The filmmakers worked closely with NASA scientists so that the Martian landscape and weather systems were depicted as accurately as science currently understands. On Mars, dust storms can last for up to six months. To effectively create a Martian dust storm on Earth, Elmendorf and his special effects team built 10 V8, 350-horsepower wind machines which blew pink silica dust over the sand dunes.
Also built for the terrain of Mars was the wondrous four-man Martian Rover, designed by Verreaux and Tim Flattery, who also designed the famed Batmobile.
Brian De Palma is known for his extraordinary camera set ups and unusually long takes. Because his scenes are often shot continuously, with no cutting to another angle or take, the acting requirements are sometimes more similar to stage work than film. Referring to fellow Actors Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins and himself, Don Cheadle says, Brian hired actors that come from the theater. Actors with experience that share a common language about the same kinds of things that we're trying to get out of a script."
Both Sinise and Tim Robbins are established directors. Sinise directed the features Of Mice and
Men" and Miles From Home," both of which were screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Robbins' directorial efforts i nclude "Dead Man Walking," for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director, and the recent Cradle Will Rock." And during production of "Mission To Mars," Cheadle was preparing to make his feature directorial debut. Jerry O'Connell had also directed several episodes of his TV series "Sliders."
"We always knew who the director was," Cheadle says with a smile. "We may all be directors, but Brian directed this film."
Tim Robbins says, "When I'm acting, I'm so happy to just act. After an actor's directed, he has so much more respect for directors. The more a film can be about one vision, about one man's overall concept, the better for the film. And that vision is impossible without contributions from all the actors and cr8ftspeople, and a great director is able to get a lot of positive energy towards him and productive input. It's best when a film has a good, strong figure that's going to guide it."
The actors consulted closely with each other during most of the visual effects sequences. As Cheadle explains, 'When you're looking at nothing but a blank green screen it has to be a sh8red and agreed experience, if we were all supposed to be seeing the same thing. We had to discuss what that thing was going to be, so we weren't reacting out of proportion with the others, and how we felt about it, what it looked like and did it have a sound. And we asked all these questions to bring us more deeply into the world of green screen, he laughs, then corrects himself. "No. To bring us more deeply into the world of Mars, when we were looking at a green screen."
Producer Jacobson admits that "It's a very complex, ambitious movie in terms of the visual effects. But we are taking the audience to a place where they can't really go. We want them to feel like they're in an amazingly strange, beautiful, scary, thrilling environment." And to do this on the film's 400-plus visual effects shots required the expertise of two visual effects houses: Dream Quest Images and the renowned Industrial Light and Magic (ILM).
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