HBO's Dune: Prophecy was created by author Frank Herbert, and is set 10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides. The series follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit. Dune: Prophecy was inspired by the novel "Sisterhood of Dune," which was written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
The new series debuted on November 17th and spans 6 episodes. The cast includes Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel, Jodhi May, Mark Strong, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Josh Heuston, Chloe Lea, Jade Anouka, Faoileann Cunningham, Edward Davis, Aoife Hinds, Chris Mason, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Camilla Beeput, Jihae, Tabu, Charithra Chandran, Jessica Barden, Emma Canning and Yerin Ha.
Amelia Allwarden, ACE, and Anna Hauger, ACE, are the editors behind three of the six episodes. Hauger, who is also an associate producer on the show, edited Episode 2, while Allwarden edited Episode 4. Together, they worked on the Episode 6 finale. Here, both editors share insight into the challenges they face while cutting the show.
How did you get involved in Dune: Prophecy? What was your approach to the project?
Amelia Allwarden: "I first got involved with Dune: Prophecy because of Alison Schapker. She was working as an executive producer on Season 4 of Westworld, and that is how we met and first collaborated. When Alison reached out to me after we wrapped Season 4, and she told me she was going to be working on Dune: Prophecy, I was really excited because I’m a huge Dune fan. I’m a big fan of the books and the films, and getting to work with Alison again was going to be a dream come true. I felt like we collaborated well during Westworld, so I wanted to repeat that successful partnership. My approach to the project was really driven by character. Alison is really good at writing fully fleshed-out characters. This project is based on such a big IP, with many iterations in different forms of media, so I just wanted to be true to the characters.”
Anna Hauger: “Like Amelia, I was an editor on Season 4 of Westworld and worked closely with Alison during the post. She called me sometime after we wrapped Westworld and asked if I would be interested in being part of a Dune television show. I leapt at the chance both to work on such an esteemed IP, and to collaborate with Alison again. Alison and her producing partner, Jordan Goldberg, have a real love and appreciation for post production. They understand the power of editing and what can be accomplished in post. Collaborating with them is a true pleasure, as you are encouraged to stretch your creative storytelling skills as an editor in ways you don’t always get a chance to on other shows.
“My approach to this project was similar to my approach to all projects. I start by familiarizing myself with the scripts. I’ll read as many episodes as are available to me. I’ll usually end up reading the particular episode I’m editing at least twice. When we get into dailies, I set the script aside for a moment and really take in what the actors are bringing to the table and how the director is setting the stage. I let the emotion drive the cut in an almost excessive way on my first pass. I want to hit all of the emotional beats, milk all of the reactions and make sure I’m landing all of the plot points. In subsequent passes, I really hone in on which emotional beats are important and which are superfluous. Dune: Prophecy is full of palace intrigue and mind games. So, for this show, I especially wanted to make sure that the subtleties weren’t lost.”
What was the timeline on the project and your day-to-day workflow like?
Amelia Allwarden: “I read the pilot script in May 2022, and I was instantly hooked. The characters and the world was so rich, and I was really excited to work on the project. We started filming in Budapest in July 2023 and then were in the post starting in January 2024. The project was a really big undertaking, so I was glad that we had the time and the means necessary in order to fully flush out the world of Dune and bring such scope to the television screen.
“Day-to-day, my workflow during production was very standard to the dailies process. We edited in Los Angeles, and we were kind of on opposite timelines from the crew on-set in Budapest, so we were in constant communication whenever we could. We would leave emails for each other - when someone in Los Angeles is going to bed, somebody in Budapest is waking up. When we got back to the post, we were working in Hollywood, and it was a really big collaboration with our visual effects team. Our visual effects supervisor, Michael Enriquez, was really amazing about collaborating so that we could work together with the edit and visual effects to make the episodes as best as they could be.”
Anna Hauger: “The pilot episode of Dune: Prophecy started filming in July of 2023, and post production wrapped out at the beginning of December 2024. The day-to-day workflow changed immensely depending on what stage of post we were in. During dailies, as is typical, we were a day behind the camera. I worked completely remotely during this stage. I’d spend my days watching and cutting dailies, and communicating with my assistant, Adam Neely, over text, phone or Evercast. We had a pretty unique situation of block shooting all six episodes at once, so the director’s cuts didn’t happen until after production had wrapped. We were in the office for the director’s cuts in January and then started the producer’s cuts soon after. During this time, we were in constant conversation with our incredible VFX team, spearheaded by VFX supervisor Michael Enriquez and VFX producer Terron Pratt. We had a hybrid workflow during the producer’s cut. I’d usually work over Evercast with Alison and Jordan, and only come into the office when we wanted to screen an episode on the big screen. After all episodes were locked, I was fortunate to get to stay on in an associate-producer capacity. This meant that I got to help shepherd the episodes through the finishing stages. It was a fantastic experience to continue our collaboration with the incredible artists we had on the show.”
What was the biggest challenge editing this series?
Amelia Allwarden: “The biggest challenge on Dune: Prophecy was figuring out exactly how to weave together all the different storylines of each character in the best way possible. When we got to post, it was a really big collaboration between (showrunner) Alison Schapker, (EP) Jordan Goldberg, and the other editors and me to figure out the best way to put it all together. For example, in Episode 4, during the Landsraad sequence - all the characters are coming together, and all of their different plans are coming to fruition, so we had to craft the best storyline in terms of what order are we telling which plot so that we get to the Landsraad we understand exactly what everyone’s intentions are.
“Anna and I also collaborated really closely on how we weave in and out of flashbacks in the finale episode, which we co-edited. There are a lot of flashbacks. Anna and I always wanted to be really intentional about how we would be transitioning in and out of these flashbacks - we wanted to feel intentional and have a purpose.”
Anna Hauger: “I think balancing the different storylines was the biggest challenge for me as well. Sometimes, it can be difficult to figure out when to cut between character arcs. Story propulsion and pacing can be thrown off by cutting from the A plot to the B plot if you don’t find the right through line. In the mind-killer sequence in Episode 6, we had to juggle intercuts on many levels. First, we had to figure out when to cut out of Valya’s mind and to Tula’s arrival on Salusa Secundus. At first, we stayed in the mind-killer through Valya saving Griffin. But when we watched this with Alison and Jordan, we collectively decided that it sucked the tension out of the scene. It was much stronger if we cut out after Valya used the voice for the first time and were left hanging in the unknown above the ice field. This also allowed for a great match cut from an overhead shot of the cracks in the ice around Valya to the spokes in the passenger terminal of the Salusa spaceport. We also had to balance the cuts between the inside of the mind-killer and the real world, where Tula is trying to coach Valya through her trial. Figuring out the places where cutting to Tula would make the biggest impact and enhance Valya’s internal experience was a challenge that took many iterations to get right.”
Tell us about your editing setup.
Amelia Allwarden: “We used Avid Media Composer to edit the series. We worked a hybrid workflow between in-person and remote, and we used Jump Desktop to remote into our systems from wherever we were. We used Evercast to stream cuts whenever our showrunner wasn’t in the office with us, which made it really easy for us to just pop in really quickly if she’s out at a review session. We used script sync for big dialogue scenes - it made it really easy to audition takes and work really efficiently to choose between the performances we had.”
Anna Hauger: “We used Avid Media Composer Version 2018.12.15 running on Mac Pros. When working remotely, we’d use Jump Desktop to tap into our in-office systems. My home setup was run off of a Mac Mini connected to three monitors mirroring my office setup - minus a client monitor.”
Are there any scenes that you would call attention to?
Amelia Allwarden: “One sequence that was a really unique collaboration between Anna and I was the mind-killer sequence in Episode 6. It was really interesting to edit because it was an editor‘s playground. Since we filmed it on a blue screen, we were really able to make the sequence our own. Anna and I would constantly pitch ideas back and forth on what we felt could make the sequence even cooler. We really define the word ‘collaboration’ on this sequence. Every other day, a different one of us touched the scene and made edits to it. We noticed that we did a bunch of flash frames when we were transitioning between young Valya and adult Valya, and there was a really cool and interesting way we could kind of match up their eyes and do flash frames in order to transition them. And that was the idea that actually then sparked what ended up being the final idea - which was using the black snow in the Lankiveil mind-killer dream space as the transition. So there were a lot of interesting ways in which Anna and I played with the footage, which would then spark better and better ideas.”
Anna Hauger: “I agree with Amelia, the mind-killer sequence stands out as one of the most interesting and creatively-challenging scenes to edit. The entire creative team was tasked with bringing this famous Dune mantra to life: ‘I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn my inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.’
“We literally go into Valya’s mind and show her facing a visual representation of the mind-killer. Alison and her writing team were clever and set up early on in the episode exactly how the virus works, so the audience will have a familiarity with it before we get to the mind-killer sequence. In the scene where Sister Nazir tries and ultimately fails to control the virus, we set up a visual in a set of cubes that shows us what is happening in Nazir’s body: white and black snow-like particles that represent Nazir’s cells and the invading virus. The white cells face an onslaught of black particles. Their numbers ebb and flow as Nazir fights to transmute the virus. The black particles overtake the white cells as Nazir loses her battle. But before her death, she gives Tula an important hint as to how to fight the virus: the more she fights, the stronger the virus becomes, and the faster she burns. When we got into Valya’s mind, we used the same visuals that had already been established to help guide the audience through her fear cycle. We start on an ice field, presumably in Lankiveil. White snow falls around Valya, and if we look closely, we see some black snow mixing into the white. Valya hears the disembodied voice of her brother Griffin echoing around her and then sees him falling through the ice. Instantly, Valya is thrust into her childhood trauma/fear. We see the black snow increase in abundance around her as she morphs into her younger self. As the scene progresses, we see the black snow increase in intensity as Valya tries to fight her fear, and in the real world begins to burn. Then, the white snow begins to dominate as Tula’s voice begins to break through, and Valya understands that she needs to face her fear and let it pass through her in order to gain insight into the true nature of the fear.
“This scene was a challenge from many standpoints. The first was figuring out how to lay out the story beats. Amelia and I worked together very closely to figure out how best to tell the story editorially. We passed the scene back and forth many times throughout post. We’d pitch each other ideas and talk about the different stages of the viral progression. Our collaboration unlocked ideas that neither of us would have come up with alone. Amelia brilliantly figured out how to transition from present day Valya to younger Valya. I had a breakthrough of stealing a shot of Griffin from elsewhere in the show so we could see him before he fell through the ice. Previous to that, it was conceived as a purely auditory experience. At one point, I realized that Griffin said the same line as Nez says in Kasha’s nightmare in Episode 1: ‘You did this!’ I then collaborated with VFX to create a shot that would echo the shot of Kasha and Nez separating from each other in Kasha’s dream. The mind-killer sequence is unearthly and surreal. It allowed us to be utterly creative.
“Another challenge was the VFX of it all. Alison, Jordan, Amelia and I were in constant conversation with the visual effects team about this sequence. Everything on the ice field was shot on a blue screen and needed snow enhancements, black snow additions, ice field enhancements, ice cracks, and on and on. We had to all be on the same page about when the black snow would start, how much there would be, when it would reach its peak, what the sky would look like, etc. Not to mention the work needed on the ‘real world’ side, where the flush on Valya’s face had to match the fear level on the ‘mind-killer’ side. This sequence brought to life for me the magic that happens in every facet of filmmaking. From the writing to the acting, directing, editing, VFX, DI, and sound, everybody brought their creative best to this scene, and it enhanced it from start to finish.”