Kerry Conran - Career

Career

When he had fully figured out how he was going to go about making the movie, he enlisted the help of his brother Kevin and a few friends. At first, he planned to make a feature-length seven-chapter serial, which he would release independently. He eventually decided to make only a six-minute teaser instead, as it would take him several decades to create the backgrounds for a full-length feature. He set up a blue-screen in his apartment, and some of his friends acted in the roles. He created the backgrounds for the black and white short over the course of four years with his Mac computer. He could not afford a good computer or equipment, so he used equipment given him in payment for projects that he worked on, such as desktop publishing of articles. His computer (including the equipment he earned) was outdated and slow. He dropped out of society, and spent all of his free time creating the short, working only enough to support himself and his project. He later remarked that he "had no life", and would sometimes hide under his desk in a fetal position, feeling tempted to give up on his project.

He modeled the tone and visuals of the short on the cinematography in The Third Man, and based the look of the robots featured in the short on those in the Superman cartoon The Mechanical Monsters. The short took four years to complete. When finished, it was entitled Sky Captain and the Flying Legion In: The World of Tomorrow - Chapter One: The Mechanical Monsters, but it is usually referred to merely as The World of Tomorrow.

Kevin Conran invited Marsha Oglesby, a movie producer and friend of his wife, to look at the short. She was impressed by the scope and ambition of the short, especially as it was made entirely in Kerry Conran's apartment. She referred the Conran brothers to producer Jon Avnet, who agreed to help the Conran brothers make a feature-length film, and found funding for the project. Kerry Conran wrote and directed the feature-length film, entitled Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Kevin Conran served as the concept artist, production designer, and costume designer, and his younger sister Kirsten served as art director. At first, Kerry Conran intended for the film to be a seven-part black and white serial, but Jon Avnet convinced him to make it without chapters, and in color. As a result, Kerry Conran and visual effects supervisor Darin Hollings developed a color style based on two-strip and three-strip Technicolor. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was filmed, for the most part, entirely on blue-screen, with backgrounds, lighting, and other effects added in post-production. However, due to time and budget constraints, one set was partially built, and another was fully built. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was released in 2004, by Paramount Pictures. It was given fairly favorable reviews by critics, but did not do well at the box-office.

Afterwards, Conran was slated to direct John Carter of Mars, an adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars, but left the project for unknown reasons. He also planned to work on an original project with friend and former schoolmate Robert Gordon. He has stated that he prefers to adapt original material.

Conran replaced Robert Rodriguez, and then was later replaced by Jon Favreau. Paramount executives decided not to continue with the project citing their desire to put their resources toward the Star Trek franchise. Disney then picked up the option for Pixar's Andrew Stanton to direct.

Kerry Conran also directed a Christmas-themed Coca-Cola commercial entitled The Greatest Gift, on which Kevin Conran served as production designer along with other key Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow collaborators.