Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS on Dune, using digital technology, working with director Denis Villeneuve and director Kathryn Bigelow

Director of photography Greig Fraser says that cinematographers
always strive to create images with dimension, so that audiences
are able to experience almost feeling and touching what they are
seeing. Film has always had the dimensional and realistic feel that
filmmakers appreciate, such as grain and color. But with today's
advances in digital filmmaking technology, Greig understands and
embraces using the tools that are appropriate to the project he's
working on, and the technology just keeps improving. For Greig, no
matter what he's shooting or how technical it can be, what draws
him to every film project is the characters in the movie. On Dune,
Greig and director Denis Villeneuve tested on film and also on
digital, but they didn't like either look that much. They decided
to take a hybrid approach: the film was shot on digital, then
output to film, and then back out to digital, which gave it the
look they wanted. Villeneuve was a huge fan of Dune the novel, and
had a clear vision of what his version of the Dune story should be.
He extensively storyboarded the film in pre-production, and they
did not reference the previous Dune movie at all. During the shoot,
Greig and the VFX supervisor Paul Lambert championed getting the
lighting exactly correct with the blue or green screen background
so that the shots and perspective would look the most realistic and
there would be very little adjustments needed in post production.
Greig also talks about using the iPhone 13 ProMax to shoot a demo
film with director Kathryn Bigelow. The phone has several camera
options that make it cinematic, and he finds that phones are
getting better and better to shoot with. Greig's next film is The
Batman which will be released in March. Find Greig Fraser:
Instagram @greigfraser_dp Twitter: @GreigFraser_dp You can see Dune
in theaters now, on Blu-ray, or soon returning to HBOMax. Find out
even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links:
http://camnoir.com//ep154/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras:
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