"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" the movie that is!!!
My college roomate and his brother developed and made the new movie, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" which opens today!
Kerry Conran, my buddy and roomates brother wrote and directed this movie and Kevin Conran was the design director....presiding over an army of computer annimators.
This movie started out as a dream that Kerry began writing I believe before he ever attended directors school in California...and my old college roomy quit his successful freelance illustration business to storyboard and help annimate what at the time was a 2 person venture to create a low budget movie. It was a passion that they poured their lives into.
Well, what started out as a new idea of making a 40's/ 50's styled action adventure/sci fi low budget movie where only the actors were real and everything else was created inexpensively, but stuningly on MAC computers caught on to a few wiley hollywood insiders.
Paramount studios picked up the film and what was going to be a few million dollar budget skyrocketed to a 70 mil plus hollywood major movie.
Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Giovanni Ribbisi and others signed on...and the reviews have been outstanding. From Ebert's thumbs up to Gene Shalits (sp?) review that, "If you don't like this movie, you shouldn't be watching movies period" there has been an overwhelming positive response to the flik.
Go to Best Buy and you can pick up a free DVD that has a behind the scenes interviews of the stars, my college buddy (he's Kevin Conran - the red haired dude in the interview.
My son and I played basketball with Kerry Conran and Kevin Conran just 3 summers ago when we vacationed in L.A. I was able to see their black and white first 3 minutes on video of the movie when it was just the two of them working on it, at their folks house while we were eating pizza.
I am so thrilled to see their passion be catapulted into success. This is Kerry's first feature film debut....he was an unknown, just a passionate, talented kid working his butt off for his dream in a modest little apartment....
now, 2 days ago, they are walking down the red carpet with major stars into the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood for the Premiere of their movie.
Unbelievable!!! Check out the movie if you can...it's mostly black and white and has the visual look of "Casablanca"....which no doubt inspired them as they are both Bogart fans. Mad scientists, huge flying robots, and old fashioned heroes.....saving the world....what more could you want???
Oh yeah, and the movie is PG...so you can even take your kids!
Edit: I should have elaborated: Almost everything except the actors themselves is computer annimated on a blue screen....the actors acted in "space" basically, with no background and very few props...it was quite new to have an entire movie done this way...and all done by computer annimators on desktop MAC computers.
[ September 17, 2004, 07:34 AM: Message edited by: Todd Gill ]
Posted by Ryan E Young (Member # 2325) on :
I may take a long lunch and try to see it today.
Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
Let me know what you think of it Ryan...I had planned on going tonight with the family....but forgot my son is getting an impacted wisdom tooth pulled this afternoon, so he may not be feeling too swell to enjoy it.
We may wait for a few days.
Posted by William DeBekker (Member # 3848) on :
Thats so cool.. Its great to newbies make it Big the first time out. Congrats to them. Dreams still come true with perseverance. Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
Bill, I agree....it's all about believing in yourself, your God-given talents, and working towards the goal.
I'm looking forward to sitting in a theater and watching this movie.... Posted by Ryan E Young (Member # 2325) on :
Was great and it had some old signs in it too! A VERY cool flic
Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
My son (9) and I just got back from the theater- WOW- we loved it! I know it has had some mixed reviews, and it will not impress everybody- but it had the all the ingredients of what makes me want go to a movie! I have always loved that 1930's space sci-fi look! When I was a kid, my grandfather gave me a metal coin bank of a rocketship (it was about 12" tall, and looked like something from Buck Rogers)- it was old, probably from the 40's, I loved playing with that thing- wish I still had it. We are going to talk mama into going to see it tommorrow night!
Posted by Dan Sawatzky (Member # 88) on :
I'm looking forward to this one!!
-dan
Posted by Dave Sherby (Member # 698) on :
Going tonight. Can't wait.
Mac's rule
[ September 18, 2004, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: Dave Sherby ]
Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
My daughter and her boyfriend saw it Saturday night....daughter really liked it, boyfriend gave it a 5 or 6 our of 10.
I still haven't seen it...may not for a few days yet as I have just had too many other commitments.
Dave, I knew you'd get a kick out of that flick...
Posted by Jeremy Vecoli (Member # 2278) on :
Just saw it today! I loved the British flying aircraft carriers- Angelina Jolie shouting "Alert the amphibious squadrons!" The airplanes that turn into submarines were pretty groovy.
Posted by Robb Lowe (Member # 2121) on :
I haven't seen this movie yet, but plan to. Being a huge buff of the era, warbirds, pre-star trek sci-fi and computing technology, I am anxious for a good old-fashioned adventure in the air. From what I've seen, they 'nailed it' as far as look, feel and ideals of the genre.
I know he's your friend Todd, but I hope Microsoft sues his/their pants off. It's a pretty blantant ripoff of their flight-sim/game "Crimson Skies". I had high hopes for a Crimson Skies movie, which if ever made, will now look like a rip off of the rip off.
If you like the movie, you'll love the game it came from.
Funny how this sort of thing crops up in our industry as well (see all the copyrights / stealing / pirate threads for examples).
The 'revolutionary' ideas behind the making of the movie arent all that revolutionary, when you look at any of the A-list video games of the last 7 years (since Half-Life in 1997). There was a movie made almost 10 years ago called "Planetary Traveler" completely done on computer, a Mac then too. It was beautiful, very colorful, created in the program Bryce. No actors or blue screen though.
As for the Mac having anything to do with it, at the software level this thing was created on, the hardware meant nothing. I'd say the only reason Macs were used, is because that's what the creative team learned on in school. A Mac, XP, or Linux box would have all performed similarly. A PC (XP or Linux) may have done the work faster, just because of higher performing hardware available on the x86 platform. I'd say this is probably the biggest reason (besides saving money) that Apple has migrated the Mac platform to a bastardized version of Unix (linux's grandpa) with their newer operating systems.
Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
Rob, I can agree with your last paragraph.
The storyline and imagery was created and written by my college room mates younger brother Kerry Conran.....he began developing his story while still in high school, before the computer was even really on the scene.
So, I highly doubt that it was a "blatant" ripoff of Microsoft's anything.
These guys are very creative, imaginative people and I highly doubt that they were influenced by anything more than their own imaginations....
But I'll do this, I'll ask him if there is any connection and send him your theory and see what his reply is.
Posted by Sheila Ferrell (Member # 3741) on :
Ha! Todd, the first thing that popped into my mind when I read your question and clicked reply?
That song: ~~~~It's the end of the world as we know it~~~~
I just knew this was another of your sentimental, reach-back-in-time, analytical, make-you-think-remember-wonder kind'a questions.
![[Applause]](graemlins/applause.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)