SHOT ON HAWK CLASS-X AND SUPPLIED BY VANTAGE VISION IN BUDAPEST, DUNE: PROPHECY IS A HIT FOR HBO MAX

HBO’s six-episode sci-fi series Dune: Prophecy begins 10,000 years before the events of Frank Herbert’s landmark 1965 novel. Dune: Prophecy serves as a prequel to Denis Villeneuve’s twin features, the second of which hit theaters in March 2024 under the title Dune: Part 2. Villeneuve’s films were photographed by Greig Fraser, ACS, who won an Oscar for his imagery in the first, and is nominated for ASC and Academy Awards for the second.

Pierre Gill, CSC shot the pilot for Dune: Prophecy, establishing the look, as well as episodes 5 and 6. Richard Donnelly and Nikolaus Summerer handled the others. Gill and his colleagues embraced the strong visual design of the Dune feature films, but felt free to improvise within that framework given the vast time differences and varied storylines they were to depict.

“It’s an amazing look, and it’s a strong part of our cinema at the moment,” says Gill. “It’s an important reason for the success of the films. Anytime we strayed too far from that, we came back to the family, so to speak. At the same time, we didn’t want to copy. The storytelling is of course the most important thing, and we kept that clean and simple.”

The majority of the proceedings unfold in one of two basic worlds – the Imperium Salusa Secondus, which is sunlit and golden, and the Sisterhood in Wallach IX, which is cold and blue. There was no virtual wall work whatsoever, and very little blue screen — mostly set extensions. Gill usually shot on sets built on gigantic stages at Origo Studios in Budapest, many of them reaching 45 feet in height. Of course, there’s a significant effects element, but the show was generally made using a classical approach with extensive lighting and in-camera techniques. Gill says that these days, that is a luxury.

The story was envisioned in anamorphic, but Gill was concerned about the format given the vast sets and the compressed television schedule, which would require shooting multiple cameras, and many lenses. He tested a wide variety of lenses from every manufacturer, and based on the results, chose Hawk class‑X anamorphic.

“The class‑X have a nice dirtiness – some of the aberration that everyone loves,” Gill says. “This is very important for me, and it’s a big part of why I choose a lens. I’m a bit of a maniac about skin. In general, I find images to be too sharp these days. I hate that! The cameras are so clean. I like to see detail, but I don’t need to see every pore. I want the eyes to come out. I tested many very popular lenses, but often they are just too sharp for me.”

Another major factor in his decision was the superior close focus of the class‑X. The T 2.2 65 mm, for example, focuses down to half a meter.

“In the past, anamorphic lenses like this were for theatrical,” says Gill. “A closeup wasn’t so close. Today, especially in television, a close-up often needs to be shot physically closer to the subject. It has more impact. You always need a few more inches, and it’s frustrating. The 55 macro class‑X has a close focus of 1.2 feet. You’re in a good zone, and it changes a lot of things. It’s super-cool to be able to come that close. Also, the class‑X are not too big. They’re light and easy to carry, and you can put them on the Steadicam quite easily.”

With multiple cameras a given, the availability of enough glass was another concern coming into the shoot. “I liked the bold look of some rehoused Russian glass, but those lenses are very difficult to work with – you can’t get multiple sets, and they don’t match in terms of color,” he says. “I need lenses that are user-friendly and dependable. I need a lot of them and I need them to match.”

At times, the shoot employed four sets of class‑X. Gill also used some MiniHawks, usually on drones, which are spherical lenses that deliver anamorphic flavor thanks to a patented shaping device and other adaptations.

“I mostly used the 29 mm MiniHawk for our very wide shots,” says Gill. “The 29 is a really beautiful lens, and it matches the class‑X in terms of color. The MiniHawks are fun!”

With the collaboration of the team at Vantage Film in Weiden, where Hawk lenses are manufactured, Gill further refined his look with filtration. He used standard Tiffen diffusion throughout, and in a few specific situations made use of Vantage’s Bethke Filters, which use unusual materials like metal and colored glass shards to refract light in surprising ways. The Vantage team also developed a set of specialized diffusion filters for Gill that mimic the Harrison Black Dot filter.

“It was my dream to shoot with my Black Dot filter from Harrison, which is a crazy diffusion filter from the 1970s,” he says. “It’s like a good wine, but the recipe is lost. It almost belongs in a museum. It’s dangerous if you don’t use it properly. It’s gorgeous, but you have to get everyone onboard, because it’s a strong effect. Peter Martin at Vantage was willing to work with me to come up with a modern version in several variations. For a dream sequence, I was able to use the heaviest variation. The filter creates a velvet image, where everything blooms and bleeds into a beautiful image, like a painting.”

Top-notch service and attention to detail is the hallmark of the Vantage network, the largest rental company in Europe. Vantage Vision in Budapest, one of the newest members of the Vantage family, supplied the shoot with cameras and lenses.

Dune: Prophecy premiered on Max on November 17, 2024, and became a major hit, topping the streaming charts. The show was renewed for a second season in December.
Watch the trailer here.

images: Daria Wilk, IMDb