Greig Fraser it has always been there. Although his recent victory at the Oscars in recognition of his extraordinary work in Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ has been the milestone that has ended up placing him under the gaze of the public less specialized in the technical aspects of cinema, the director of photography native of Melbourne has been responsible for some of the most stimulating audiovisual productions of recent years.
After being PDO in numerous short films, video clips and a handful of feature films, his first renowned work for the big screen was the splendid ‘Let me in’ by Matt Reeves, whose games with chiaroscuro and depth of field enchanted half the world. Since then, the Australian has signed jewels —at least, visually speaking— of the stature of ‘Kill Them Softly’, ‘The Darkest Night’, ‘Foxcatcher’, ‘Rogue One’, ‘Lion’ —for which he received his first Academy Award nomination—or ‘The Mandalorian’, in which he paved the way for the use of volume through revolutionary Stagecraft technology.
But if I am writing these lines today, in addition to claiming his figure within a trade, luckily, increasingly present in the conversation, it is to analyze the keys that have made his contribution to the new adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel a true delight for the retinasoverflowing with textures, colors and nuances, and with an ambition that, of course, is worth its weight in Oscars.
intimate greatness
If there is a great lesson to be learned from Greig Fraser’s work philosophy, it is the way he approaches each and every one of his projects. As she has recounted on numerous occasions, once she starts the pre-production process or when she sets foot on set for the first time, he doesn’t watch big or small movies, but characters, stories, and a degree of intimacy that help him make decisions; elements that are present from indie dramas to multi-million dollar blockbusters like ‘Dune’.
There is no doubt that, precisely, one of the main virtues of ‘Dune’ lies in its tremendous contrast between the large-scale epic —with immense interior locations and vast natural landscapes— and more introspective passages in which what is truly important is the character’s mind; a combination of factors that, among other things, was decisive when choosing the filming material.
To materialize the vision of Denis Villeneuve, director and DOP, after numerous tests in which IMAX cameras were also tested, different 65mm and 35mm stocks, they opted for the digital camera ARRI ALEXA LF equipped with Panasonic Ultra Vista anamorphic lenses, and H Series spherical lenses also from Panavision.
Greig Fraser considers that the proximity between the camera and the performers is basic to generate intimacy at the necessary moments, and the combination between the large sensor of the ALEXA LF and the spherical H Series allowed him to get close to the actors and actresses using medium focal lengths generally located on 24mm and 35mm; focusing on the face and expressions without sacrificing part of the environment surrounding the character and striking a balance between intimacy and scale.
The best of two worlds
Of course, the choice of the ARRI ALEXA LF was also subject to a purely aesthetic condition. Before opting for the digital camera, Villeneuve and Fraser They considered filming in photochemical as the first option, in a combination between 65mm and 35mm IMAX with anamorphic lenses —aligning with Linus Sandgren’s approach to ‘No time to die’—; but when analyzing the results of his tests, they found what Villeneuve called a “too nostalgic” look that played against the brutalist and sober concept of the film.
Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin, digital cameras, despite getting closer to what they were looking for, revealed its nature through an excess of definition that played against the general softness that should dominate the image. So how did they come to a middle ground? The answer, far from incorporating filters such as pro-mist or similar, was found by combining the best of two worlds, shooting digital, then transferring the footage to 35mm film.
Thus, as Villeneuve and Fraser could see by looking at some shots of a sunset, they realized that the digital —and the LF sensor— gave them that touch of modernity and an enviable dynamic range while, at the same time, the photochemical allowed them to embrace some textures impossible to capture on zeros and ones. The results, of course, speak for themselves.
The softness of the desert
As I mention, the smoothness was one of the keys on which the visual treatment of ‘Dune’ had to be based and, a priori, being a film set in a desert area, this could sound as contradictory as difficult to achieve. Thinking about Arrakis invites you to do so in the harsh light of the Sun and in tremendously hostile and defined shadows —generally, enemies of a “pleasing” photograph to the eye—; but Greig Fraser had a few tricks up his sleeve to pull off the impossible.
Naturally, lighting the interiors it was much more “simple” -note the inverted commas-, and the production design itself and the internal coherence with respect to the story helped a lot in the process. On a planet like Arrakis, it does not seem very advisable to build a house in which the rooms receive direct light from the scorching Sun; something that turned the main motivation for lighting in the bounce of hard light on walls, walls and different materials specifically designed for this function.
In this way, Fraser armed himself with one of his favorite lights: the Digital Sputnik RGB LEDs —which he already used in ‘Rogue One’—. These devices allowed him to obtain a hard and directional light —in the absence of an LED alternative similar to Fresnel, such as the one that Aputure later began to offer— for, later, shape it to your liking through rebounds and, mainly, diffusion layers —with muslin and other derivatives— that allow greater control.
The exteriors, on the other hand, were much trickier. Fraser knew that they must have a predominant foggy tone justified by the presence of sand in suspension, which they solved using wind generating machines. The big drawback, as we mentioned before, is the incompatibility between shooting an “Exterior, Desert-Day” scene and generating a nice smooth image.
Some of the techniques used were rule out the use of polarizers —or shoot at unaffected angles— to keep the sky as dark and unsaturated as possible, and subjecting the footage to a treatment similar to Bleach Bypass. This, in short, is a photochemical process that retains the silver from the emulsion during film processing, generating images with low saturation and latitude, high contrast and grain —some of its most famous recent uses are seen in ‘Seven’ or ‘Saving Private Ryan’—.
Fraser and the team of colorists, led by David Cole and Philip Beckner, achieved a kind of lowered Bleach Bypass effect, in which they reduced the highlights while maintaining the capabilities to capture information in the shadows. A) Yes, softened the effect of sunlight, raised the shadows and midtones, and kept the most exposed areas at bay of the plans. Witchcraft.
The night on Arrakis
It may be that the last great resource of ‘Dune’ to make the respectable fall in love through sight is hidden in its evocative nocturnal exteriorsin which we can differentiate two completely different scenarios: those that are captured during the development of a battle and those that are set in the desert with no more motivation to illuminate than that of the environment itself.
Approaching the first framework was much more affordable for Fraser, since he had fire and explosions to justify the light sources. In contrast, for the rest of the exterior night scenes, a flat ambient lighting after considering the idea of narratively incorporating the existence of two moons; something that ended up being discarded due to the lack of aesthetics of having two shadows in the shots and the logistical nightmare of artificially lighting huge tracts of land captured in large general shots.
The solution was roll in shadow for scenes set in the late afternoon, and for scenes set in the middle of the night on Arrakis, make it during sunrise and sunset —with the stress of losing light at full speed and having a nervous assistant director— to later adjust color and exposure in post-production until the desired nighttime look is achieved.
And, with this, we cover the main keys on which they have been built one of the most dazzling and overwhelming cinematic experiences of recent times. Another day we could talk about what Fraser has done in ‘The Batman’, because it would fully justify his third Oscar nomination in the next awards season and consolidates him as one of the most talented and influential PDOs of the moment.