He then co-founded Rainbow Jam, a company which designed computerized light shows for rock concerts. After stints in the Naval Academy, the Merchant Marines and as a Wyoming ranch hand, Taylor earned a graduate degree in art and film from the University of Utah in 1969. He oversaw the design and programming of the film’s computer animation. Richard Taylor, who headed the Entertainment Technology Group at Information International Inc., was co-supervising the special effects on Tron. Ellenshaw has painted mattes for T he Man who Fell to Earth, Star Wars, The Black Hole, and was part of the team which won the optical effects Oscar for The Empire Strikes Back. Within 10 years he was considered one of the top matte artists in the film business. After earning a degree in psychology from Whittier College in 1964, Ellenshaw turned to art and apprenticed in the matte department at Disney Studios. Harrison Ellenshaw was associate producer and co-supervisor of special effects.
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Also, the 15 minutes of CGI and the over 50 minutes of backlit animation drove the cost of the movie to over $20M.
It therefore competed with several other major films, including ET: The Extraterrestrial, Blade Runner, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Poltergeist, Friday the 13th (Part 3), and Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan (and, of course, Porky’s).
One big reason is that its release, originally scheduled for Spring of 1982, was delayed until summer. Tron was not a box office success, for several reasons. The computer link cut between two-and-a-half to five days from the creation of each scene. Previously, the only way of previewing the scene was to film it, ship it to Burbank, get corrections made, ship it back to Elmsford… and continue this ping-ponging until the scene was correct. Corrections could then be made in the scene immediately. Before each scene was finalized in MAGI’s lab in Elmsford, N.Y., it was previewed on a computer monitor at Disney. MAGI, the single largest contributor of computer imagery, speeded the process of supplying its work to Disney Studios in Burbank by a trans-continental computer hook-up. (MAGI) and Digital Effects of New York – four of the nation’s foremost computer graphics houses – produced the computer imagery for Tron.Ĭomputer-generated landscapes, buildings and vehicles provided settings for live-action characters in the film’s electronic world. (Triple-I) and Robert Abel & Associates of Los Angeles, and the Mathematic Applications Group Inc. The technology was then diverted into the entertainment field. Government’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory outside Oakland, California.Ĭomputer graphics were first applied to aerospace and scientific research in the mid-1960s, when methods of simulating objects digitally in their dimensions proved as effective as building models. Photography for the real world took place at locations around Los Angeles, and at the U.S. The electronic world was shot on sound stages at Walt Disney Studio in Burbank. Tron is set in two worlds: the real world, where a vast computer system in a communications conglomerate is controlled by a single program and the electronic world, whose electric-and-light beings want to overthrow the program which controls their lives. Post-production continued through the spring of 1982 for a summer 1982 release by Buena Vista, in color by Technicolor.
Tron completed principal photography in July, 1981. Although CGI was used sparingly in movies before (eg, Westworld, Star Trek, Looker) Tron was the first motion picture to make such extensive use of computer imagery. Bruce Logan was director of photography.Ĭharacters in Tron are set in landscapes that could not physically exist in the real world, a world where terrains and vehicles are created by computers. Special effects were supervised by Ellenshaw and Richard Taylor. Harrison Ellenshaw was associate producer. Steven Lisberger makes his feature directorial debut on the film, which he scripted and developed with producer Donald Kushner.įuturistic industrial designer Syd Mead, comic artist Jean “Moebius” Giraud – whose work is a prime inspiration for the magazine Heavy Metal – and high-tech commercial artist Peter Lloyd served as special visual consultants. Starring in Tron are Jeff Bridges, David Warner, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan and Barnard Hughes. Tron brings to life a world where energy lives and breathes, where laws of logic are defied, where an electronic civilization thrives. “Walt Disney Productions has combined computer-generated imagery with special techniques in live-action photography that have marked a milestone in optical and light effects. The following text is from a 1982 press release: Steven Lisberger The 1982 movie Tron was produced by Walt Disney Productions, with CGI by MAGI, Digital Effects, Robert Abel and Associates, and Information International Inc.
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