"Brian (De Palma) is an incredibly skillful, thoughtful, original filmmaker and compositionally, he is very strong," says producer Tom Jacobson. "The choice of shots he made seemed to make the movie feel like a classic while he was shooting it."
A newcomer to the De Palma team, production designer Ed Verreaux was no stranger to space themed films or movies strong on visual effects, having previously designed "Contact," and having worked on "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Poltergeist," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom " "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome " "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Back to the Future Part Ill." He also has the distinction of having served as character creator on the creature that came to be known as E.T.
Under Verreaux's direction, the art department built a series of spectacular sets, not the least of which was the interior of the spaceship Mars Recovery. Story Musgrave describes its cockpit as, "Any pilot's dream. It just excites the imagination."
Consultant Joe Allen agreed. "The spacecraft look like ones you could step in and fly."
The manned missions to Mars depicted in the film portray space technology that is similar to what NASA projects it will use in the first real manned mission to the fourth planet from the sun, including space vehicles, human habitats, procedures and Mars surface transport. Based on author Robert Zubrin's ideas in Mars Direct, the "Mission To Mars" trip is set up to have taken place in several parts: the idea being to get as much up there before humans are sent. First to arrive is the ERV (Earth Return Vehicle), an unmanned robotic ship, which probably took some three years to get to Mars. It has enough fuel to get there and land. Once on Mars, robotics can make fuel from the Martian atmosphere and soil for the return trip home. Only once everything else is already there does the manned mission go, which is much lighter now because most of the cargo has gone up earlier. The manned mission, which has the command module and the habitat, is a six-month journey, that being the maximum amount of time we currently know humans can survive space travel.
In November 1 998, eight months before the start of filming, Verreaux set to work, reading Zubrin's The Case for Mars, then speaking with people at the Planetary Society and JPL. He assembled his art department, relying on the expertise of art directors Tom Valentine and Andrew Neskoromny. Verreaux acknowledges that "A lot of stuff is based on Zubrin's ideas, sending up unmanned robotic ships, going slowly to conserve fuel. But I also wanted to keep a NASA look, inspired by the space shuttles. In the ships and habitats, there is no decoration."
A monumental set piece which is filmed in spellbinding fashion, the spectacular lower hab—the living quarters—on Mars Recovery, was a giant, three and-a-half-story spinning wheel, the size of a midway Ferris wheel, which affectionately came to be known as "the wheel of cheese."
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