The Beginning

This story began quite a few years ago. About a decade ago, I think. I wrote this story after reading something about the Mars Voyager lander. I wondered what would happen if Voyager discovered that NASA was not the first to land on Mars. Of course it would be an incredible coincidence that the one mission would land near the other, but within the realm of possibility considering that the choice of landing spots requires a logical decision based on extensive knowledge of Mars and its geography - a decision that could easily have been made by two independent bodies.

So I first thought I wanted to show aliens on Mars, but for some reason the image of the Soviet flag came into my head. This could be that this was nearing the end of the Cold War, and the USSR had basically conceded. So I thought, "what if they actually made it?"

First I was going to show simply a Soviet flag. They made it! Before anyone, the Soviets sent something to Mars. But then if that had happened, why wouldn't we know about it? It must be becaust the mission wasn't a complete success. In fact, it had to be such a failure that public knowledge of the failure would have been incredibly embarrassing.

And when you realize just how close Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins came to not returning from the moon because of lack of fuel, this scenario springs easily to mind. The Soviets had advanced far beyond the US's own space program by 1980 that they managed to land a man on Mars, most likely a team of three or four. But due to some mishap, they did not get back.

This would have to be covered up, of course.

I published the story on my web site some years ago, and it is now available again. Read "Red Dust".

When I created the Doctor Who story, "Redemption" I realized I could revisit some stories I wrote long ago and create something new from them. This is what happened to "Redemption." I wrote that before I wrote "Polar Rover." It was originally called "Red Dust."

The Storyboard

Once you have a story in mind, the next stage is storyboarding. This is essentially drawing out the final result in sketch form so you know what you're shooting when you shoot. Here's the Polar Rover storyboard: (Click for larger images)

At this point, I had not decided to put an astronaut in the picture - just the flag, which would leave readers with enough to think about, but I went for it. I put in the Cosmonaut.

The Mars Pathfinder

On July 4, 1997, The Soujourner, aka, the Mars Pathfinder, landed on Mars. This hugely successful mission was meant to show that we could send an explorer to Mars on a tight budget. The budget was so tight, it did not include solar-rechargeable batteries, so the Pathfinder was basically given a limited life on Mars. With a little extra effort, it could be beaming us photos even now.

So my own Polar Rover is equipped to run for at least six years using its solar cells to recharge its power.

This mission fuelled interest in space again. Toys were made of the small Rover, and excitement was high again.

However, after the Polar Lander was lost en-route to Mars, once again, the agency was faced with the burning question - is this money well-spent?

Well, to me the answer is an obvious yes, but to some, there is no point to space exploration. This is of course a nearsighted view. If we were to have listened to these people, we'd still be living in trees and in caves.

So I was inspired by the Mars Pathfinder mission in a way I hadn't been inspired since the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Mars Mission

For the Soviet Mars Mission I actually conceived of a basic back-story. I created mission patches and stuck them to the space suit.

The circular patch shows the Soviet logo, with the letters CCCP and the date - 1980. This mission to Mars obviously took place in 1980.

1980 was a significant year. The Cold War was still going strong, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Ronald Reagan took office as US President. Gorbachev was not yet Primier of the Soviet Union. Old tensions ran high.

It seemed to be the perfect time for the USSR to show up the US by landing men on Mars. So why not?

I do not know Russian. But I do have access to a font that is based on the cyrillic alphabet, and I simply used it to type "VENGENCE MARS MISSION". The above is the result. What better name for the mission, than Vengence? Vengence for the embarrassment caused to the USSR which was the first country to launch a sattelite into orbit, when the US actually landed men on the moon and returned them safely. To beat that, the USSR had to land men on Mars.

The Flag

For quite some time I knew I'd need a Soviet flag. I was intending to make one somehow when I realized I could probably find an online source for small flags of almost any country, and within 10 minutes I found a source for these great flags. I bought three of them knowing I would have to age and weather the flags to make them look old, as if they had spent years on Mars blowing in the wind.

I constantly see the flags on peoples' car radio antennas and I thought if only I could fly this flag on my car antenna for a while, it would fade, and start to tear at the edges, and be perfectly aged for my shoot.

However think of the dilemma I faced.

1) I didn't have a car antenna. I have a newer car. Antennas are not as common as they used to be.

2) If I flew a Soviet flag, my car would probably be vandalized.

3) Same goes if I hung it in my window to let the sun fade it.

So how was I to age this flag?

I decided to use my vaccuum cleaner. The power brush! I turned on the vaccuum cleaner, with the brush in the air, and ran the end of my flag through it for several minutes until slowly, the flag began to deteriorate at the end, and tear. Soon, I had exactly the result I wanted. I'd live without the fading.

It's crazy how much care I had to take to do this without getting killed by some "patriot".

The Rover

The Polar Rover model is a slightly modified version of the vehicle used in the film "Armageddon." Two models of this vehicle came out sized about 4" in length. I removed the windshield and used it to cradle a Hot Wheelz toy of the Mars Climate Orbiter. Hot Wheels, hot to relive its success with the Pathfinder Action Pack, created one called "JPL Returns to Mars." Of course that was a mission that did not make it. On September 23, 1999, contact with the Climate Orbiter was lost.

Also, I removed the cannon at the top of the vehicle, and replaced it with a radar dish from a Matchbox radar truck.

Otherwise, the Armageddon vehicle was unchanged and played the role of Polar Rover quite adequately.

The Shuttle

The Space Shuttle belongs to Sean Dickinson. It was purchased at KB Toys for a good price, along with a bunch of other Shuttle stuff. I've recently seen this same shuttle sold under the Space Voyagers label.

I took the shuttle to the beach on September 8 to get a shot that resembled the shuttle at Cape Canaveral. But the people made it impossible. So I decided to try for a low shot from the ground up, and that worked gorgeously.

(Note all the people. Made force perspective impossible.)

Later that same day, my daughter Charlotte held the shuttle up in the air on a stick. Then I composited in flame from a real shuttle launch. Then I added lens flare to make the light from the engines seem intense.

I Found Mars!!!

The day I went to the beach, I had intended to shoot the Mars scenes as well. I knew I would have to color the sand red, and do a lot of post-production on the shots.

However, the day before, I took my daughter to the playground behind her school. And I found Mars!

The soccer and football field there was being redone. It was late on a Saturday afternoon, and the light was gorgeous. And I saw that flat, open area, thinking, "Gee, that would be nice... a large open field of dirt. Better than a beach."

And then I saw this patch of red dirt being used for one of the fields. There was a mound about four feet tall in the center of it, and the land was mostly devoid of tractor treads.

I siezed the opportunity. After Charlotte was done playing, I brought her home, grabbed my Cosmonaut, my flag and my Rover, and spent about 45 minutes on my hands and knees in red dirt. I got some great shots!

Unfortunately, the camera I used did some automatic color correction, removing almost all of the redness from the rich, red dirt when the shot contained only the dirt and the Rover. The shots of the Cosmonaut turned out perfectly with no color correction. So ironically I had to re-color the dirt for some of the shots!!!

The Set

I was originally going to create NASA Control to look like a standard space control room, but that was a lot of work. I decided instead to have the Adventure Team run the show, with a presence by NASA. And since I already had an Adventure Team office set, I saved a lot of time and effort in re-using that.

I decided that the Adventure Team, with its highly talented individuals, would perhaps treat this mission seriously, but they would come to work in casual clothes. Since this is not a road mission, uniforms are somewhat unnecessary.

So you'll see all the Joes dressed casually. Bill, the NASA official, is in a suit.

Sorry there were no Janes in this shoot. I like to involve the Adventure Team women whenever possible, but all of my Janes were dressed up for another gig, and I didn't want to disrobe them for this story.

The boardroom was set up similarly to that seen in "GI Joe vs. the Albino Bigfoot Sasquatch." I cluttered the area with related models and items. Some of the items seen include:

Here, you see Sean Dickinson vaccuuming the surface of the pool table at Turbine Entertainment. This would serve as the floor of the Adventure Team Control Room. (Click images to enlarge)

This sucks!

I'm not getting paid enough for this!!!

The pool table

The kind of work I've always wanted to do

The Joes

The Joes I used for key characters include:

1) The Adventure Team Commander - He is a Hasbro Timeless Classic General Robert E. Lee. He often stars as my Adventure Team Commander. He is wearing jeans and a gorgeous red Sarah Foster Sweater.

2) Bill, from NASA. This is Ernie Pyle, wearing Frank Sinatra's suit from the Barbie collectible Sinatra.

3) Jeff, the tech guy, is an Adventure Team "Secret of the Mummy's Tomb" Joe, dressed in the Crash Crew red shirt.

4) Mike, the Rover Controller, is the new Hasbro GI Joe "Gung Ho" from the GI Joe vs. Cobra line. He is wearing Ken casuals.

5) Brock Kentman is a Pearl Harbor Joe wearing Eisenhauer's trench coat. The mic is hand-made from dowel and a bead, with printed CNT logo.

6) The EVA Astronaut is the KB Talking Pilot, wearing the Mission: Splashdown space suit, enhanced with Action Man "Shuttle Astronaut" helmet, boots and gloves, as well as his MMU (Manned Maneuvering Unit) with Adventure Team stickers placed on it in strategic places.

7) The Soviet Cosmonaut is a CC body with a "The Mummy" head, wearing the Navy Crash Crew silver flame-resistant suit, Action Man boots, and a Lanard Ultra Corps space helmet painted silver and red. The crack in the helmet was achieved with an X-Acto knife heated enough to melt plastic.

Compositing

I use compositing whenever necessary but where possible I do without it. I had to composite in many photos of the Martian landscape into the main monitor at AT HQ. And since there was supposed to be a great amount of interference, I had to fake in static and color-banding. Similarly, I had to install images onto Jeff's laptop.

I composited shots of Mars with a plastic Alien I have for the "Life on Mars?" news overlay. I did a similar job on the Rover and the planet Mars on another news overlay.

The Results

I'm happy with the results of this story.

One thing I'm glad about is that one of the shoots (the Adventure Team Control Room) was shot on the evening of September 11, 2002. The reason I'm glad about this is that it was sort of an homage.

Last year I was preparing to shoot the Adventure Team Board Room scenes of "GI Joe vs. The Albino Bigfoot Sasquatch" on the evening of September 11. After the attacks on America by terrorists, I abandoned that shoot. Frivolity and trivial things seemed unimportant, so that shoot got delayed until January, several months later.

This year, I shot on the anniversary. This is my way of showing life goes on unaffected by the wishes of a small number of zealots.

My Hopes

I'm hoping the ending of this one will be a surprise. If I surprised you, I succeeded. Thanks for viewing.

As always, if you liked this story, please e-mail me.