Show T I Unique I De Vision I lon Lifts Sky Captain a ain Chris Kaltenbach The Baltimore Sun Kerry Conran overnight sensation And its it's only taken him 10 years That's how long hes he's been working on a gener computer homage to the adventure films of yesteryear Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow an style old-style adventure done almost entirely entirely entirely entire entire- ly with computer-age computer ogy And the man behind it all is isan isan isan an unassuming year old guy from Flint Mich a computer computer computer com com- puter nerd without a single film credit to his name Until now It was a very enormous gamble on everyone's part and it was a humongous leap of faith Conran says over the phone from Hawaii where hes he's enjoying a well-deserved well vacation before returning state-side state for the films film's open open- ing The gamblers were producer er Jon Avnet and stars Jude Law and Gwyneth all of whom signed onto the film based on a six-minute six short Conran had painstakingly put his And together on computer painstakingly might be an understatement he spent four years on that short piece of filmmaking alone Yet the short a primitive version of Sky Captains opening scenes which include a zeppelin docking atop the Empire State Building was enough to convince convince convince con con- vince Avnet to put together financing for the film And Conran's script about giant robots invading New York and the ace aviator who becomes civilizations civilization's only hope for survival was enough for Law who signed on as co co- producer and Once you get over th the e notion that someone's playing g a joke on you then its it's just jus t sort of incredible Conran Conra n says of having such name big e talent the cast also includes include s Angelina Jolie and Giovanni Giovan ni embrace the project s so o unreservedly I c could Uld only y think of the filmmakers the they y had worked with previously and that was the most intimidating intimidating intimidating dating part of it it Shooting the film at least leas t the part that required actu actual al actors took 29 days But that t was only a small piece of th the e production outside of th the e actors almost everything els else e seen onscreen the buildings the sky the water the mountains mountains moun moun- even most of the interiors interiors interi interi- ors were rendered on a computer by Conran and hi his s crew Fortunately bigger and better computers helped speed speedup up the process considerably from Conran's early days Using computers kept the budget low especially for a potential studio big-studio blockbuster blockbuster blockbuster block block- buster The New York Times reported a budget of 70 million million mil mil- lion but Conran says the real figure is much lower and also helped give the picture a unique look one derived in equal parts from black-and- black white films of the pulp magazine covers and Golden Age comic books It really dates back to when 1 was quite young Conran says I was brought up on old movies and comic comic books When I was a kid there was a television station in Flint that every Sunday used to broadcast everything from The Philadelphia Story to Only vOnly Angels Have Wings Sky Captain is really a melting melting melting melt melt- ing pot for everything I ever liked in a movie v |