Every time you see an interior, where somebody has a cockpit, is the real existing thing. Every time you see the exterior zooming by, it's completely CGI.
Daniel SimonThe funny thing is that Sydney, who worked on the first film [Tron], developed a bike that had an exposed rider, but they couldn't do it because the computers weren't fast enough, so they gave it a roof, which became the iconic one. Ironically what we do now is basically what they envisioned in the first one but couldn't do technically. I mean this a full on homage in every aspect.
Daniel SimonYou know, boy versus girl. But she's a tough warrior, so I almost treated it like unisex. But it makes a difference how tall the actors are, because I needed to know that if Olivia Wilde sits in a car that the director, Joe Kosinski can still get the angle he wants, as opposed to maybe in another vehicle than Jeff Bridges has to sit in. So that was fascinating. Because in a real car you change everything and adjust it. But here you have one shot.
Daniel SimonAt any given day you have to be ready with everything. It can be that the director says "this one's done and I need a new one." And you're like, "oh my god! I only have two months, no way!" So your design approach is completely different. You develop, let's say six things at the same time, and try to be ready everyday to give it away.
Daniel SimonI met designers that are in the business for ten years in the movies, and their biggest complaint is things don't look anything like they were designed. Look at my drawing! But nobody ever sees the drawing, that's the thing. So I knew right from the beginning that I would design everything in 3D on my computer, and those models literally went to the machines. So every little radius on most of the vehicles you see there, I built with my mouse and keyboard.
Daniel Simon