Also one of my heroes is Syd Mead, who designed the vehicles for the first Tron. So, there are so many beautiful things happening here. And working with Joe was great. He's an architect, so I worked with other directors in between who were just about the action.
Daniel SimonI got very spoiled. Everybody said you will never ever work on such a good movie, you know. I did, because I went on to work on Captain America, which also has a great director, which is Joe Johnston, one of my heroes who designed the old Star Wars movies.
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 SimonIt's still the classic thing to get nice lines, but knowing that your computer model, on your little machine, is on the screen, is priceless. And that doesn't happen too often I don't think.
Daniel SimonThe downside is, if somebody doesn't like it, then it's like "oh my god, ok its really your fault."
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 Simon