Today's Edition
KUUMAR SHYAM (Abu Dhabi)
When "Dune: Part Two" releases across theatres in the world on Friday, people will marvel at the cast of Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin and the likes presenting you a story set among the dunes of The Empty Quarter (TEQ) among others, they will also appreciate the efforts gone behind in working through the challenges that came with the unique terrain.
"When Denis Villeneuve [the film director] and the team came scouting, we showed them quite a few locations before showing them the crème de la crème, as they say it – The Empty Quarter in Liwa; they fell in love with it immediately," says Robbie McAree, the Executive Producer of Epic Films, the local company which assisted in the making of the film as far as the UAE was concerned.
The film by Legendary Pictures is the second instalment of an adaptation from Frank Herbert's book by the same name. Epic Films were also part of "Dune: Part One" where a small schedule of just six days were shot. Speaking to Aletihad from their office in Dubai Studio City, McAree reveals that the original plan was on a similar short scale, until a visit to Liwa happened.
"The initial brief was to find places for both rock and desert. For Dune 1, they went to Jordan to shoot the rock scenes. So we went around some places in the UAE. But when the team visited TEQ, their eyes all lit up, even though it is not rock, but just the dunes. When Denis also visited a week or two later, he was also blown away," says McAree with a wide grin.
"And since the popularity of Dune 1 grew, and the script evolved, we scaled up to shoot 27 days with a few extra days on helicopter." A media report from Abu Dhabi quoted Villeneuve confirming it at the screening of the movie by Warner Bros. on Yas Island.
"The main reason I came here was to be inspired directly by the desert," Villeneuve said. "You cannot create those shots that we've made on a soundstage in a back lot. I designed all the shots according to the landscape." With the dunes of Abu Dhabi getting a revised, and bigger, hero role, the challenges also increased.
"For Dune 1, the crew was about 240-250. And you know there is only place to stay – Qasr Al Sarab – with no other option for two hours by drive. This one has, I think, space to fit 209. For Dune 2, including extras, it was 500-600 people. Even with some coming in for a few days and in staggered fashion, that was a lot.
"Then we came up with the idea of setting up a village. I remember when I first pitched the idea to the team at Legendary, they were looking at me like I had three heads. 'What do you mean, build a village?' they asked.
"You know we are building huge sets in the middle of a desert. With Denis' vision, we had to figure out a plan with temporary roads; we had to construct – in just a week's time – what we call hard-standing setpads, which are essentially just compacted sand so we could build the sets on top of them.
"Then we needed a lot of space to store the equipment in cool atmospheres; and we realised pretty quickly that we were going to have an accommodation issue. We had up to three hundred local crew and contractors; then the extras and the crew from all over the world. Then we came up with a solution of building this village with essentially fully operational containers of accommodation. We built a 150-bed facility, and we called it McGregor's Village (named after the team member who came up with the plan and executed it).
"It had everything: 24-hour security, laundry services, a restaurant, 24-hour shuttle buses– it was close but still needed transport to Qasr Al Sarab hotel – then the Wi-Fi, water, etc.
"It became quite famous, and quite an achievement. It became actually quite a community. People who were staying in Qasr Al Sarab also would come down in the evenings to have dinner together, and watch TV, because the FIFA World Cup was going on."
Although most of the glamourous work in both Dune films has been essentially credited to VFX, there was one challenging scene when "a sand dune collapses at the feet of [lead actor] Timothee", reveals McAree.
"We worked closely with the Environmental Agency Abu Dhabi to execute that and even in creating the McGregor's Village with support from Abu Dhabi Film Commission and other agencies."
The endearing makeshift village has now disappeared into thin air once the shooting completed, and McAree's team at Epic Films is onto other plans (see side story), but the producer reckons "Dune: Part Two" as among the top three projects to have been shot on a mass scale in Abu Dhabi, along with "Star Wars 3" and "6 Underground".
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