One of the most impressive aspects of Dune is its incredible work on the sets. Denis Villeneuve did not skimp on the means to implement his vision of this titanic work created by Frank Herbert.
Dune, the epic directed by Denis Villeneuve, is finally released in theaters! The Canadian director has taken on an astronomical challenge, adapting the mythical work of Frank Herbert. One of the most difficult challenges was to find the settings that would become Arrakis, arid planet in which the story takes place.
One of his conditions for successfully completing this challenge was to film most of the scenes in the desert, in real settings. Denis Villeneuve wanted to immerse his actors in an environment larger than life.
“It’s like Les Dents de la Mer: they didn’t shoot in a swimming pool! The film is called Dune and you must therefore feel the infinity of this desert unfolding in front of you. For me Dune, c ‘is the tragedy of a family going through an upheaval in their environment. It’s a film about the ability we have to adapt to any extreme situation… much like what we are going through right now. “, analyzed the filmmaker at our microphone in September 2020.
AUTHENTICITY!
Producer Joe Caracciolo, Jr. was impressed with the Canadian director’s approach. The latter consisted of giving his film as much authenticity as possible. “Very early on, Denis Villeneuve warned us that he did not want to rely heavily on visual effects, except when it was absolutely necessary. There are, of course, but he wanted to physically shoot as many scenes. as possible, with authentic lighting, real reflections and shadow play, and he wanted the actors to really be in contact with the sand, the dust and the earth. “, says the producer.
The Dune team therefore shot in real settings in Hungary, Jordan, Abu Dhabi and Norway. The director and his artistic teams were thus able to create their own planets. To help him in this heavy task, Villeneuve in particular hired the production designer Patrice Vermette, with whom he has already worked on Sicario, Enemy, Prisoners and Premier contact.
SAND OR NOTHING
The planet Arrakis is not nicknamed Dune for nothing. It is covered in sand in its entirety, offering a desert beauty stretching as far as the eye can see. For Villeneuve, his cinematographer Greig Fraser and his production designer Patrice Vermette, the challenge was to give up green backgrounds to create the ideal landscape of Dune on Earth. They therefore filmed on the sets and exteriors of Origo studios in Budapest, Hungary, and on natural sites in Jordan before concluding this journey with a week in Abu Dhabi.
“What Patrice Vermette built in Budapest was reminiscent of the golden age of Hollywood. We rarely see sets of this scale nowadays where everything is transformed digitally. But for this project, everything comes down to the vision of Denis who wanted that the whole is actually filmed, without relying on digital. We therefore built hard sets of a much larger scale than most current productions “, says producer Mary Parent.
The sets built at the Origo Studios in Budapest hosted the shooting of the interiors located on the planet Caladan, where the film starts. The decoration team notably created the vast library where Dame Jessica and Reverend Mother Mohiam talk about Paul’s future, and the family home of the Atreides. The sauna where Baron Harkonnen is when we first meet him was also entirely created for the purposes of the film. Some outdoor scenes, such as the ornithopter landing on Arrakis, were filmed on the studio’s outdoor set. The decoration team consisted of around a thousand people.
LOYALTY TO THE ROMAN
Denis Villeneuve’s goal was to view the film’s universe with humility so that early fans of the novel recognize Frank Herbert’s descriptions, his way of representing or describing every single thing, object, piece of furniture, room. , building, architecture or light. “I wanted everything to be as faithful to the spirit of the book as possible and inspired by nature: the light, the wind, the feeling of dust. Dune is a monumental universe that is unlike anything we know. and of course, I could count on Patrice Vermette to help me achieve this “, explains the director.
Jordan has also been a privileged destination to welcome the …
