It's called sandscreen. In the deserts of Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and where Denis Villeneuve shot much, everything is different shades of beige. Paul Lambert, the visual effects supervisor, did something new: he turned his greenscreens brown. Sandscreen allowed Villeneuve to take all his beautiful shots in the desert, and Lambert could easily do any post-production adjustments. He could simply change the sand color to match any background, building or beast. This allowed for every shot to look natural and also enabled them to create one of the most famous sci-fi creatures.
Of course, we are referring to sandworms. Frank Herbert, in Dune describes sandworms as massive creatures that live in Arrakis' vast sands and produce spice-the most valuable substance known to man. They also serve as transport for the Fremen, Arrakis' native people. As they glide through the desert, Fremen attach reins to their scaly skins and hold them up. Sandscreen allowed Lambert to film an actor riding a sandworm, which is basically a platform on a mobile gimbal that has been covered in beige. Then, he could add CGI to the worm below him. This gave Lambert the opportunity to create seamless VFX shots (there were over 2,000 on Dune) and Villeneuve the chance to make a movie that looked natural. I'm not a supervisor who will say to Denis "If we just make it all blue screen Lambert says." That is not how I work.
It was another feat to design the worms. Villeneuve began work on Dune shortly after he had finished Blade Runner 2049. Villeneuve states that he needed to be able to work on Dune quickly and the studio gave him time. We started the prep with everything already designed. Patrice Vermette was the production designer and Villeneuve spent months trying to perfect the design of the worms. He tried to find the right size, texture, strength, and speed they would need to move through the tons of sand.
Vermette states that Dune has a huge fan base. Dune has inspired many science fiction fans and the creation of movies. Star Wars has a sandworm. We wanted to create something new and scary.
Lambert called the sandworm design that they created prehistoric. It is gnarly, covered in scales, and can be seen to stretch hundreds of feet. The whale was one of the most useful templates. Paul Atreides (Timothe Chalamet), confronts the sandworms with their large, gaping maw. It is filled with baleen, and its movements below it had to be quite cetacean. Lamberts team took all these ideas into consideration when creating the worms digitally. They rendered their texture in Clarisse and animated them using Maya. Then, they composited each shot in Nuke.
There was also the matter of the name of the worms: the sand. Although the creatures get a few bucks in Dune, most of their activity underground is what makes them visible. Digitally created ripples on the dunes' surface, Herbert called wormsign. Lambert was trying to imagine the enormous sand displacement that worms could cause by placing explosives underground. However, in the Middle East, it is probably not the best idea to do so. He instead created a simulation using Houdini software that was largely based on water movements.
This brings us to another unique feature of the sandworms, their audible sounds. Fremen in Arrakisand can shake the ground and also hear the worms moving. Subterranean sounds are almost the same as sonar (again: whales) and Sandworms follow them. Fremen use thumpers to distract the creatures. The Dunes beasts had to create their own sounds, a task that was taken care of by Theo Green and Mark Mangini. They had previously worked together on Blade Runner 2049, and came up with a philosophy for Dune. All sounds should feel as if they are part of a familiar universe, Mangini states. Villeneuve was keen to hear everything feel organic or acoustic.
What is the sound that the sandworm makes after it swallows whole a spice harvesting machine? This is Mark Mangini, sound editor. He has a microphone in his mouth and suckers a lot wind.
They came up with a new concept called fake documentary realism (or FDR) to practice this philosophy. Dune had to sound like a documentary that was made by an Arrakis crew. Green said that the sound design is not too sloppy. The sandworms were not afraid to make a fluttery sound, which is a sign of danger from afar. They took hydrophonesunderwater microphonesto Death Valley and recorded the sound of sand moving. They created a gunk-gunk gunk tone by adding scores of processed animal and human noises to the sound of the mouth of the worms. (The two are reluctant to give any examples. Mangini said that he didn't think anything was particularly exotic. Sandworm movement uses the sounds of creaking bark from trees and twisting vines. It makes a loud noise when it swallows whole spice harvesting machines. Mangini is sucking wind from a microphone in his mouth.
It's a hauntingly sparse film, much like Arrakis. It's also quite different from most sci-fi movies. Green said that Denis has never given me anything from another movie. Mangini says he uses examples from other movies to show him what not do. The sandworms are, therefore, unlike the monsters of those movies. Villeneuve wanted more than fear to be felt by viewers when worms appear onscreen, telling Mangini that they are more God than Godzilla.
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