Well, here is a mish mash favorite, I didn’t think I had all this on the computer but found it in a frantic “what to post” search…the images are soft and the exposures aren’t sharp, but this was done in the days when I didn’t have a scanner so I had to take pictures of the original art taped to the wall!!!! HAAA, the old days of my computer illiteracy…not much more advanced now either!!! HAAA! Anyway, after DS9 and Geppetto there was a long dry spell in movie production, and I discovered a website called Production Weekly. It’s a site that lists all productions that are getting ready to start. Some never do and others just take longer to get going, but at least you know what’s out there.
It was early 2000 and I came across the listing for a new John Carpenter Sci Fi/Horror movie called “Ghosts of Mars”. JOHN CARPENTER!!! Holy Cow!! I called and broke every rule to get through to the Production Designer on this one, and I was so glad that they brought me on!!! Bill Elliot was my boss, and we worked out of the Culver Studios in Culver City. The crux of the job was architecture and a whole load of props. What you see here on day one is the establishing look of a Martian mining community. The buildings were to have the look that they were dropped from a mold and have a gritty adobe type finish. John’s point on the designs of things was distinguishing different places by the shadows they cast. After showing him many renderings of various buildings, this was kind of the conclusion I came up with in how I would draw each structure. Lot’s of fun drawings for today, and it was a blast to work with one of my all time favorite directors. So with that, enjoy day one!
exterior sketch
and on the set in New Mexico
structure 2
service garage
pump house
fueling and chemical station
exterior to the reactor building
interior to the reactor room
main airlock to the prison complex
and a variety of patch art
Eavesdropping with Johnny 
Ahahaha, necessity, the mother of invention! Takin’ pics on the wall, Awesome! They all look great too. BTW, which “rules” did ya break to get in? And is the production weekly website still around?
Thanks for sharin’, John! 🙂
LLP,
deg
http://www.productionweekly.com/
A subscription is $59.95 a month, but free back issues are available here: http://www.scribd.com/people/documents/665368-production-weekly
Thanks for this. I got this on dvd a few months ago, and it was the first time I’d seen it. I really liked the design of the sets in it, from the colony to the train interiors.
Another one have not seen.
but I love the building desgins.
Not as bad a movie as some people make out, I thought it was fun, just not as good as it could or should have been ! Cool design work though !!!
You certainly achieved the “dropped from a mold” look. I like how the recurring theme on many of them is the flying buttress style support you see a lot in gothic architecture…I guess even on Mars you want your walls to stay up, eh? 🙂
John Carpenter is one of my favorite directors. I can watch “Halloween”, “The Thing”, “The Fog”, “Escape from New York”, and “They Live” over and over again and never get bored. I’ve never seen “Ghosts of Mars” though. Of course, now that I know you worked on the production design I’ll have to pick it up and give it spin in the old DVD player.
The drawings look great. You can hardly tell that the images were photographed and not scanned. And the final set designs seem very close to your drawings as well. Maybe it’s just me but I often find that finished set designs often differ greatly from the drawings on which they are based. Perhaps it’s just the transition from 2D to 3D, or the on-set lighting design makes things look different, or maybe changes are made dictated by budget, or all of the above. In any case, the constructed sets really adhere to your drawings, which is very cool.
“The Fog” is my favorite horror movie. Mr. Carpenter’s career stumbled in later years, but what an amazing run of movies he had there for 6 or 7 years, from the late ’70s through the mid-’80s. Enviable and admirable.
AND he was married to Adrienne Barbeau.
Fantastic pics, John. Knowing you worked on this film makes it slightly less guilty a pleasure to watch!
Not his best movie, but still enjoyable enough and the production values were pretty good. I always watch it when it’s on tv.
I’m curious what rules you broke as well. Anonymous threats written in fake Martian dust? 😉
“Hi:
Two things
1) I’d like your permission to (re)print your article on ‘The Clone Wars’ for our website
2) I was hoping we could use your ‘scribing’ talent for our website.
The Best Shows Youre Not Watching (dot) com [all one word]
‘The Clone Wars’ is one of our featured shows. We’re hoping to round up a few people who can occasionally contribute perspective (via an article/blog) on the shows – maybe a recent episode, future direction, plot shortcomings etc.
What’s in it for you?
Primarily a larger audience back channeled to your blog. We don’t pay but the site has a lot of promise and we’re pretty excited about getting it off the ground. Let me know what you think.
Thanks
Oooo…another to add to the list of movies to see! Love the connecting theme with all the buildings, yet they’re all uniquely and interestingly their own.
Hi John.
I really love your designs. Would you ever consider selling the original print of the patch art?
~ Natalie