bridges, who won an Oscar® for his leading role in “Crazy Heart,” was not hard to convince. “I got a pitch from the director, Joe Kosinski,” says the iconic actor.
“You’ve got to give Disney credit for seeing his potential. They were smart because he’s such a calm, can-do guy. Joe made a wonderful pitch on the story, where it was going, and that was intriguing to me. Then he showed me his reel, and I saw some of the technology that he had available to him. So then, it was basically the same reason that I did the first one—it was cutting-edge technology at that time, and this one certainly is for this time. Plus, it’s a whole different way of making movies that I haven't experienced.”
THE LOOK OF “TRON: LEGACY”
The filmmakers and designers of “TRON: Legacy” let their creativity soar to develop an exciting aesthetic for the film that would immerse audiences in a stunning visual landscape never before seen—or imagined.
With director Joseph Kosinski at the helm to steer the film’s look and Darren Gilford tapped as production designer, it was clear to both of them that keeping the first film’s spirit alive was key. “The first film established a look that was so iconic,” Gilford explains, “and a lot of that was because of the limitations of the computer, what they really could do back in the ’80s. It was very geometric, very simplistic. With the computer technology we have now, it’s limitless what we can do. But we made a conscious decision that we would not go totally organic. We’d soften shapes and forms where we could, but we would definitely try and maintain those basic ‘TRON’ geometric shapes.”
To accomplish this, heavyweight talents were required, including concept artist David Levy. It was his job to convert Kosinski’s ideas to drawings and designs and establish the new film as its own world. “Joe’s vision evolved the visuals from the first film. He wanted the Grid to feel exactly like our reality, but with a twist,” Levy says.
Kosinski’s aim was to blend the real and the unreal without anyone noticing. “I don’t want the audience to know where the line rests, so sometimes I’m going to shoot everything completely practical, and then sometimes, it will be one practical set piece surrounded by blue screen. And if we do it right, it should be unnoticeable; it should be seamless,” says Kosinski.
In this respect, “TRON: Legacy” strays far away from the original. “The marriage of photorealistic computer-generated images and actual practical sets really gives you a sense of the world that you’re in,” says Jeff Bridges. “In the original ‘TRON’ we didn’t have that because it was basically black duvetyn with white adhesive tape marking things; we never got the feeling of where we actually were. There’s nothing like walking onto the set for the first time and seeing it all dressed.”
Thus, with Kosinski’s set-creation mantra in place and his control of the production design, “TRON: Legacy” does not become an entirely CGI movie. Vancouver’s spectacular new Shangri-La Hotel doubled as Encom, and Sam’s shipping container apartment was built on a wharf across the inlet from Vancouver to make best use of a stunning view of the city’s skyline. Other sets, including Flynn’s Arcade, Kevin’s safe house, and the End of Line Club were built on one of six sound stages.
Whole streets on the grid were built here, too, on a scale greater than that of most real city streets. “When Sam first walks out of the arcade onto the Grid,” says production designer Darren Gilford, “a Recognizer comes down and plucks him off the street. So the Recognizer defines the size of the city street, and a Recognizer is about seventy feet wide. From that proportion alone we knew the minimal amount of city we needed, which was about two city blocks. It was a huge, huge build.”
Twenty to 25 designers in various art departments churned out concepts and from those Kosinski and his team created the sets—from real-world locations, mixtures of real architecture with blue screen, to fully digital sets. Gilford estimates that there are between 60 and 70 unique settings in the film, split between 15 impressive fully-constructed sets and varying levels of computer-created landscapes.
The special challenge was creating the look of the Grid. Kosinski explains: “Every film requires location scouting and sets. With my background in design I realized that especially for a film like this where everything has to be designed, I needed to be paying attention to the design of the spaces. Because there is no location we can go and shoot a scene for this movie. Every single shot in the TRON digital world had to be built from scratch.”
While a lot of production took place on soundstages in Vancouver, the filmmakers decided to ease into shooting with some shots on location in the city itself—a goal easier said than done. Bailey says, “We knew moving into the TRON grid, we would be tackling three to five unprecedented technologies in concert, which we knew would be really hard. So, for the crew to get their feet, we thought, ‘Let’s knock out a couple of weeks in the real world.’ The real-world shooting turned out to be anything but small—it was shooting guys on top of the tallest building and involved shutting down the biggest street in the city.”
Finally, since “TRON: Legacy” will be released in 3D, filmmakers were confronted with a unilateral challenge, one which would influence every decision made on the visual aspects of the film. Production designer Gilford says, “There are certain aspects that we had to design around and certain rules we had to obey. For example, when moving the 3D camera rig, one camera could reveal a light source a split second before the other. It can be a nightmare.”
Much care and foresight was also taken in the production design to incorporate iconic images from the mythology of “TRON.” For example, the art department incorporated many of the original film’s images and props into Flynn’s secret lab beneath the arcade. Those with a sharp eye will recognize the Master Control Program desk caddy from the original film, the tabletop computer interface and a condensed version of the Shiva laser, which takes Sam into the Grid. Others will make out a map of the Grid embedded in the code of the background image and Sam’s drawings from childhood on the wall.
While creating the look wasn’t always easy, Gilford admits that it proved to be immensely gratifying: “For a designer, this was a dream, and for my team as well. I really felt that we were able to assemble one of the most unbelievable art departments for ‘TRON: Legacy.’ It was incredibly challenging—but we had a blast doing it.”
GRID LIFESTYLE
The most important unifying element in the Grid is light. “In our film light links everything together. There are ribbons of light that form beneath the street then crawl up sidewalks and buildings, continuing for miles up into the city,” comments production designer Gilford. “Streetlights arise out of and wrap over the street to give the illusion they’re cradling the street.”
At the End of Line Club at the top of the Grid’s mile-high skyscraper, light is embedded in almost every surface: ribbons of light wrap around the floor and ceiling and around the booths. Even the drinks are illuminated. And the club’s roof and walls are glass, offering a view of the city lights and the beacon of the distant portal.
But the element of light is perhaps best identified in the lit suits, which were a challenge to construct. Lead concept artist Neville Page and director Kosinski believed the suits they conceived could be made and shot “practical,” that is, without the use of CGI—so the designers went to work to make them a reality.
In the end the lighted suits were created by using electroluminescent lamps made from a flexible polymer film. Most of the form-fitting suits were made out of foam latex, but the Sirens’ suits were made by spraying balloon rubber over spandex, giving an incredible, super-sleek shape. The actors wearing those suits had to be severely compressed within the suits to compensate for the bulk of the electronics.
“In addition to the main cast costumes,” adds Christine Bieselin Clark, who worked with the film’s costume designer Michael Wilkinson, “we also built all of our background costumes. Once you go into the Grid, everybody has some element of light. We ended up making over 140 foam suits, which there is no precedent for.”
The body-molded suits with their distinct lighting patterns are influencing clothes and shoe designers, with “TRON: Legacy” fashion elements showing up on runways and in fashion magazines. The distinctive hairstyles, such as upswept hair, and the bold eye-makeup treatments are setting new style trends around the world.
The architecture of “TRON: Legacy” features minimalist interiors and modern, light-enhancing building angles with extensive use of architectural under-lighting and lighted floor track lines. In Kevin Flynn’s safe house, neo-Victorian furniture is featured in the minimalist interior, creating a look that blends the old with the new.
Given his architectural background, it’s no surprise that director Joseph Kosinski admits Flynn’s safe house is his favorite set on the movie. “It’s just a gorgeous set. It was one that I actually just sketched on a scrap of paper as a look when we were doing the VFX test before the movie even started. The idea is that Kevin Flynn is trapped in the world of computers, so he’s tried to create a space that has hints of the real world. The furniture, the food, just the feel is like something only a human being in a digital grid would try to create in order to make themselves feel as comfortable as possible.”
Grid-dwellers entertain themselves with gladiator-like games, where combatants square off against each other with light discs and batons, and enjoy watching deadly Lightcycle races in huge stadiums with multilevel tracks. The games are an important part of the Grid-dwellers’ lives and their principal form of entertainment in the boundary-defined digital grid.
Kosinski and his design teams worked to bring the games and races to a whole new dimension…literally. “We wanted to evolve these games by taking them off a two-dimensional plane and moving them into three dimensions, so you end up with a three-dimensional chess game in terms of choreography. For instance, in the Lightcycle match we’ve got ten Lightcycles going simultaneously on a multilevel grid,” explains Kosinski.
As long as they are on the Grid the programs are enhanced and surrounded by light, whether they are walking on the city streets, viewing the games, or relaxing at the End of Line Club—but off the Grid in the Outlands only darkness and treacherous terrain await.
VEHICLES & GADGETS
Lightcycles are an important and vital part of the TRON mythology. One of the designers who worked on the sleek, reconfigured Lightcycles in “TRON: Legacy” is Daniel Simon, a former car designer for Bugatti, who used, as a basis, the original sketches by Syd Mead, the designer of the Lightcycles for “TRON.”
Simon explains the challenges: “A Lightcycle forms a visual unit with its rider. His helmet and body become part of the bike design and stance—but you still need to give him freedom to move. That’s not in your catalogue; you have to start from scratch.”
Moreover, adds Simon, “The Lightcycles are created out of a baton, so I had to design the entire inside of the bike, every screw and gear, so Digital Domain could transform it in animation. That was interesting, developing the look of how a vehicle might grow.”
Other vehicles in “TRON: Legacy” include the Light Runner, on the Grid a powerful racing car but in the Outlands a tough off-roader; the Recognizer, a huge, U-shaped vehicle that roams the streets looking for wayward programs; Solar Sailers that are flying cargo ships; and Clu’s Rectifier battleship, which is three times larger than any aircraft carrier in the real world, holding Clu’s entire army.
And while one would expect these amazing vehicles to be entirely computer-generated creations, many were also practically built for certain scenes, in keeping with Kosinski’s desire to constantly blur the line between CGI and reality. The filmmakers contracted a company called Wild Factory, who builds prototypes for Volkswagen, to take on the task of bringing some of the vehicles to reality.
On the back of every illuminated suit is a light disc and as in “TRON,” the discs play very significantly in “TRON: Legacy.” The light disc represents the power source, essence and memory bank of every program.
Used as a weapon, it will return to its user like a boomerang. The light discs that were created for the film consist of 134 LED lights, are radio-controlled and attached to the light suits with a magnet. They also house the batteries and electronics that power the light suits.
EFFECTS & TECHNOLOGY
“TRON: Legacy” is a showcase for today’s technology and features some firsts in cinematic history: It is the first 3D movie to integrate a fully digital head and body to create the younger version of Jeff Bridges' character; the first to make extensive use of self-illuminated costumes; the first to create molded costumes using digital sculpture exclusively, creating molds directly from computer files using CNC (Computer Numerical Cutting) technology; and the first 3D movie shot with 35mm lenses and full-35mm chip cameras.
“TRON: Legacy” took the technology known as facial capture to an extraordinary new level. Using a 3D scan of Jeff Bridges, a mold of his face was built and from that a mask was made with 52 holes in it, acting as a template for the facial marker dots tracked by four lipstick cameras attached to a carbon-fiber custom helmet. Meanwhile, a three-dimensional digital version of Bridges was created by Digital Domain using dozens of photographs of Bridges in his early 30s, its movements correlated with the 52 facial markers on the performance mask.
It was the filmmakers’ biggest technical hurdle. As director Kosinski says, “I don’t think there is anything more difficult than creating a digital human that’s going to be in the same scene with other real human beings. And to top that off, it’s a digital human that people know…and we must capture all the charisma and personality of Jeff Bridges.”
When playing Clu, Bridges had the 52 markers drawn on his face and wore the Helmet Mounted Camera (HMC); his facial movements fed into the computer and were used to control the expressions and movements of the digital head. Thus, the digital performance of a younger Bridges was controlled by the real Bridges’ performance, as if the younger Bridges were actually on screen. The information sent to the computer made it possible to instruct the digital head to speak and emote in the exact same way Jeff Bridges would on set.
“Clu had to look, feel, breathe and act exactly like the young Jeff,” comments Academy Award® winner Eric Barba, the film’s visual effects supervisor. “Jeff gave us some really great performances to do that with, but it had to be a believable, realistic human—and in this case a perfect early-1980s Jeff Bridges. We took our E-motion Capture technology and pushed it far beyond anything we’ve done. It raised the bar higher than we’ve seen before.”
“TRON: Legacy” is the first film to use the Helmet Mounted Camera in live action, allowing the actor to interact with others in the scene. The technique, as producer Sean Bailey points out, “enabled us to come up with scenes that weren’t possible. And we had a different challenge than ‘Benjamin Button’: what Brad Pitt looks like at eighty years old is speculative, but most people know what Jeff Bridges looked like when he was in ‘Against All Odds,’ so we had to match that. It wasn’t just technology for technology’s sake; it enabled us to write in a whole new way.”
Jeff Bridges embraced the new technology on a personal level. “I love going to movies and whenever I see a big epic film where the character has aged from being a young boy to an old man, traditionally there are different actors playing him in those stages. That’s always a little bump for me as I’m sitting there, when they change from one actor to the next. But now as an actor it’s very gratifying to know that I can play myself or the character that I'm playing at any age, from an infant to an old man. That’s really exciting, especially to be part of this groundbreaking technology.”
As technology strives to create ever more realistic immersive experiences, the question arises as to how far the integration of humans and computers can really go. Does the premise of “TRON: Legacy” bear any relation to reality? The filmmakers wanted the movie to be grounded in a sense of reality and have a sense of scientific truth. They felt if the audiences feel there is some underlying scientific premise that has been broken, then the story won’t feel real.
So through producer Jeffrey Silver the filmmakers reached out to the National Academy of Sciences’ Science and Entertainment Exchange to advise them, asking questions like: Could you inject a digital version of a human being into a computer? And, could a digital personality be reconstituted into human form? They brought scientists in for a roundtable discussion just to talk about some of the fundamental concepts of “TRON: Legacy.”
The answers surprised them. It seems that if one had enough computing power and employed the principles of quantum physics in a theoretical process known as quantum teleportation, then it could happen. “We were delighted; it set off our imaginations. Science fiction is not supposed to be reality; it’s an extrapolation of what is possible, intended to ignite the imagination,” says Silver.
Director Kosinski adds, “It was amazing how many of these scientists said that movies like ‘TRON’ can inspire them in their research to think about things in a different way. So it was a really cool experience.”
THE “TRON: LEGACY” EXPERIENCE
The 3D experience of “TRON: Legacy” will bring viewers into the Grid, and along for the ride, more than any other film in cinematic history. Using the next generation of 3D technology developed after “Avatar,” “TRON: Legacy” will allow the audience to experience the digital grid and be part of the action in the highly stylized landscape.
Shooting in 3D achieves an immersive experience for the audience that mimics the immersive experience Sam has inside the computer; the audience does not simply witness Sam’s journey inside the Grid, they travel alongside him. The effect is enhanced by opening in 2D for the real-world scenes then switching to 3D when Sam enters the digital grid.
As Joseph Kosinski explains, “Ours is sort of a ‘Wizard of Oz’ approach. Ninety-eight percent of the 3D is in the digital TRON grid. The 3D really starts once we get into the Grid.”
“TRON: Legacy” will also be presented in IMAX theaters, so the filmmakers are making preparations to enhance the audience’s enjoyment by providing a unique experience. Specifically, they are finishing several sections of the film in a tall format—not letterbox—and in an IMAX theater, that means black bars at the top and bottom of the frame will disappear and it will become a full-screen sequence.
Director Kosinski elaborates: “In IMAX theaters there are several sequences, amounting to about 35 minutes in the film, that will open up to an expanded aspect ratio. We’ll be switching from 2.35 to 1.78, which will provide more image at the top and bottom of the screen. This will create an even more immersive 3D experience.”
The “TRON: Legacy” audiences will discover an exciting, evolved grid that pulsates with the latest technology, stunning visual effects and leading-edge design. With an insightful father-son story that’s grounded in cultural reality, a strong, relatable female lead and a unique, one-of-a kind style, “TRON: Legacy” blends what’s real with super-imaginative, eye-popping visuals and 3D action.