For most directors, getting inside one's characters is an intellectual exercise. But for Joe Dante, Innerspace represented a literal opportunity to explore on film the inner workings of a human being - specifically, supermarket clerk Jack Putter who, as a consequence of a miscarried microscopic submersible pod manned by test pilot Tuck Pendelton. Enlisted to design and produce the innespace footage was visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren of Industrial Light & Magic. Mixing anatomical realism with dramatic fancy, Muren and his associates produced both miniaturization effects and macroscopic excursions through the innermost recesses of actor Martin Short's eyes, ears, blood stream, stomach and lungs. |
