- Designed the look of the 'plasma ring' explosion that opens Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), and which has since become a staple of science fiction films (it is also featured in the poster art of the film). He returned to the design task for the 1997 Special Edition of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) with George Lucas' suggestion of augmenting the original Alderaan and Death Star explosions, and then again in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) with the 'seismic charges' that Obi-Wan Kenobi ('Euan McGregor') eludes in the planet Geonosis asteroid field.
- Much of his design for Doc, the malevolent alien abductor in Fire in the Sky (1993) was inspired by Laurence Olivier and his performance torturing Dustin Hoffman's character in Marathon Man (1976). "Is it safe?".
- Along with visual effects art director Alexander Laurant, he designed the expansive opening shot for The Mummy (1999), originally proposing that the film start with the black and white Universal logo from the 'Boris Karloff' version of The Mummy (1932). The elaborate tracking shot involved digital matte paintings, a huge miniature set of an Egyptian plaza, green-screen extras (dozens of ILM employees dressed in period Egyptian wardrobe), and ended on a live-action location plate of Pharaoh entering ancient Thebes via chariot. The one minute shot took an army of model makers and digital artists three months to complete at a final cost of approximately one million dollars.
- He designed the controversial evolution sequence in Mission to Mars (2000), which was deleted when the film was broadcast on network television. Mark also contributed concept art for the interior of the mammoth Martian head and the Martian herself, basing both designs on the works of Romanian modern art sculptor Constantin Brancusi, a favorite of Director Brian De Palma.
- For Grindhouse (2007), Mark created concept art for the horrific melting member of Quentin Tarantino's zombie character in Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror (2007), also providing dozens of key frames detailing the disintegration for the animators at The Orphanage. Chicken sausage and melted plastic were used as reference.
- Again working with The Orphanage on Iron Man (2008), Mark helped develop the look of Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) 'repulsor beam' and Heads Up Display (HUD) - a transparent interface of collapsible 'widgets' that graphically portrayed the telemetry and diagnostics of Iron Man's flying armored suit. Some of the inspiration for the design and motion of this visual vocabulary of symbols included actual military HUDs, technical readouts from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and holographic displays from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) and Appleseed (2004).
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content