Cinematographer Greig Fraser reveals what made the opening minutes of Dune: Part Two so palpable and stunning.

Dune: Part Two broke new ground in filmmaking with its sweeping landscapes and detailed world-building. Similarly, the opening scenes of the Fremen ambushing the Harkonnen were as ingeniously filmed as the black-and-white Giedi Prime sequences.

Dune: Part Two hit the ground running in its opening minutes, bringing audiences up to speed on Paul Atreides after his duel with Jamis. Part Two‘s opening scene shows what Arrakis looks like under the dying light of an eclipse, which casts a deep, eerie hue on the landscape. The deep orange color grading also created an otherworldly backdrop for the brief skirmish between the Fremen and Harkonnens. Cinematographer Greig Fraser said they chose to play out the Fremen ambush scene for the opening after much deliberation; in an interview with /Film, he revealed how they developed the filter that fueled suspense for that first battle scene.

Fraser said the opening sequence used a filter variation similar to the Giede Prime scenes, by eliminating different light spectrums. “I’ve been playing with, particularly in Giedi Prime, with infrared and cutting out red, green, and blues, and cutting out different spectrums of light to come up with different looks,” he explained. “I had a variable filter which took out just enough blue that you could get a little bit of blue in the sky, but it was mostly orange-y or red, and it had the right element of shadow detail. So we chose to use this filter, and we chose to make it deeper and darker as the story went on and as the eclipse became more heavy.”

Dune 2 Depicted Life Under Different Suns

Fraser used filters to depict what Arrakis and Giedi Prime’s sunlit environments looked like. Director Denis Villeneuve said this approach was adopted from Frank Herbert’s novel, which explored how ecosystems impact their inhabitants’ psyche and physiology. This is suggested further in the Giede Prime black-and-white scene that introduced Feyd-Rautha. Filmed with infrared cameras, the monochrome hue of the arena battle scene vividly expressed how Giedi Prime’s black sun caused and goaded the Harkonnen’s brutality.

Part Two could have just as easily started with Feyd-Rautha’s introduction, but Fraser asserted the Arrakis ambush was the perfect opening. “We started that way because we knew it was a great way to start the film and a great way to launch this journey,” he confirmed “And also, seeing those Harkonnen with those fantastic suits, with their voices and the anti-gravity, seeing all of that stuff in that color, that’s peak sci-fi for me. That’s the sci-fi I remember as a kid […] I love that sort of sci-fi.”

Dune: Part Two streams on Max on May 21.