Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/610353
P E R S P E C T I V E | N OV E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 25 a 3,200-mile journey across the planet to find a pre- landed ascent vehicle meant for the crew of the next Ares 4 mission which, once modified, can take him back up into orbit and ultimately, to his rescue. The parallel stories of the astronaut Watney, his fellow Ares 3 astronauts, and the NASA Mars mission scientists on Earth have to strike a balance between science and fiction that could credibly happen in real life. In his own words, he'll need to "science the shit out of this" to stay alive. Consequently, all the technology used in the film had to be modeled after rockets, spacesuits and other space-travel engineering that already existed, or was in the planning stages for NASA missions to Mars in the very near future. NASA was consulted on many technical aspects of the film, and a representative of the European Space Agency was on the film set throughout Left: Another drawing of the 6-wheeled rover, this time without the trailer, also by Mr. Hodge and Ms. Ginn. Bottom, left: The finished vehicle on Stage 6 at Korda Studios in Budapest. Right: The 4-wheeled version, with trailer, which was destroyed in the story and its parts salvaged for the 6-wheeled version. the shoot, but it was still left to the Art Department to come up with a design that was both realistic and also forward-looking. The sets for The Martian began with preliminary concept designs done in a small conference room at Scott Free in Los Angeles working with three illustrators: Steve Burg, Steven Messing and Jaime Jones. The process then moved to three tiny Art Department offices at Twickenham Studios in the UK for further development with Supervising Art Director Marc Homes, set decorator Celia Bobak, construction manager Ray Barrett, Art Director Matt Wynne—all set up by department coordinator Felicity Hickson. At the same time, I was off scouting Mars landscape locations in Jordan and Namibia by helicopter for four weeks. All of this finally culminated with a fully crewed department in Budapest, working with an excellent coalition of Hungarian, Polish and UK design and construction crews. © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation