TRON Lightcycle Run

April 2023 ––

There’s a power, an elegance, and an electric intensity to the TRON Legacy franchise. The narrative of the TRON world itself integrates the tactile human experience with another realm where data, design, stunning architecture, and mood combine for a thrilling ride through a digital plane.

There’s a personal connection Munky has to the franchise. He spent a year designing the holographic world of the film, contributed to high-level concepts for the video game, and now the key visual and live-action campaign for the Lightcycle Run attraction at Magic Kingdom.

What was exciting for him is to be there along the whole collaborative and evolutionary arc of the TRON world. A new favorite agency Disney Yellow Shoes wrote a very cool script focused on typography and pacing, and brought Munkowitz into the fold to apply his aesthetic to the entire package.

This point in the journey, particularly, really got him excited because it was truly the most cathartic and fully fleshed out manifestation of the story at immense scale and physicality; the characters, the environment, and the concept in an immersive experience that culminated in a total thrill ride.

To see the ride at scale and to strategize how to capture it was a fresh challenge. Combining that with the primary focus of telling the human story behind the experience, achieved through the same lens and focus on the stylistic flair of the existing franchise was an absolute treat to work on.

The Film

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The Concept

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As intricate and as wildly imaginative as it is, there was a very direct and elegant approach to this campaign that embraced the drama, the color, the energy, and iconic status of TRON.

The team had a real opportunity to up the ante through their lensing, framing, and of course the way they spun light and sculpted a visual style. It certainly heightened and elevated the status quo ride film, which was the ultimate goal from the outset.

There’s that unspoken, uncanny emotion you feel when you see those humming light trails blast across the darkness of the grid. It’s beyond just buying a ticket and taking a ride. It’s beyond going to the movies. It’s that tingling sensation you get when you see the iconic TRON typeface, or the helmets, the suits, the digital buzz of the identity disc.

Story is all about character and our characters here were not only the riders but the ride itself. TRON; the colors, the mood, the icon is a core character if not the leading character in this film.

It speaks to this spirit in you that has an expansive and infinite capacity for imagination - it just needs the right keys to the right vehicle to fully unlock it.

This ride, this film, is that key and that vehicle.

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The Continuum

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Since typography was such a primary element in this film, the team wanted to create their own underworld beneath the grid called The Continuum where the type would live. Within this chasm-like underbelly the subconscious of the Grid crafts, processes, and relays messages and provocations to the rider.

The look of this space was a rich, glowing void that the camera would fly through. It was replete with seething, humming data grids like electric freeways; a cybernated fabric of programs and codes. Here we saw colorful, glitching, electric numerical expressions running like train tracks, colliding, dismantling and reforming to create the typography on multiple planes beneath.

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The Post Production

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The post production process is really where this whole film came together brilliantly. During that portion Munky brought in Toros Kose and Peiter Hergert, a motion design team that he’s worked with time and time again to nail the specific and unique TRON typeface style as well as other multidimensional effects, developing a digital weather system within the continuum that amplified rhythmically the script and cadence of the film.

Another focus during the post-production phase was to create long-exposure streaks out of the ride. The kinetic movements of the rollercoaster, replete with light-lines and glowing elements, was a perfect opportunity to bridge the world of optics with the motion trails of its movment, and was an interesting process to explore with the talented team at JAMM VFX.

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Key Visuals

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In addition, a central part of the campaign was to design and craft the key visuals for the ride’s promotion. This set of visuals was used as a bold and graphic documentation of the world itself, an embrace of the drama, the color, the energy, and iconic status of TRON. The goal was to capture and embrace the experience of the ride and translate it into a more stylized palette fixated on copious amounts of flair.

For this task, Munky collaborated with Motion Design legend Mr. Michael Rigley and together they went to town and imagining a diverse set of world-building that served as a strong continuation of their previous works within the TRON sphere.

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The Digital Billboard

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The final piece in the campaign was designing a one minute promotional animation for the largest LED screen in Orlando, the esteemed Disney International Drive Digital Billboard. The goal was to create a slow-paced, almost meditative landscape of bold light and color tone that wasn’t too busy or aggressive. Instead, it served as a graceful call to action to experience the new TRON Lightcycle Run ride at the Magic Kingdom.

For this task, Munky collaborated with another Motion Design legend in Mr. Toros Kose and together they crafted a verrry wide-screen and compelling animation to catch the eyes of all the drivers on International Drive and make their lives just a little more compelling with that sessy TRON style we have adored for so long.

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Director

at JOJX
for Disney Yellow Shoes

Credit List

TRON Lightcycle Run — Promotional Film

Yellow Shoes Creative Group

Creative Director: Monse Valera
Art Directors: Connor King, Jesus Diaz
Writer: Frankie Ainsworth
Producer: Wes Lagattolla
Production Editor: Dan Avola
Account Managers: Bridget Fitzgibbons, Ashley Lollar
Project Managers: Meghan Brown, Megan Reilly
Brand Planning: Jessica Rudis, Emily Zimmer
Yellow Shoes Leadership: Helen Pak, Sally Conner, Amy Foster, Jim Real, Toby Myers, Brian Mountain, Cory Stone

Production

Director: GMUNK
Production Company: JOJX
Director Of Photography: Karina Silva
Line Producer: Jason Haymond
1st AD: Bernie Casser
Second Unit Camera: Scott Jones

Lifestyle Photography: Ben Christensen
Additional Photography: Kent Phillips, Steven Diaz, Abigail Nielson

Park Production Support: Wup Fleming, Boxhouse Productions
Park Operations: Gus Castellanos, Taylor Langlas

Post Production

Editorial: Union
Lead Editor: Jim Haygood
Assistant Editors: Brian Leong, Daniel Luna
Producer: Joe Ross

Post-Production: JAMM Visual
Executive Producer: Asher Edwards
Senior Producer: Ashley Greyson
Motion Designers: Toros Kose, Peter Hergert
Flame Lead: Alex Snookes
Flame Artist: Patrick Munoz
CG Artist: Patrick Manning
Colorist: Adam Scott
Color Assist: Carver Moore
Production Coordinator: Jon Lazar

Music: Da House
Composer: Lucas Mayer

Sound Design & Mix: Skywalker Sound
Lead Sound Design & Mixer: Tim Nielson
Sound Editor: Andre Zweers
Mix Technician: Kristina Morss

TRON Lightcycle Run — Key Visuals