'Dune: Part 2' Cinematographer, Greig Fraser, Breakdown the Worm Riding Sequence

Variety

Oscar winning cinematographer, Greig Fraser, breaks down the process of shooting Paul Atreides' first sandworm ride and having to film a lot of it in-camera using natural light and SFX.

Transcript

00:00My name's Greg Fraser, I'm the cinematographer of Dune Part 2.

00:16Denis and I had a very long run doing Dune Part 1.

00:20A lot of that film was set in Caladan, not on Arrakis.

00:24Some of the film was at the end, but it wasn't really that much set out in the desert.

00:28Denis was very clear about Arrakis is a character in our film.

00:33We need to feel the heat, we need to feel the torture that is being outside in Arrakis.

00:39But one of the things that really he was very precise about was the worm ride,

00:44because we'd only glanced at the worm in Part 1,

00:48and it really only made a sort of a small appearance.

00:50For Part 2, the worm ride is effectively Paul's perspective.

00:54We also have the perspective of Charney,

00:56who's acting as the perspective of the Fremen who are watching.

01:00But the camera and the lighting choices and the movement choices

01:04are all based directly on how those characters are feeling

01:07and behaving at that particular point in time.

01:09The main emotion we were trying to capture

01:12when we were filming the prelude to the actual worm ride

01:15was the nervousness from Charney, the emotional nervousness.

01:19And I think that's pretty well reflected in the way the camera moves.

01:22The camera has a little more movement, as in it's more handheld.

01:25It feels a little bit more emotional, but then we cut back to Paul.

01:28And a lot of Paul's work is a lot more still.

01:31It's him trying to sort of meditate, become one with the worm

01:34to try and make sure that he rides this thing properly.

01:37It was very important that the camera mirrored the character's journey

01:41and the character's emotional journey at that point in time.

01:43Early on in Part 1, we tested film and digital as two separate entities to shoot.

01:48We genuinely thought early on in the testing process

01:52that this was going to be a film shot on film.

01:54When we got into testing, we felt that film probably wasn't right for it.

01:57We shot digitally, but then did a film out process,

02:00which is something that I'd been toying with the photo cam

02:02for a few years before that to test the process

02:05of actually adding film to the process at the end rather than the beginning.

02:09What we found was that gave us an interesting look

02:11that was unlike film, it was unlike digital.

02:14It sort of creates its own little world

02:16that's different to anything else that I'd done before.

02:19And the same with Denise.

02:20So we decided that film out was a really important aspect of the look.

02:24We were able to create a LUT through a skip bleach process.

02:28The highlights became a skip bleach part,

02:30and then the shadows became a digital.

02:32So we were able to kind of combine a film emulation

02:36to create a LUT that creates a look that I've not seen before.

02:40For the film itself and this scene,

02:41we shot with the Alexa 65 and the Alexa LF.

02:44Both cameras were used kind of interchangeably

02:46depending on what we wanted to do with the ratio.

02:49The thought was that the whole film should be shot for IMAX and for that ratio

02:53because it's such a powerful, immersive format

02:57that we felt like it was the only real choice we could make for this journey.

03:06The IMAX ratio and the IMAX experience is unlike anything else.

03:11It's probably the most immersive experience that I've ever had in a theatre.

03:15If we're watching something in IMAX,

03:17then it becomes something that you forget where you're sitting.

03:20You forget where you are.

03:22You become immersed in the filmmaker's vision, effectively,

03:25because it meant that we really needed the audience

03:28to feel like they were part of Paul's journey

03:31and part of the journey that all these Fremen were going on.

03:34The lens choices were interesting because on part one,

03:37we had shot with anamorphic lenses for Caladan

03:41and we'd shot with spherical lenses for Arrakis.

03:43The camera needs to mirror Paul's journey, effectively,

03:46which is why we opened up to an IMAX ratio when Paul set foot on Arrakis.

03:51Natural light for Denis, for this film, and for myself was insanely important.

03:56Part of the reason why things took so long to make

03:58and we were so precise about things

04:00is because daylight had to feel real and natural.

04:03In the film world, we can kind of cheat

04:05where the direction of daylight comes from on actors.

04:07You'll watch a film and you'll rarely see somebody front lit.

04:10You'll mostly see people that are back lit,

04:12which is a little bit magical if you think about it

04:13when two people face each other and they're both back lit.

04:16For this particular sequence, it was really important

04:18that the sun came from one direction

04:20and it's very clear where the sun comes from

04:23because you have a lit side of the sand dune

04:25and you have a shadowed side of the sand dune,

04:27which means that we could not cheat his placement on a sand dune

04:30just to have backlight on him.

04:33We had to make sure that we had front light on the sand dune.

04:35Sandworm comes in through the lit side, through the sun side,

04:38and then he falls at massive speed

04:41and lands on the sandworm in shadow, in darkness.

04:45So it was a very important narrative choice to make.

04:48The sun became a really incredible, important part of the process

04:52and we felt like if we're going to be sort of going out on a limb

04:55and showing the world worm writing like this,

04:58that we may as well do it without anyone sort of fearing like it was false.

05:02So all of the worm writing was done with natural daylight.

05:05Let's play the scene back for reference.

05:12The R&D on that sequence was mixed.

05:14There were some shots that were very easy to get,

05:16but then there were other shots that took an inordinate amount of time.

05:20Like, for example, a shot of him standing up, riding.

05:23We couldn't get the shake of the camera right.

05:25He was obviously not moving,

05:26so we had to find a way to make the camera feel like it was tracking with him

05:30and have just the right amount of shake and just the right amount of movement.

05:33We shot it with a test, didn't work.

05:35Shot it again, didn't work.

05:37There were multiple shots that took many days

05:39or even weeks of R&D to get even a single shot.

05:42Some were easier than others,

05:43but then there were others that were insanely hard.

05:45Early on when we started talking about the sandworm writing,

05:48it was very, very hard to find reference for how it should look.

05:52We looked quite extensively at avalanche videos, surf videos.

05:56We tried to see what it would be like when Paul was literally under the water,

06:00but in this case, sand.

06:02Biggest challenges on this is that, you know, worms don't exist.

06:05But the elements that do exist, we were able to build.

06:09We're able to build what he is standing on and writing on,

06:12but we're also able to build and create the right amount of sand

06:17and the right amount of daylight.

06:18One of the great things about Paul, who's our VFX supervisor,

06:22he's a firm believer in creating as much in-camera as possible

06:26so that when he creates his magic, that it blends in really well.

06:30Anytime that you're seeing close-ups of actors,

06:31anytime you're seeing mid-shots of actors,

06:33that's all in-camera.

06:34Things beyond that, anytime there's an extension of the worm is VFX.

06:38But for the most part, we fought really hard

06:40to try and get things as much in-camera as possible.

06:47Given that this is the second outing with Denis,

06:50I think that the biggest takeaway that I learned

06:53was how in-tune you can get with your director

06:58and with the actors and with the crew.

07:00And with the actors and with the crew,

07:03when it comes to creating something of this scale,

07:06everything we did in this film was insanely hard.

07:09Like, there was not one easy sequence.

07:11I don't think, you know, Denis wrote one simple scene.

07:14Every scene had a level of complexity

07:16that was sort of way beyond what I've done before.

07:20When you make a film, you're so intimately involved

07:23in every single detail that goes into every single shot.

07:26It's very hard to remove yourself from the actual process

07:30when you watch a film.

07:31Generally, all I can think of is how we did things,

07:34what we were doing on the day,

07:35the conversations that we were having leading up to that,

07:37the conversations we were having after we'd shot it.

07:39There's a lot of emotional baggage that goes on

07:42as a cinematographer, for me, having shot this movie.

07:46Every time I watch this scene,

07:48I become completely immersed in it

07:49and I forget all about those conversations.

07:52I forget about every day that, you know,

07:54we were testing something and it failed

07:56or then it succeeded or every day

07:57that there was too much sand or not enough sand

08:00or every day that the camera move didn't work

08:02so we had to try a different way of doing it.

08:04There was a lot of R&D that went into this scene.

08:06It took months and months and months.

08:08But now when I watch it, I feel like we've nailed every part.

08:10There is not one part of any of those shots

08:13that I feel like has been compromised.

08:15Then combined with insanely incredible editing

08:19and sound design, all those things that Denis

08:21brought to the party as a director,

08:23I just think it's an incredible scene

08:24and I love watching it every single time.

08:27♪♪

Category

Transcript

Recommended