VICON House of Moves Completes Stunt Motion Capture for Tron: Legacy

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.