Daniel Simon (born 1975) is a German concept designer and automotive futurist. He is best known for his vehicle designs in movies like Tron: Legacy and Oblivion, and his book Cosmic Motors.
The downside is, if somebody doesn't like it, then it's like "oh my god, ok its really your fault. "
The 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.
I 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.
It [making tron: Legacy movie] was everything. I got pulled into a different country, in a different language, and a different society. In a movie, it's a completely different feel. In car design you know you have one year, and you have to go step by step. This is an organized catastrophe.
You 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.
Sam's light-cycle, the car, and the jets are new of course, and other stuff. The new ones are sleeker and so contemporary, that if you could put them in a car design show they would hold up.
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.
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
It'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.
I 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.
At 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.