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The original interviewer | Ian Blair
The sci-fi film "Dune" has attracted widespread attention from movie fans after its recent release, and the director of the film, Dennis Villeneuve, talked about the film's post-production and special effects in an interview, and he believes that wonderful special effects are the main force behind the success of this film.
In this article, we will interview Dennis, the director of "Dune", and ask him to share the post-production and visual effects production of the film, and how he grasped the special effects production of the film as a director
Dune director Denis Villeneuve is very good at making challenging sci-fi films, having made films such as Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Dune is his latest work, based on Frank Herbert's novel of the same name. Dennis said: "This is the most challenging and complex film I have ever made. ”
Directed by Dennis Villeneuve
Set thousands of years into the future, Timothy Chalame plays a young man who is propelled into an intergalactic power struggle to the distant planet of Aracis. Here, he found uninhabitable heat, hurricanes, sandstorms, and terrible sandworms. This is where humans fight for control of spices. Here, spices are a rare natural resource on which space travel, knowledge, commerce, and human survival depend.
To create it all, Dennis assembled a creative team of Oscar-winning and nominated creative teams he had worked with. These include production designer Patrice Vermette, editor Joe Walker and visual effects director Paul Lambert. The film has been released in theaters across the country since October 22.
1. What are the main technical challenges of bringing the whole film together?
Dennis Villeneuve: It's a very bold project, so the budget is huge, the money is never enough to compete with all the other blockbusters that came before.
We had too many visuals to deal with and it was more challenging than usual because I insisted on shooting in real environments. That meant shooting in real deserts, and I wanted to use as little artificial light as possible on all of our exteriors.
So, as long as we were shooting in the desert, we never turned on the lights, we just kept using the sun's rays. But it's a challenge for all night shots, because I want to do it in a way that I've never done before – it's all shot in the shadows, or before sunset or sunrise, when you only have about 45 minutes at most. We're trying to recreate the night in a different way, a way you don't see it very often.
2. Can you talk about when the post-production started and all the special effects?
Dennis Villeneuve: We took into account the visuals of the post from the beginning. For all the ideas we want to design and build, we have to plan which ones are realistic and which ones need to be expanded later. Then, all the vehicles and creatures in the film—like the Erridie flapper airplane (the giant dragonfly-like flying machine)—have to be prepared in advance. That way when I shoot, I know exactly what kind of visuals we ultimately need.
So the preparation of the film was very long and intense, and the reason we can sit here today and talk about it all is because we had great success in the preparation. We set up some huge scenes at origo studios in Budapest, Hungary, so we had to schedule it very precisely and rigorously, especially my production designer Patrice Vermette.
3. You must have done a lot of lens previews, what does it bring to you?
Dennis Villeneuve: The whole movie has storyboards, and we did a lot of previews. I actually don't really like the process, but it's very critical because you need the whole team to be able to see that you have so many elements that need to be coordinated and what kind of effect you're going to produce. When we started filming, the outbreak hadn't yet broken out, and the schedule was tight, precise, and very organized.
4. How hard is the shooting?
Denise Villeneuve: It was very tough because we had a lot of studio shooting in Hungary and on location in Jordan and Abu Dhabi. The shooting itself was like a war, because our schedule was subject to some very strict restrictions. I'm obsessed with using natural light wherever possible, which makes shooting even more difficult. So we set up a huge tent in some of the performance scene areas so that we could provide the right shade and sunlight for some scenes. That's another big technical challenge – setting up the scene outdoors so we can get the results we want.
Shooting in the deserts of Jordan and Abu Dhabi was very strenuous, but also fun and exhilarating. Shooting in the desert terrain was very tough, but I wouldn't complain because it was heaven for me and we had perfect shooting conditions. I dreamed of a fiercely windy white sky from the beginning, and it was exactly the same for the whole month we had been shooting in Jordan. So it's a lucky thing. But when we returned to Hungary, we had a lot of difficulties shooting on location. It rained a lot here and the situation got really bad.
Denis Villeneuve and EP Tanya LaPointe were on set
5) A few years ago, I interviewed David Lean about Lawrence of Arabia and how the Wadi Rum Desert became the most amazing location he ever photographed, in part because of the light. But your desert scene looks very different. Can you talk about the image style you want?
Dennis Villeneuve: I remember very clearly the look in "Lawrence", which was one of the cornerstones of classical cinema for me, and when I was a student of cinema, I even wrote a little essay on its audiovisual language.
But in Dune, I wanted an unsaturated image effect to emphasize the harshness of the sun and the desert. Everything is faded and bleached because I want to capture the violence of the sun. What I want the viewer to feel is the strength and roughness of nature, not the beauty, and its brutality is enough to erase any romantic feeling about the desert. And the movies I've watched since I was a kid are relatively low-saturated, so the effect of this movie is a bit nostalgic for me.
6. What did Director of Photography Greg Fleiser bring to the project?
Dennis Villeneuve: I chose Greg Fleiser because I love his photography and he has a very keen insight into camera setting, composition and framing. At first, we were after an effect that emphasized a solid picture, but as the shooting progressed, the camera left the tripod more and more often, and the more like a documentary, Greg took more handheld shooting in the desert.
The more the world of the male protagonist Paul is stripped away, the freer the camera becomes. I need a very flexible and autonomous DP, he is like that, he is always able to embrace nature and enjoy natural light. (We shot with ARRI Alexa LF and ARRI Mini LF plus Panavision H series and Ultra Vista lenses.) ）
Greg does not try to control nature, but dances with nature, and his work is very fast-paced. This is very important because we often shoot in groups, and I direct Group A shooting, and I also need to supervise Group B shooting, which I have never done before. I've always been shooting in groups, but this time it's unusual because I know it's like a war. We need several groups to invest at the same time, otherwise we will never be able to complete the task on time.
Greg was a master at handling all of these shooting tasks. I've never seen anyone else do what he can, taking pictures while answering calls from another group. We kept filming and there was no break. Sometimes I even direct a shot with an iPad in my bedroom, and today's technology is amazing.
7. What is the impact of the epidemic on the post-production and distribution of the film?
Dennis Villeneuve: The original plan was for us to do all the post-production work at legendary pictures in Los Angeles, which was right next to the Warner set. But then the coronavirus struck and I had to go back to Montreal. To get it done there in a whole new way of working, I had to manage my team remotely. In terms of visual effects, I set up the screen and communication equipment I needed at home so that I could direct everything and everything went very smoothly. But there are still problems with trying to do all the editing work remotely.
8) Joe Walker has edited Blade Runner 2049, Arrival and Border Killer for you before, is he your long-time partner?
Dennis Villeneuve: Yeah, frankly, it was a huge surprise for me because for the last six or seven years Joe Walker and I've worked together for a long time and we've been very close and we know each other. I was always with Joe, but even so, we felt we had to work in the same room, so I flew back to L.A. and finished the editing with Joe myself.
9. What is the biggest challenge?
Dennis Villeneuve: The most important thing is to find the right balance between all the elements. Combine story, special effects, and visuals, and make sure viewers have enough information to understand the dense plot and all the content. Especially for viewers who have never read the original novel. There are too many backstory and cultural elements in the original novel, and Frank Herbert (the original author) has created a complete, rich, and complex universe that is very challenging for the audience to digest.
10. How about working with Paul Lambert, the two-time Oscar-winning Best VFX Supervisor?
Dennis Villeneuve: He's been with me since the shoot and is on set every day. He was my biggest ally, and the director of photography, Greg. We started working together in Blade Runner 2049, and I needed him to do it, and we were very close. Joe and Greg are equally important, and this is the first time I've felt that way with a video special effects supervisor. I don't want to make another movie without him now. We felt the same way and he fully understood what I needed.
We did over 2,000 special effects shots and a lot of people were talking about how much we did on the camera, but the truth is, after the camera was shot, we did some special effects work, including fixing, adding, and enhancing and so on.
For example, the main body of an Ertridi flapping wing plane is real, but only half of the wings are real, and the rest is made of CG. Then we use real helicopters as references for colors, light, reflections and so on, and we get them to take off and land, but all the flight shots are special effects, which takes a lot of work.
11. What is the most difficult video special effects shot? Why?
Dennis Villeneuve: It's Sandworm, which involves a lot of research and development on sand and particle movement, DNeg's team (Double Negative, a well-known British visual effects company, representative works: Resident Evil" "Spy 3", "2012", "Batman" series, "Alien vs Predator", "The Da Vinci Code", "Ten Thousand Years Ago", "Future Police", "Sherlock Holmes", "Angels and Devils", "Inception", "The Dark Knight", "Thor 2: Dark World", "Dark World", "Dark World". Fast & Furious 6, The Hunger Games 2: Sparks, Interstellar) had to write a lot of new software to bring them to life. It's very complicated because we want it to look completely real because it's part of the whole environment, not just post-added. It took us a long time.
Although DNeg is the main visual effects production company, we have a lot of visual effects companies that do other parts of the effects at the same time. Rodeo FX Studios, Wylie Visual Effects and Track VFX have also contributed. Gentle Giant, Digic and The Scan Truck provide network scans. Digital Domain provides motion capture. Lidar Guys provided lidar.
Dune director Dennis (left) and writer Iain Blair
12. Where do you do DI?
Dennis Villeneuve: We worked with colorist Dave Cole at Fotokem. This is very important, we have a very precise approach to effect design, which includes light, contrast, atmosphere and so on.
When we were shooting, The Director of Photography Greg kept telling me that he was trying to be as good as the artwork, and that was exactly my dream, which was simply great. After filming Blade Runner 2049, I learned a lot, because we lacked time, so the work was not precise enough, and I was still learning.
I'll always remember Roger Deakins (the famous director of photography and director of photography for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography film 1917) telling me, "You have to stick to what you want in the early stages, or it's going to be chaotic later." "He was right, I learned this through hard work. So, after that, I worked hard to make sure we got everything to the original state I wanted, that everything was perfect and that everyone knew what they had to do.
I'm proud of Greg's work. Greg and colorist Dave fully embraced the vision that Patrice Wimmert and I originally outlined on the desk, and the result was exactly as I envisioned.
END