Dune already won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography earlier this year. So Greig Fraser will have a big mountain to climb if he wants to surpass his film in Dune: Part Two. Dune’s cinematography played on many old sci-fi aesthetics and successfully created an atmosphere of grandeur and awe without becoming too involved with its CGI. The wide shots and the numerous extras gave the viewer that feeling we’re meant to have in space; that we’re so incredibly small amongst the unfathomably vast universe. And the scope of that camera work reflected the scope of the film. Arguably the biggest space odyssey ever to hit the big screen, it’s important to remember that this was only the first movie. And the sequels will only get bigger from here.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Dune faced some challenges with its creation, the most famous being its legacy as a “cursed” film. The movie had been made (or had tried to be made) several times before, and each attempt was a resounding failure. This Dune was the first to be widely accepted as a success in the eyes of the public, and it can attribute a lot of that success to its modern CGI and gigantic budget. But the film’s commitment to a particular style cemented Dune’s photography in the halls of sci-fi classics. And we can expect to see that aesthetic revived and improved upon in its sequel.

What is Sci-Fi Cinematography?

     20th Century Fox

Science fiction is often identified by its use of massive objects, big flashing lights, and huge exterior shots. And just about every sci-fi movie has at least one reference to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey hidden in there as well. It is truly unique from other styles of film if only because of the way the images are meant to create a sense of awe. In movies that aren’t meant to challenge a viewer, like your average rom-com or early Adam Sandler movie, the cinematography tends to be fairly basic.

Shots are straightforward and not very often used to communicate anything else besides the surface value of what the audience is meant to see. In more artistic films, like Mulholland Drive or something from the French New Wave, we’re meant to get more out of the visuals than just what we see.

But of course, the vast population of average movie-goers might not recognize the difference between a Gaussian or a box blur and might find it difficult to see a Fibonacci spiral in one frame or another. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t educate ourselves, but rather to point out the fact that a movie that might seem difficult to read isn’t a person’s only option for analyzing complex approaches to cinematography. Science fiction movies often bridge that gap between simple films and complex, artistic ones, giving the audience a more profound visual experience while still remaining accessible to the average viewer.

So What Can We Expect from Dune: Part Two?

     Warner Bros. Pictures

Dune gave us an excellent revival of the classic science fiction aesthetic. Something that, perhaps, we’re occasionally reminded of in Marvel but still haven’t seen in a long time. A lot of what we saw were wide shots, making characters look very small compared to a massive spaceship, a sandworm, or legions of followers. It helped to reinforce the story’s scope, informing the viewer of how large the forces at play in the narrative and how small Paul Atreides might be at this point in time.

But we also got big swaths of color, blues, grays, browns, and yellows that immersed a scene in tonal differences from one part of the story to the next. This helped to offset parts of the narrative from others since the movie had several storylines playing through it. Dune: Part Two is expected to be of a much grander scale. Even Greig Fraser, the Director of Photography, was astounded by it.

Backstage, after he had accepted his Oscar, Fraser told The Hollywood Reporter:

Naturally, we can expect the story to be more grandiose as the stakes slowly get higher for the Atreides family, but what does that mean for the man behind the camera? One might expect Fraser to raise this drama in his own way. We will probably see a significant change in color if the tone for this movie is to change as sequels often do. Depending on what our heroes go through, shots may become tighter and faster to increase tension. What will truly matter is the mood the moviemakers are trying to portray.

Most epic trilogies tend to make their second movie darker and more intense, but there have been rumors of Dune being a project comprised of as many as four films. So we will have to wait and see.