Worker Blog - Worker Studio News on Animation, Film, Events, and Productions in Colorado

1/17/2014

Worker Studio's Barry Kooser: Top 5 Production Design Picks - #5

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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others. He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 35 years. This is the 5th and final post in the series.

#5 TRON (1982)
Production Designer: Dean Mitzner
Art Direction: John B. Mansbridge & Al Roelofs

The summer of 1982 was a legendary time at the movies - Blade Runner, E.T., Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Pink Floyd The Wall, Poltergeist, Conan The Barbarian, The Thing, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan… and of course Disney's groundbreaking, TRON. Grandfather of the term CGI - Computer Generated Imagery, TRON was the first production to utilize effects and imagery generated by computers. There is only about 20 minutes of actual computer generated imagery in the film, which gives further testament to the production being able to blend this world of neon circuitry.

Most of the film was shot in black & white, and production designer, Dean Mitzner covered the set in miles of black-flocked paper, giving the post-production process a non-reflective palette to work from. Taking this raw footage the team incorporated backlit animation, and scenes were processed on large format film, then painstakingly colored over (rotoscoped) to blend with the technological CGI look. While elements of the film may look dated today, it holds a production design quality that continues to influence our technologically driven culture. Barry was greatly influenced in how the film completely relocates its audience into another dimension, both visually and conceptually.

The clip above features the original lightcycle sequence from the 1982 film, which traverses the CGI world of TRON. This particular clip uses Daft Punk's music score from the TRON: Legacy (2010), but had better video quality than most clips of the scene online. The original production art stills from the 1982 film below show the live-action scenes designed and colored by production artists.