[ad_1]
Brutalism, septic tanks and a rejection of the sci-fi status quo influenced the set design for Dune: Part 2, production designer Patrice Vermette told Dezeen.
Vermette worked on two parts of the film Dune, adapted from Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel and directed by Denis Villeneuve.
The second film continues to explore the book’s themes of colonialism, environmentalism, and religion, as warring factions fight for control of the resource-rich desert planet of Arrakis.
Villeneuve and Vermette, who also worked together on Villeneuve’s sci-fi film “Arrival,” focused on creating a rich and original visual language for the “Dune” film, which is set thousands of years in the future. s future.
“The fascinating thing about the book is the design aspect of it, it doesn’t give you all the answers,” Vermet told Dezeen.
Although Herbert described the conditions of each planet in detail, he did not describe the conditions of specific locations, leaving plenty of room for imagination.
“It gives you just the right amount of puzzle pieces to help you understand the reality of these planets,” Vermet said.
The designer said that by describing the site conditions in such detail he found himself “in the shoes of an architect or founder of the site” to meet the requirements outlined by Herbert.
For Arakan, the capital of Arrakis, the design team knew there were 180 km/h winds, unbearable heat, giant sandworms attracted to desert vibrations, and that the Atreides’ home was the largest ever built by humans. .
In response, the team designed the building facades to be angled for the wind to blow through, and with thick rock walls to keep cool, the entire city is nestled in a rocky valley between the mountains, providing protection from the elements – as well as having a lot of ground beneath its feet. Any monster.
The buildings were also given a Brutalist aesthetic, referencing the way Soviet architecture “showed force” in its colonial areas. Herbert’s story was inspired by the Middle East, whose various factions are often interpreted as representing the Soviet Union and Western powers seeking control of its oil.
“There is a dialogue between natural elements and different cultures, and you need to reflect on that before you can start designing,” Vermet said.
After the success of Part One, which won six Oscars (including Best Production Design for Vermette), the creative team was given the green light to expand even further with Part Two.
In addition to several football field-sized backlots and desert locations in Abu Dhabi and Jordan, 40% of the sets were built in Budapest and some 35,000 square meters of sound stages were used.
One of the most memorable new settings in Part II is Giedi Prime, the industrial homeworld of House Harkonnen, which only made a minimal appearance in Part I.
The Harkonnens, a brutal family angered by their loss of control in Arrakis, are depicted in the film using dark and grotesque imagery, including a mountain leader bathed in viscous black oil.
“I’m excited about the Harkonen family,” Vermet said. “Dennis always imagined a disgusting world.”
Villeneuve requested a “black and plastic” world for the Harkonnens, with oil becoming an additional textural element due to its relationship to plastic.
“It comes from how Frank Herbert’s book talks about the overexploitation of the natural resources of Geedi Prime,” Vermet said.
The inspiration Vermette needed to flesh out Harkonnen’s home world in Part Two came when he drove past a field of black molded plastic septic tanks outside of Montreal, where he lives.
It made sense to him that the Harkonens would live there, given their personalities. This aesthetic of black molded plastic, with a massive rib structure reminiscent of a whale’s belly and references to spiders and ticks, embodies the architecture and machinery of the Harkonnen.
The septic tank may be an unlikely starting point for an architectural language, but it is an example of how Villeneuve’s vision can produce original results.
“The great thing about working with Dennis, which I love, is that he doesn’t accept the status quo—which means if we’ve seen this before, it’s not interesting to him,” Vermet said.
Giedi Prime is also home to Dune: Part 2’s largest set: a triangular Colosseum-like battle arena that was shot with infrared cameras and desaturated to evoke the otherworldly under Earth’s black sun. Refined appearance.
It was constructed using the large set technique pioneered by the creative team in the Dune films, in which only the relatively small parts required for close-ups and mid-shots were built in detail – in this case the entrance to the arena .
The rest of the arena is completed with fabric-wrapped wooden frames that represent the building’s volumes, which were then detailed using computer-generated imagery (CGI) in post-production.
This process is designed to block natural light from entering the space and passing through the actor’s body, much like the walls or beams of a building.
Otherwise, this alignment of light and shadow can be difficult to get right in post-production and become a telltale sign of the use of visual effects.
Although this method was time-consuming and only allowed for a few hours of shooting each day when the sun was in the right position, and left Vermette and his team constantly observing how shadows were cast, it allowed them to achieve the realistic look they wanted.
Fireworks that look like ink splatters rather than explosions are a final touch to the arena scenes and Harkonnen’s unsettling world.
Vermet said “about 30 versions” of these fireworks were invented before the final design was chosen, including one based on the structure of a cancer cell.
“It’s a drop of ink on a glass surface,” Vermet said. “It’s like oil; it’s infused with the same aesthetic.”
In contrast to Harkonnen, the other new world introduced in Dune: Part II shows harmony with nature – albeit the harsh and water-starved planet of Arrakis.
This is the world of the Fremen, who live in “houses” in the rocks. The description of the Fremen in the book has been interpreted as a reference to Arabic culture, specifically that of the nomadic Bedouin.
But for this movie, Vermet said, “We didn’t want to borrow cultural elements from one culture in particular, because I think that would be wrong.”
While the Middle Eastern references remain the strongest, they are combined with elements from the Mayans and Aztecs — other cultures from the southern hemisphere that have faced colonization, which Vermet said was intended to broaden this thematic exploration.
The third new world, Caitan, seat of the Empire, is the only one to make use of existing architectural works: architect Carlo Scarpa’s postmodern Tomb of Briand, a cemetery and garden in the Italian mountains carved out of concrete It has intersecting planes and geometric sections.
Although Vermet had already cited Scarpa’s work as inspiration for scenes in the first film, the Dune: Part II team was the first to gain permission to film there.
“In the first part, I was inspired by what he did for Arrakeen and [Atreides home planet] Caladan,” Vermet said. “But it makes sense that the aesthetics of an Imperial planet would influence other planets. “
“It’s just like in real life. It determines what taste is, what fashion is,” Vermet said.
It’s an example of how the film uses brutalism in nuanced ways – stark in places, poetic in others. Vermet drew specifically on Brazilian Brutalism, which he said was “more complex,” and on the work of Scarpa.
“I particularly like Scarpa because I think it’s his own world,” Vermet said. “Some might say it’s brutalism, but it’s not all at once. It’s really unique and unique.”
Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment
[ad_2]
Source link