He grew up watching such classic adventure movies and serials as King Kong, Lost Horizon, Metropolis, and Flash Gordon on a local television channel.
He explained in an interview with John Joseph Adams that the adventure films of the 1930s era were not limited by what was practical, but only by the imaginations of the creators.
[3] 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.
[5] 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.
Paramount executives decided not to continue with the project, citing their desire to put their resources toward the Star Trek franchise.
[10] Conran directed a 2006 Christmas-themed Coca-Cola commercial entitled The Greatest Gift, on which he served as production designer along with other key Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow collaborators, including Eric Adkins and Erik Jessen.
Sky Captain collaborators Jon Avnet, Marsha Oglesby, Sean Cushing, Todd Toon, and Kevin Chalk were also involved in making the short.
Following a string of films that failed to go into production, Conran opted to step away from the limelight, "I decided I was just going to disappear, I'd just do my own stuff, and that's basically what I've been doing.
[7] Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow has come to be considered a landmark in special effects, as it is the first major motion picture to be shot completely on blue-screen with computer-generated backgrounds (with the exception of the two sets built due to time and budget constraints), and is the film that brought this medium into vogue.
However, Kerry Conran has stated that he did not intend to create a new genre or medium, nor did he use his method of shooting on blue-screen as a gimmick.
In his interview with John Joseph Adams, he stated: "I have always come at this from the perspective of filmmaking and developed the techniques used in this film out of necessity and never really sought to interest other computer aficionados".