DOON OR DYOON?
Alright, game on. Recently I was listening to a podcast with Denis Villeneuve, and he was discussing why he chose to work with Greig Fraser for Dune 1. Among many other things he stated how impressed he was with Greig’s ability to work with natural light and it is something I couldn’t get out of my head.
I am a big fan of Greig’s work and looking back over his filmography, his ability to utilize and manipulate natural light to create beautiful, painterly images that feel “real” is next to none. He truely can speak to the sun and ask it really nicely to move into the perfect front 3/4 45 degree angle.
Now, for the rest of us…we aren’t so good at that…
Just joking, I think personally - having not spoken to Greig and just being a fan of his work - that Greig’s background as a stills photographer has made him really good at utilizing what is naturally around him to work with and manipulate a shooting schedule to work in his favor.
The dreaded day exterior can truly suck. I always find that at least one angle will be compromised at some point and truthfully if it is just one angle that looks a little rough around the edges due to frontlight or whatever, then you’re ahead of the pack. I always sit with a scene and a location and go, ok…is this backlit or side lit, can i avoid top light, do i embrace top light, do i try and diffuse everything in side light…and that's about when the panic attack sets in, i then ignore the scene and focus on things i can’t control. This is why I often put a notebook next to my bed at night, because 3am cold sweat lighting ideas tend to work.
So, this is both the catalyst for this article and the reason why I am so obsessed with a day exterior, because there are a million ways to do it and 900,999,992 will look shit…
So I want to break down this scene from Dune 2 - the riding of the worm scene. It is a 7 minute scene, with like…over 30 shots!!! So how the fuck did they do it!!! It looks amazing!!!!
PREFACE:
Now. Before we get into this, I want to preface everything I am about to write. All of this is speculation and just me breaking down what I can see. Secondly, from everything I have read, this scene took months to shoot with shots added and revisited across that time period so of course the sun will change position and I’m also sure that they shot this over different days, utilizing mornings and afternoons for various angles BUT what i think could be really efficient to do is imagine we had to shoot this scene all in one day. I know that's crazy, but also it isn't…there are no lights here, the sun and maybe some bounce (although you have a large sand/unbleached muslin tone bouncing all around you) to make this scene work and it's mostly handheld and drone I imagine. Although I have seen BTS utilizing dolly and crane, so maybe but let's just pretend for the purpose of this. We are shooting just the set up - not the worm ride or the people watching. Just Paul’s shots, with a handheld camera, a drone and some bounce all in one day.
GAME ON!!!! (Apologies Greig if I get some stuff wrong)
SUN PATH:
Set yourself up for success. The beauty of this scene is that Greig has made sure that the sun path never works against him. He isn’t working with direct front or backlight which means he can also block out flaring by pan slightly as the sun isn’t coming down directly behind an actor. He is working in 3/4’s - either front 3/4 or back 3/4 and has eliminated the top down portion of the sun so they aren’t shooting mid day, only mornings and afternoons.
How do we know this? Look at the two images below - yes, as i have said these are different days but again pretend that we are doing this on one day. The image on the left will be shot in the afternoon as the light is front 3/4, with the sun to the west as you can see in the image above, and the shot on the right clearly has the sun in the back 3/4 which will be in the east in the morning.
The name of the game is preparation. Know your shots!!!! If you know your shots then you can plan. So you take your 7-8 page scene (it probably isn’t actually 7-8 pages as it is all action apart from a few lines) and break it down. If you stand on the ground and look at the whole ladder then it is a hell of a lot of steps to the top BUT if you break it down to key beats then you have a big scene in key sections and that 100 rung ladder is more like 5 sections of 20…still big but manageable in bite sizes.
THE SECTIONS:
Finding the best place to put the thumper.
Waiting for Worm Sign
Worm appears. Accepting the challenge.
Take action and run to the worm.
So these are the sections you could break that scene down into, these all cover key dramatic beats and that exposition and context is fed by the people watching, such as when Paul is trying to find the right spot for the thumper, Zendaya says “Lower” - this indicates that she, and now we know that isn’t the right spot to place it and by Paul doing it without her guidance we understand he is truly learning their ways. Likewise, when the work appears Javier says “Not that big!” indicating that this is a monster, grandfather worm and creates that trepidation and question for the audience.
CAN HE DO IT??????
His close up answers that, damn right he can!!! He is Timo…Willy…Paul Muad'dib Chalamet.
Now you know your shots and the sections they belong to, you need to look at your day and work out where you want to place each shot. If the logic is, any shots behind are lit from the front and any shots in front you light from the behind then the next step is your director. This is ultimately the be all and end all of this conversation and a very important one you must respect. If this is a scene that has a lot of dramatic integrity and is - for example - a two hander then you need to understand that the director may need it to be shot in sequence and not break up the dramatic beats of this scene. This is to allow them to prioritize the performance over the visuals and that is the most important thing.
If this is the case, you could begin to look at the side light and diffuse that, that way you can orient your actors, shoot the wides with a lovely afternoon back light for a wide and then bring in a frame to soften the wrap! Lovely!
BUT, if you are shooting an action scene and your director is up for it…THE GAME IS BACK ON!
SECTION 1: BEST PLACE FOR THE THUMPER
This scene all feels pretty normal, like you could shoot it in some form of natural story sequence. I would imagine that close up of Timmy’s face is when the sun is a little higher so it doesn't hit his skin but the rest all looks in that westerly front 3/4. You could start with your wide, then your long lens wide, then your top down wide from the ridge and move down into your close ups with him on the slope. I would imagine that a polarizer might help pull some of the gleam and shine off the sand but having not shot over there in the Dune’s I will never know…unless I message Greig…which i might shoot this thought to him so he can roast me on what a silly potato I am for getting it all wrong telling you all bad information. If that is the case, there will be a second article titled…”I am a potato and I'm sorry”.
SECTION 2: WAITING FOR WORM SIGN
OK! Now we are starting to see some light jump around. Why! Because we are jumping either side of Paul, we need to see his face; his reaction, his POV as he scans the environment, show how small he is on that Dune in the vast landscape and also the perspective/pov from the Fremen watching him from the adjacent slope.
Lot’s of moving around and if you were to pick a particular time of day you would end up with a lot of front light for 2/3 of your shots which would become really hot, maybe require diffusion and just generally not fit with the lighting style. And yes! I hear you, this was all pieced together over multiple days across a few months but again…I am pretending you're the average person wanting to shoot in one day.
SECTION 3: WORM APPEARS. ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE
Something that I am noticing that I really like is that a few wide shots, long lens shots and Fremen/Chani POV shots are held throughout the whole scene which I think is a great idea. These shots see the action on a Macro scale so why bother over covering these moments as you can run the full action and you have some master shots that can cover your entire scene. Then you are just filling in the performances in MCUs, OTS and CU’s and your beat building inserts.
The MCU’s and CU’s in this section of Paul seem to have the light over camera-left shoulder which doesn’t track with how the rest of the scene is pieced together so these may have been their own day just focusing on facial performance or to be honest it could be a completely different location as the sun isn’t in the same track (E->W) as the others…although…again…greig could have pushed these to the end of the day and just roasted timothy 90 degrees to his let and shot these. Because they are all a little low angle, it doesn’t really matter what is behind him, because you know what? It’ll be desert!
Now here is someting interesting. Look at the below three shots.
This is very clever, you have two sets of POV OTS shots that need to see the same BG. I could be wrogn here but it looks like they are shots from the same sand dune with very similar if not the same lighting. These are all VFX heavy shots, so why switch to a different dune and make the process more difficult. Utilise the same dune and just move the actors. Again! I could be wrong but it is an interesting idea.
You’d think that keeping with their formula of positioning the light on the back side that this would be no acception but I imagine that having that more frontal light on the BG really helps you see all the intricacy of the sand worm approaching. With it being in the distance, I would imagine that being in shadow might stop the audience seeing everything clearly.
SECTION 4: TAKE ACTION
Now we are back to lighting on the western side (AFTER THE CLOSE UP WHICH CARRIES ON FROM THE PREVIOUS SECTION LIKE A FEW SHOTS). I can see that the closer frames have the sun a bit higher and are shot a touch earlier as you can see the sun reaches over the top of the dune where as the later extreme wides have been purposely shot for that beautlful harsh contrast on either side of the dune which I could really get into the weeds on how -
this is a metaphor for the line that Paul has to cross in his acceptance towards his fate and ultimate fullfulment of the fantastical messianist prophacy of the fundamentalist Fremen on Dune. But i wont cause…blue curatins and…it just look wonderul to see that heavy contrast.
Honestly there really isnt much to say, I think what Greig and the team have done is amazing and you can clearly see that is ok to shoot out of order if it is something you can afford the time to do and work to the unbeatable, awesome power of the sun…as long as it ultimately wont compromise your director and actors work.
Bye bye for now.