If you’ve seen the new TRON: Legacy film then you saw the impressive scenes of the lightcycle races, and the fantastic crashes that resulted from them. That work was done by VICON House of Moves at their 26,000 square foot studio over two weeks of rehearsal and motion capture work.
The “TRON: Legacy” production crew spent five days rehearsing on the HOM stages followed by seven days of motion capture shooting. The crew shot high-impact stunt work along with more subtle body and finger poses, and movements of actors sitting on and riding the film’s signature Light Cycles at HOM’s 26,000 square foot studio. HOM was hired to contribute to the project based on the success of their previous collaboration with Grid Productions on motion capture shoots for the first “TRON: Legacy” teaser trailer that screened at Comic-Con 2008.
Get all the details after the break.
VICON House of Moves Completes Stunt Motion Capture for “TRON: Legacy”
Los Angeles, CA (December 20, 2010)–VICON House of Moves (HOM), a leading animation and motion capture company, was hired by Grid Productions to complete seven days of motion capture prior to the release of “TRON: Legacy.” The film, directed by Joseph Kosinski and released by Walt Disney Pictures, opened on December 17, 2010.
The “TRON: Legacy” production crew spent five days rehearsing on the HOM stages followed by seven days of motion capture shooting. The crew shot high-impact stunt work along with more subtle body and finger poses, and movements of actors sitting on and riding the film’s signature Light Cycles at HOM’s 26,000 square foot studio. HOM was hired to contribute to the project based on the success of their previous collaboration with Grid Productions on motion capture shoots for the first “TRON: Legacy” teaser trailer that screened at Comic-Con 2008.
The principal cinematography crew was on set alongside the mo-cap team at HOM to capture live-action footage of select actors’ faces to map inside of the helmets of digital doubles that appear in the film. The HOM crew captured motion of the actors riding a modified Light Cycle prop that could be manipulated on the mo-cap stage. For the high-action stunt work, actors wore protective wires and getting thrown off of Light Cycles, and in multiple sequences, careening down a dolly track, wearing protective wires to simulate flying through the air after a high-speed crash.
“‘TRON: Legacy’ came in and benefited from working on both of the House of Moves stages, working on our fully enclosed soundstage to capture more subtle movements and our 70 foot long main stage which gave them the ability—and space needed to fling stunt performers long distances across the room,” said Scott Gagain, Executive Producer, VICON House of Moves.
HOM’s talented team has contributed realism and emotion to digital character performances in a number of high-profile film projects, “G.I. Joe,” “Invictus” and “Spider Man” and game franchises “Call of Duty,” “God of War,” “Halo Reach” and more.
About Vicon
Academy Award®-winning Vicon is the world’s largest supplier of precision motion tracking systems, and match moving software. It serves customers in the CG animation industry, film, visual effects, computer games, and broadcast television, as well as engineering and life science industries. Vicon operates in four offices worldwide, including its Los Angeles-based Entertainment headquarters: a 26,000 square-foot facility equipped with three performance capture stages for Vicon’s service company House of Moves.Vicon is a subsidiary of OMG (Oxford Metrics Group – LSE: OMG), plc., a group of technology companies that produces image-understanding solutions for the Entertainment, Defense, Life Science and Engineering markets. Other holdings include: 2d3, a manufacturer of specialized image understanding software for defense applications; Yotta DCL our highways surveying business in the UK; and Yotta MVS, a leading US provider of data collection services for the assessment of property taxation.
Vicon and OMG global clients include: Life Science leaders University of Pennsylvania, the VA Hospitals, Shriners Hospitals for Children, Titleist Golf, The Andrews Institute; Engineering industry leaders Ford, BMW, Airbus, Lockheed, Pratt-Whitney, NASA, Caterpillar, International Truck, and Toyota; and Entertainment companies Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Computer Entertainment, Industrial Light and Magic, Sega, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Vivendi, Electronic Arts, Square Enix and many others.
For more information about OMG and its subsidiaries, visit www.omg3d.com, www.vicon.com, www.vicon.com/boujou, www.2d3.com, www.yottadcl.com, or www.yottamvs.com.
About the Movie
“TRON: Legacy” is a 3D action-packed adventure set in a digital world unlike anything captured on the big screen. 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 video-game developer. When Sam investigates a strange signal sent from the abandoned Flynn’s Arcade—that could have only come from his father—he finds himself pulled into a world 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 universe—created by Kevin Himself—which has become far more advanced with never-before-imagined vehicles, weapons and landscapes, and a ruthless villain who will stop at nothing to prevent their escape.“TRON: Legacy” is directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced by Sean Bailey, Jeffrey Silver and Steven Lisberger. The story is by Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz and Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal, and the screenplay is by Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz, 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” opened in theaters on December 17, 2010.
VICON and VICON MX are trademarks of OMG plc. Academy Award is a trade or servicemark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
