That held us up for quite awhile until in the end we just flipped it. I had written a few little things for it, and somehow word got out that I was doing quirky nonintuitive things with the computer that filled certain gaps. Some stuff is painful to look at because it’s so crude by comparison – crude even in our methodology back then.I still really strongly believe in using previz, and what guarantees you a good result [when using external providers] is making sure your production design’s in place so you can trust these companies to pull it off and probably give you back something better than you imagined.They have these amazing artists that work at all these places that are probably better filmmakers than the people making the films. He attended the California Institute of the Arts. That to me feels like where things are headed.They can’t do everything, and you have to rely on some conventional tools to fill the gaps, but in another few years I couldn’t fathom that they couldn’t handle most everything.Would the same money buy you a lot more movie today?Oh yeah, tons. We might have changed some of the models with the higher res versions but a lot of the animation at least was blocked in.You didn’t have the luxury like you do today were you can see [the virtual set], you can literally put it to your viewfinder and compose a complete shot.So you consider that you were actually drawing on the past – being animation – not inventing the future?Utterly so, my influence was probably more Disney films and German expressionism and things like that. Directed the sci-fi film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow starring Gwyneth Paltrow.Kerry Conran is a Director. For them the nearest comparison they made was that it was more like theatre, because on stage you’re not used to having everything there and you’re meant to act in an environment that’s not represented.So it did call on them to be a little bit more aware but the things that really helped was all the preparation. Learn more Some companies didn’t succeed and we had to take the stuff back or put a guy with them to help them through the whole process. Went to the film school, California Arts. It’s a totally different world.Would you be more open to making it using external providers today if it was more your decision to do so?Being hands on with film is the fun part of it. Films. Sky Captainwas Conran's pet project, a movie which he conceived and attempted to cobble together single-handedly on his home computer. It ultimately comes down to and the amount of people that you can throw at it. I think with Sky Captain I exhausted myself, so I’m cured of having to have my hands on every aspect.It seems that as a blockbuster director nowadays, you shoot actors on sound stages to get the principal photography in the can and after that you’re not actually making anything, you’re just sitting around waiting to approve stuff other people have made.These days particularly.
FILM FACT: Kerry Conran spent four years making a black-and-white teaser with a bluescreen set up in his living room and using a Macintosh IIci personal computer and sold by Apple Computer. Where do I stop?’.Jude was so engaged and intrigued by it all [Law came on board early because of his interest in the concept and was pivotal in lining up the rest of the cast and subsequent studio backing) he didn’t have any preconceptions so it didn’t faze him. Then he lost interest in “The Shadow” so Sony lost interest in both projects.So [each project] took a lot of time and energy and the work was really solid, so that’s when I decided I was just going to disappear, I’d just do my own stuff, and that’s basically what I’ve been doing. The stuff I’ve been working on recently is similar in that way – it’s different in terms of the technology but to some extent it’s just the way my mind works.