deep fried movies

Dune: Part Two picks up directly following the events of its predecessor, with young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) taken in by the Fremen after being marooned in the desert of Arrakis. However, cinematographer Greig Fraser was not content to merely continue where he left off.

After winning an Oscar for the first film, Fraser shuffled his tool bag by adding the Alexa 65, an assortment of colorful new glass and an infrared sequence set in a gladiator arena on Giedi Prime. It’s not surprising considering Fraser’s history of experimentation, which includes pioneering virtual production work on The Mandalorian and reintroducing film back into the pipeline in a new way on the first Dune with a film out/scan back process.

To learn about his latest explorations, check out my interview with Fraser over at Filmmaker Magazine. Below are a few excerpts from the story.

On the film’s infrared sequence on Giedi Prime…

Filmmaker: We saw some of the Harkonnen’s’ home planet of Giedi Prime in Part One, but in the sequel we experience the planet in daylight exterior for the first time. You went with an infrared look for those exteriors. Tell me about how you achieved that look. The Alexa comes with a built-in filter that cuts the infrared light before it can reach the sensor and only allows visible light to pass. I know you removed that filter, but what did you replace it with? Did you swap in a new OLPF that only allows near infrared light to pass, or did you use some sort of front-of-lens filter that you’d just put in like the matte box?

Fraser: We used a visible light cut filter. If you hold it up to your eye, it just looks like it’s a black filter. It’s strange because you can’t see anything through it, but if you hold it up in front of the camera then it looks totally clear, only in infrared. So, you get rid of all the blue, green and red and only end up with the infrared. And because the sun consists of mostly infrared, you end up with this really bright, translucent look where it’s almost like your characters are glowing. 

Filmmaker: How did that translate to the sand in the arena, because a bright sky can become dark in infrared and something darker—like trees—can became bright?

Fraser: We tested it and the sand itself stayed white. You’re right, though, it can make things go different colors, which is why the costume department had a real tough time with it. At the beginning when we sort of announced, “Hey, we’re going to shoot that scene in infrared,” they went, “This will just be normal [for us].” Then we did the tests, and they went, “Oh my lord!” So, [Feyd-Rautha] actor Austin Butler might have had three different materials on his costume, and it might have been that [in infrared] his belt and his pants were white, but his top was black, which was not the look that everybody was after. So, there needed to be some revisions in the thought process about how his costume looked in order to make it work for both the non-IR scenes and the infrared scenes. 

Filmmaker: Along the same lines of what you were saying about holding the infrared filter up to the sun, infrared lights can be trippy to deal with too. You can blast an actor with a huge light that’s a few feet away from them, but if that unit doesn’t contain the infrared spectrum it won’t register at all on camera. Conversely, you can turn on an infrared lighting unit and point it at an actor and you can’t see the effect of the light at all with the human eye. It only reads on camera.

Fraser: We tested a few different ways of shooting those scenes. One idea that I had just to experiment with was to shoot in a black studio exactly because of what you just said. When you film somebody that’s inside in the dark with infrared light the image looks bright [to the camera] but [the actors’] pupils are dilated because [to the human eye] it’s pitch black inside. That can create an interesting look. As a test we ordered, I think, five infrared security lights from online shopping, and did a little test of what that scene would look like in really low light and also total darkness. We found that the look wasn’t as good, and also it was just very hard to stage a fight in blackness. Even in low light, it just wasn’t quite working as well as shooting it in bright sunlight.

Filmmaker: There are a few shots that shift from color to the black-and-white infrared look when a character moves from artificial light to sunlight. You used some sort of rig designed for 3D, where two cameras are arranged at a 90-degree angle to each other so that the images line up.

Fraser: The only way of doing that transition was with two separate cameras. When I did Rogue One a few years ago, we did a number of VFX plates on infrared where you could light parts of the set [with infrared units]—like, for example, when we did face replacement on Tarkin and Leia. A lot of the time, Tarkin was in quite a dark space. So, we were able to light him with infrared and then shoot him with an infrared camera so that it would see all the [tracking[ dots [on the actor’s face]. We even discussed using a 3D rig to be able to create a key. You could light just the background with infrared and have it white, then suddenly you’ve got an alpha key. There are ways to use infrared in a really interesting VFX manner.

Fraser on his newest favorite lighting units…

Filmmaker: For years you were a big fan of using Digital Sputnik lights. Do you have any new favorite units you’ve discovered lately?

Fraser: In the last seven or eight years, technology has moved along massively. I still love the Digital Sputniks, so that hasn’t changed. On Dune: Part Two we used Creamsource Vortexes, which were a godsend for us in the desert. There’s a lot of sand, dust and wind on our movie and those lights just absolutely took a battering and survived while still giving me the punch of a light like the DS6. I still love the DS6 and its versatility, but now I also love the Creamsource Vortexes. Aputure has also been making some amazing lights recently.

Filmmaker: I think of Aputure as being pretty affordable.

Fraser: Yeah, they started out in the prosumer world, and they’re now edging themselves into the professional world. I don’t really get into the cost so much. Obviously, I have to account for the budget and if I’m able to get 50 units of something instead of 25 of something, that’s good for me. So, friendly on the pocket is a good thing. The technology is getting better and better every day. I just recently did a test of 20 or 30 new lights that are all out there that I hadn’t used before. The quality of almost everything on the market is really fantastic. There’s lots of these little companies doing some great light sources, like Kelvin, who makes a small little pocket light called the Play.