How do you ride a sandworm? The Aussie who won an Oscar for shooting 'unfilmable' movie Dune, explains (2024)

For a long time, Frank Herbert's unwieldy sci-fi space opera epic Dune was considered unfilmable.

Alejandro Jodorowsky had a go at putting the Dune tomb to the silver screen in 1974, but it was ultimately abandoned (2013's documentary Jodorowsky's Dune catalogues the tumultuous production).

David Lynch's 80s iteration made it to cinemas, but it was such a disastrous experience the director ended up disowning the film all together. While Lynch's version has developed a cult following, it left fans yearning for the full experience of Herbert's wild vision.

Enter Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve and, in 2021, we get Dune: Part One. It landed in the middle of the pandemic, yet was still able to pull in $US300 million ($452 million) worldwide, bank six Oscars and make even the most rusted on Dune fans at least somewhat satisfied.

How do you ride a sandworm? The Aussie who won an Oscar for shooting 'unfilmable' movie Dune, explains (1)

But then there was the question of Part Two, left hanging in the wind by a nervous studio until the very last minute. The sequel was only officially greenlit after Dune: Part One premiered.

And now it's here, almost 60 years since the book first came out, and Dune: Part Two has landed with an almighty roar. Praise has been raining down for Villeneuve's masterful manipulation of the most dense reference text and for the gob-smacking cinematography, courtesy of Australian Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty; The Batman; Vice).

For Fraser's part, he's just stoked it's finally out in the world.

"There was a long time where I couldn't, so to be able to open my mouth and talk about it feels really good," says Fraser, who took home the Best Cinematography Oscar for Dune: Part One.

How to ride a sandworm

One of the most striking sequences in Dune: Part Two is when teenage boy/proto-Messiah Paul Atredies (Timothée Chalamet) hitches a ride on a sandworm, the massive 400m long and 40m wide beasts that had only ever been conquered by the Indigenous people of Arrakis, the Fremen.

"[We] had a high level of difficulty in the process of shooting because there's not really been a successful sandworm riding sequence ever," says Fraser.

"It's impossible to reference that size, and because nothing [moves] through sand like that."

How do you ride a sandworm? The Aussie who won an Oscar for shooting 'unfilmable' movie Dune, explains (3)

But, Fraser says, action does happen on a massive scale underwater.

The scene where Chalamet tumbles and struggles to stay aboard the mammoth is akin to being dumped by a wave, holding your breath and praying the sea will turn you the right way up.

"I'm not a great surfer by any stretch of the imagination but I've been in enough situations where I've fallen off and been sucked under the wave," Fraser explains.

"There's a point where you don't know where is up, where is down what is left, what is right until a point, that was a big reference for us."

From sun to anti-sun

Much of the challenge of film-ifying Dune was the novel's impossibly expansive settings. The action mostly takes place on multiple distant planets that often don't resemble the one we're on at all.

Dune: Part Two was primarily shot on location, with the seemingly endless deserts of Jordan and Abu Dhabi bringing the titular dunes of Arakkis into punishing, awe-inspiring reality.

But turning earth into a facsimile of a distant planet didn't come without its challenges.

"By shooting in November rather than June we had slightly cooler conditions — when I'm talking cooler I'm talking 43–44 [degrees Celsius] instead of 55–56," Fraser says.

"But we had very short days, which meant we really had to time our sequences so we could get the most of the light.

"Arrakis is not supposed to look pretty, the whole point of Arrakis is to look harsh…Oh my god, I can't tell you how much planning went into it."

How do you ride a sandworm? The Aussie who won an Oscar for shooting 'unfilmable' movie Dune, explains (4)

For a few moments, Dune: Part Two leaves the sun-beaten sand mountains of Arrakis and crash-lands on the somehow-even-harsher world of Giedi Prime. It's the oppressive homeland of the villainous Harkonnen house, and they're holding a special battle between birthday boy Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler) and some unlucky captives.

"The sun on Arrakis is like our sun, and we knew Giedi Prime had to be different," Fraser says.

"We made sure there was a black sun, almost like an anti-sun, which essentially means pulling out any of the visible light."

Away from the rich oranges and yellows of Arrakis, Geidi Prime is completely drained of any colour, yet remains painfully bright. Fraser and his team achieved this thrilling effect using infrared imaging — like the footage you see from security cameras.

"Humans have evolved to only see a small spectrum of light; we don't see infrared. But these cameras we're shooting on do see infrared, and that's actually a fault of the camera," Fraser explains.

"They put a filter in the camera to block the infrared so it doesn't get into the rest of the colours."

The workaround for Dune: Part Two? Get rid of that filter and replace it with a visible light cover.

How do you ride a sandworm? The Aussie who won an Oscar for shooting 'unfilmable' movie Dune, explains (5)

"This meant that any colours we shot with became black and white, sure, but it actually blocked that colour out and made it disappear. So in that scene we're seeing a sun that emits only infrared and no visible light."

It's a technique Fraser started playing with while working on Oscar-winning war drama Zero Dark Thirty (2012).

"We had infrared cameras that were being used for VFX capture and they could effectively see in the dark," says Fraser.

"I loved the way they looked and how they lit people's faces. When Denis came to me and asked me what techniques we could use I told him and he loved it."

The balance of beauty and violence

In what would have seemed impossible five years ago, Dune: Part Two is being critically received better than its predecessor, and has raked in almost $US400 million ($603 million) at the box office after just a few weeks in the cinemas.

There's already speculation over whether Herbert's sequel novel, Dune: Messiah, will be next in line for the adaptation machine, with the film's stars eager to keep the story going and Villeneuve expressing his interest (after a couple years break).

But, for right now, Fraser is content with revelling in the opportunities offered to him by one of the most unique productions of the 21st century.

"For me, as a cinematographer, I was able to film that landscape in the most pristine way possible," Fraser says.

"That's a really great paradox to all the violence and explosions and the war.

"So, for me, it was a great brief, the perfect brief."

How do you ride a sandworm? The Aussie who won an Oscar for shooting 'unfilmable' movie Dune, explains (2024)
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