| Highmay |
Tron was one of the first movies to use long computer-generated sequences. About thirty minutes of computer-generated animation (blended with the filmed characters) were used. Though the movie has been criticized for woodenness of acting and — perhaps unjustly — incoherence of plot, the movie is celebrated as a milestone of computer animation.
To be able to create the film, Disney turned to Triple I who owned the Super Foonly F-1, the fastest PDP-10 ever made (and the only one of its kind) as well as MAGI and a number of other companies.
The film, however, contains less computer-generated imagery than is generally supposed. Many of the effects that look like computer graphics were created using traditional optical effects. In a technique known as "backlit animation," the live-action scenes inside the computer world were filmed in black-and-white, printed on large-format high-contrast film, then colorized with traditional photographic and rotoscopic techniques to give them a "technological" feel. The process was immensely labor-intensive, and would never be repeated for another feature film; with multiple layers of high-contrast large-format positives and negatives, it required truckloads of sheet film, and a workload greater than even that of a conventional cel-animated feature.
Renowned French comic book artist, Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius), was the main set and costume designer for the movie; most vehicles were created by industrial designer Syd Mead, of Blade Runner fame. |
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