When Oscar-nominated filmmaker Denis Villenueve took on the challenge of making the sci-fi epic Dune, he turned the ambitious, mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, set thousands of years in the future, into a blockbuster hit that also won six Oscars. Sequels to blockbusters often don’t outperform the original films, but
Dune: Part Two grossed almost double
Dune’s global box office and looks certain to be a top contender at awards season.
To make the film, Villeneuve, who also co-wrote the screenplay, reteamed with key go-to collaborators, including production designer Patrice Vermette, editor Joe Walker and visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert, who all won Oscars for their work on Dune.
Here, in an exclusive interview with Post, Villenueve talks about making the film and his love of post and editing.
Director Denis Villenueve
What were the main challenges of making this sequel?
“It always boils down to the screenplay, and how to transform the words of the book to the images. That process is the most crucial and the most difficult. Once I have a solid screenplay in my hands, the rest is a joy.”
What was entailed in integrating all the visual effects and post?
“It's a process that I'm more and more comfortable with. I've learned a lot of my craft through many movies with visual effects, and I had learned a lot doing part one, where I insisted on shooting the movie in real environments and using natural light as much as possible, and that was our dogma and same approach on Part Two. We didn't compromise, which made the shoot quite difficult, but very rewarding, because that approach helped tremendously in bringing strong realism to all the visual effects.”
Where did you post the whole film?
“Here in Los Angeles. We cut the movie at Joe Walker's house and did sound mixing at Warner Bros. As for the VFX, we had vendors from everywhere in the world, including Dneg, Rodeo, Territory, Wylie, Select and others. That's the nature of the beast, as these movies require a tremendous number of artists, and you need to have a strong VFX supervisor, who absolutely understands your vision, who will convey your ideas as best as possible, and Paul Lambert is that guy, and I'm very lucky to work with him. I don't think I would be able to make any of my sci-fi movies without Paul.”
Tell us about the editing process.
“I love the intimacy of editing and the creativity, specifically for the director's cut. There's nothing like being alone with my editor in an environment where there's not 200 people around. The way we work, it's a very indie way of doing things, but that's where I feel the most creative, and it took almost a year. Joe does a rough cut as I'm shooting, which was over five months for this, and then after that, we start to explore and to cut the movie for another seven months. It also takes that long because of the huge amount of visual effects, which we have to adjust and correct, and to make sure that everything fits together to bring the synergy between the shots. And it's a very long process to find the right balance and the rhythm, and then to find the balance with the sound. Everything is born in the editing room.”
How many visual effects shots were there?
“Well over 3,500 I think, as even a shot with the Fremen blue eyes becomes a VFX shot, and we had over 1,000 shots for just the eyes, and we used an algorithm and a new method for that. Then we had these huge battles and the worms. So, it's by far the biggest VFX movie I've ever made, and the more I work with VFX, the more I love them. In the end it's all about communication, because the VFX artists can be 5,000 kilometers away and I must make sure that the communication is perfect to get what I want in the final product.”
Tell us about the sound and music.
“For me the sound is as important as the image. Richard King was our supervising sound editor, and the re-recording mixers were Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemphill, and they did very impressive work to bring the sand worms to life and create the different sounds of the different planets. When I was working on indie movies, I was suffering, as the sound design was coming at the very last minute in post, because of lack of money. Now, one of the big luxuries I have is being able to bring in the sound designers as soon as possible, so that we have time to make a laboratory where the sounds are created early on, so that they can be embedded in the DNA of the cut.”
Where did you do the DI and how important is it to you?
“At FotoKem with colorist Dave Cole again, and it’s so important as Dave helps to sculpt the continuity. We tried to do as much as we could on camera, of course, but there was a lyricism that was created in the DI that I'm really happy with. Dave really understood my desire and appetite for a naturalism that he embraced totally, and he works so closely with DP Greig Fraser and the final input of his images. Greig will do some kind of visual bible right at the start, and that’s the guideline for Dave to expand in the whole movie. It's a process that I love to supervise, and it's a very delicate thing. You can change the perception of a scene with the slightest change of contrast or color. A movie is fragile until the very end, so you cannot let your guard down, especially during the color timing. So, I want to be there all the time, to make sure that we are all walking in the same direction, and I’m so happy with the way it all turned out.”
(Additional coverage compiled by Marc Loftus)
EDITING
According to Joe Walker, ACE,Dune: Part Two marked his fifth collaboration with Denis Villeneuve. He was assisted by 1st assistant editor Chris Voutsinas and used an Avid system to cut the feature.
“We used Media Composer 12.18.5,” Walker recalls. “Our project was set up in a unique way to accommodate the two aspect ratios Greig Fraser shot in: the open gate 1.43 of the Alexa LF, and the 6K 1.90 of the Alexa A65.”
Editor Joe Walker
To do this, Walker set up his project to a 2K 1.43 project raster, and used frame flex on any of the 6K Alexa A65 material to squeeze it down into the 1.43 project raster.
“This was extremely helpful, because it gave us the ability to punch in on the A65 material without degrading the image upon scaling,” he explains. “This gave us the option of center-extracting it, and making it fit into a 1.43 raster if we wanted to. This gave us a lot of latitude in the post process.”
Walker estimates that editorial received between four and five hours of dailies per day. That, combined with VFX shots, brough the project up to roughly 80TBs.
“Once we got back to LA for the post period, we had two NEXIS (storage solutions). One at my home base - the director’s cut was done there - the other at Legendary’s Burbank HQ, where VFX editorial and our 2nd assistants were located. Resilio mirrored our drives seamlessly.”
In the Avid, Walker used the RX noise reduction tools. He also called on Voice Isolator by Eleven, and Metasynth.
“Building on the world-building of Dune (Part One), we were able to lean more into the action in Part Two, the desert landscape and the gigantism of the worms and harvesters that traverse it. Epic set pieces can be great, but they’re nothing if you aren’t attached to the characters enduring them. So, I’d draw attention to one of the smaller scenes, an encounter between Feyd (Austin Butler) and Bene Gesserit sister Lady Fenring (Léa Seydoux).
“There’s a strong suggestion before their meeting that, like Paul, Feyd is seen by the Bene Gesserit as a ‘prospect’ - someone whose lineage and training single him out as a potential divinity. Feyd is sure he’s met Fenring before. He says to Fenring, ‘I dreamt of you.’ It’s a clue he may have some nascent skills in foreseeing events. In many ways, Feyd has a shadow path to Paul, who we first encountered dreaming of a Fremen woman he had yet to meet - Chani.”
The script, says Walker, provided a brilliant idea – “a flirtatious entrapment by a Bene Gesserit sister culminating in a surprise sting, a cruel test of self-control familiar from the first film.”
Cutting this type of scene is exactly where Walker likes to position himself as an editor - expressing the story and finding a rhythm to the performances, while taking advantage of the images, sound effects and music to create a unique vibe.
In terms of sound, the script, he notes, proposed a firework display for Feyd’s coming of age.
“The booms and bangs continue from outside into the corridor, where we meet Feyd and Fenring. Greig Fraser built an incredible lighting rig to create the effect of fireworks lighting the space. At one very special moment, he opened up light directly into the lens, giving us flares that could mark in the edit a moment where the conversation slips from reality to an opiate haze. There was also a remarkable slow-motion shot, a close-up of Fenring leading her prey down the corridor, and I grabbed the opportunity it gave to show the audience that Fenring's mouth isn’t moving yet still we’re hearing her voice. Mixer Ron Bartlett did an incredible job for the theatrical version of this. In Dolby Atmos, the audience feels wrapped around by Fenring’s seductive voice. Building a roadmap for sound in the Avid timeline, we relied on a favorite fireworks track from Digiffects (which had a dog barking I had to surgically remove). We made a slightly counter-intuitive move - normally the dialogue in a dream sequence goes into reverb, here it was the other way - Feyd and Fenring’s voices are dry and present, the fireworks become booms detonating in far space.”
Working closely with the film’s composer, Hans Zimmer, gave the editing team a chance to blend music to the sequence with perfect timing.
“I recut the dialogue to fit into the spaces of his spider-like theme,” Walker recalls, “ always using sound effects as score and dialogue as music, so that the music can dance with the other elements and provide something you don’t already see.”
Having shown the use of The Voice to great effect in Dune, Walker believes it felt right to reward the audience’s intelligence by showing it more subtly in
Part Two.
“Fenring calls Feyd towards her, and with understated discontinuity, he steps impossibly into the next shot,” notes the editor. “By holding back on the pace of the scene to create a soft, mesmerizing effect, the scene’s final sting is delivered with sharpness and a decisive cut to another location, where the mission is laid bare. Fenring confirms Feyd’s levers of control, and that she is pregnant with his heir.”
Ultimately, Walker says his task for the film was to give every ingredient “a space to shine in a compelling rhythm. So that was a fun scene to edit.”
SOUNDTRACK
Supervising sound editor/sound designer Richard King says the scale of Dune: Part Two was immense, and its sound design had to match.
Richard King
“The kind of world building Dune: Part Two required is very challenging,” notes King. “Denis wanted a documentary-style approach, so however extraordinary the situation depicted, the sounds had to be totally believable and relatable. Any time Denis heard a sound, even the slightest bit sci-fi, he’d shoot it down. So, all the machinery, weapons, sand worm sounds were made from recordings we made, manipulating them as little as possible.”
There are a number of dialects spoken in the film, and these all had to be taught to the loop-group talent.
“Crowd recording was a huge undertaking,” he adds. “ADR and loop-group recording was completed just hours before the actors strike.”