7 Questions with DUNE Cinematographer Greig Fraser

IMAX In Frame  ‌ ‌ ‌ Welcome to the story behind the story. This is IMAX In Frame   Where the Sun is Low and the Stakes Are High In conversation with cinematographer Greig Fraser   "My planet, Arrakis, is so beautiful when the sun is low. Rolling over the sands, you can see spice in the air." These lines open up DUNE (2001), as director Denis Villeneuve's stunning visuals of a sweeping desert planet fills the screen. If a director is something akin to a painter of stories, then the cinematographer is his paintbrush— the tool by which he channels the picture in his head into reality. No one understands this better than award-winning cinematographer Greig Fraser. Having worked with a wide variety of filmmakers across genres, it's not a stretch to posit that Fraser is truly a director's cinematographer. In talking about his work, he's quick to defer to his role as one that is primarily about working as a visual translator of the director's vision. Fraser has a diverse swath of titles under his belt: from a Jane Campion-helmed biographical drama (2009's BRIGHT STAR) to a gothic-noir superhero film (Matt Reeves' THE BATMAN) to works in the greater STAR WARS universe (Gareth Edwards' ROGUE ONE). His latest finds him teaming up once again with director Villeneuve on the second installment of his DUNE adaptation. Both DUNE (2001) and DUNE: PART TWO were Filmed for IMAX, meaning Fraser's camerawork is an essential component of the film's overall experience. He sat down with us to chat about DUNE, why he's not afraid of artificial intelligence, and shooting in IMAX. 1. DUNE PART ONE led to your first ACADEMY AWARD®. Can you talk a little bit about Oscar night— what did it feel like to hear your name called and get up on stage? What was it like to return to PART TWO with such a major accolade under your belt? Did it add a level of built-in confidence, or did it feel like the stakes had been raised a bit? You know it was a bit of a double-edged sword, because having the accolades from our peers was incredibly, incredibly moving and incredibly kind of humbling. But the reality was that we were pretty much back on the tools the day after the Academy Awards, you know. Denis [Villeneuve] and I were talking the following day about the next film and on one hand, it was kind of like going "oh. We've kind of got this right.” There's this built in confidence we're going on now “we've done alright, this is OK.” But then the other side is that sort of dark side of human nature which is like “oh man. If we don't concentrate, we're going to seriously, you know, muck this up. “ You've got to work doubly as hard because we can't work off of our laurels and we’ve got to improve on what we've already done. So, it actually inspired us to work even harder and to be sort of more, bolder. Make some of those choices that you know, we may not have made on Part One. We were empowered to be able to do that. I was really happy that the [awards] announcement was early in the evening because it's quite a fun night. It was much more fun after the award, as opposed to before the award. It was a great show, though. It was a fun show. I got to celebrate the film with my incredibly talented colleagues, a lot of whom were also nominated and a lot of whom got up there as well. 2.  You’re no stranger to the powers of large format cinema, having shot Rogue One entirely on Arri Alexa 65 large format digital camera. Both parts of the DUNE saga are Filmed for IMAX, being shot entirely on IMAX certified cameras. Can you speak a little bit to what shooting large means to you? Why is this a visual style that speaks to you? You know, there's something about being engrossed in cinema that I think we as a public have maybe taken for granted over the last few years, particularly during COVID. You know, we're all forced into watching our entertainment on smaller screens and at home and on computers and on phones just through circumstance. I feel like we, as movie-loving audiences, realized quite quickly that wasn't giving us what we needed because filmmaking and film viewing isn't just about watching content on the screen. It's about being engrossed and being fully enveloped in a story, in a situation. And you know, I think one of the powers of cinema is that we sit in a dark room together and we have a group experience, a communal group experience watching amazing cinema. And so, when you have the opportunity to make something that's even more engrossing and more interactive and more sort of, you know, kind of compelling, you take that opportunity. Which is why, the IMAX format particularly for this story was absolutely perfect. Denis and I love that idea of sitting in a cinema and being completely enveloped by a story and an image and that's exactly what it could do for us. So, we ran with it. We thought, well, why not? You know, in Part One, we started small with the story because, you know, Paul's journey started with a sort of small, young guy on a small planet with greater dreams and greater hopes. And then we expanded into IMAX for when he found his destiny on Arrakis. After PART TWO, you know, now it's completing the story. So, our idea there was just to keep going with that is to stay formatted. 3. So much of DUNE takes place among sand and desert. Can you talk about the color palette of the film? Did you have a favorite setting or location to shoot in? How does shooting for an expansive setting like the outdoor environments of DUNE compare to more intimate, interior scenes or shooting on set? You know Arrakis is a desert and it's lacking water, so whilst we didn't sort of lean into any of the blues— we tried to avoid blue sky —we aimed for white sky where we could. But it was all very muted tones, even the sand itself had faded due to the sun. You visit certain cities in the world that have a lot of sun, like Los Angeles particularly, and the tones get very muted because that sun does a lot of damage to color and so we really wanted to make sure that whilst the film had muted tones, it wasn't colorless. It had depth of color and also had interesting depth of experience for the audience. Because I think if they had worked on that entire film with one color palette and it could get very monotonous. So we deliberately started PART TWO during an eclipse— during a red sun eclipse. I think again that the joy of doing a film like this, with Denis and Legendary and Warner Brothers was that we were able to choose some of the finest locations for this story that that exist in the world. We went back to Jordan, Thiis is my third- or fourth time shooting in Jordan, and you know the rock formations in Jordan are just divine. They're otherworldly, like they're really quite outstanding and spiritual, really. But then, you know, we wanted to find the biggest sand dunes we could find, which was in Abu Dhabi, so we're very fortunate in that we were able to sort of, you know, travel between both locations to build the world that we wanted to. 4.  You’ve worked on some major sci-fi epics — from the STAR WARS universe (ROGUE ONE, MANDALORIAN) and recently, THE CREATOR. Is there something in particular that attracts you to the genre? What are some of your own favorite sci fi works or influences? That's the way my life's gone in the last little while, but hopefully I’m not just “the sci-fi guy.” 5.  DUNE PART ONE and PART TWO is based on a book and preceded by a 1984 adaptation. Did you revisit these works before putting your mark on this behind property? How much (or how little) did the book’s world building impact your approach to the film’s look? No, I I deliberately stayed willfully ignorant of the source material because I need to see this film through Denis' eyes. He has had a very has a very strong vision for this film, you know, and that comes about from him being completely engrossed in the books When he was a kid. I didn't have the same relationship with the books growing up, so I deliberately avoided any of my own visual creations leading up to the to the filming. I needed to translate this film through his eyes. 6. Technology and where it fits into our world, especially in creative works, is a topic at the top of many minds these days. Where do you stand on the future of tech, especially artificial intelligence, and how it exists in relation to your trade? I'm an optimist when it comes to technology. You know, I think that with everything comes a degree of darkness. With every technology that gets invented, there's always going to be people that don't use it properly or there's going to be things that aren't good about it. But I think ultimately if it improves our productivity and increases our quality of the work that we can produce as humans, then I'm all for it. AI has already proven to be very, very useful when it comes to a lot of creative endeavors up to this point. It's definitely a debate between artists about how far can AI create art. But I mean, I'm an optimist when it comes to AI assisting the artists to create art, you know? I think that us humans will never lose our place in the pecking order of things, but we just might be able to give over to AI, some of those things that were a little bit more tedious, or you know, a little bit more robotic. 7. We like to ask everyone this—if there was one movie you could experience again, or for the first time, in IMAX, what would it be? Why? Oh wow. I probably would have to— I mean, listen, I can't say DUNE because I shot it and I've seen PART TWO in IMAX and I think DUNE: PART TWO is probably one of the most extraordinary experiences that I've ever had in IMAX. But I know that's not your question. That's a great question. I mean I wonder if you know, BEN-HUR, like a film of that size could've just been extraordinary. Or anything Kubrick made, like 2001 [A SPACE ODYSSEY]- viewing that in IMAX would be extraordinary.  ExperienceDUNE: PART TWO]( in IMAX. 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