Which brings us to something else unique about the sandworms: their audible effects.
When he was on location in the desert, Lambert wanted to get some idea of how to visualize the massive sand displacement the worms would cause by placing explosives underground, “but in the Middle East it’s probably not the best thing to be doing that.” Instead, he created a simulation of moving sand using Houdini software, based largely on water movements. Those ripples on the surface of the dunes, which Herbert called “ wormsign,” also had to be created digitally. The creatures themselves get a few money shots in Dune, but a lot of the time they’re spotted by their movements underground. Then there was the matter of the worm’s namesake: the sand. “I’m never a supervisor who is going to say to Denis, ‘Look, if we just make this all blue screen … ’” Lambert says.
It gave Lambert the ability to create a seamless VFX shot (there were more than 2,000 of those on Dune), and Villeneuve the ability to have a movie that looked as natural as possible. Sandscreen meant Lambert could film an actor on location “riding” a sandworm-essentially a platform on a moveable gimbal covered in beige-and then add the worm below him with CGI. Fremen hook reins into their scaly exteriors and stand atop them as they slither through the desert.
For the Fremen, the native people of Arrakis, they also serve as transportation. As described by Frank Herbert in Dune, sandworms are massive creatures that live in the vast sands of Arrakis and produce “spice”-the most valuable substance in the known universe. We’re talking about sandworms, of course. It allowed every shot to look as natural as possible-and also let them create one of sci-fi’s most iconic creatures. All he had to do was swap out the sand color for whatever building, background, or beast he wanted. Sandscreen meant Villeneuve could get all his beauty shots out in the desert and Lambert could easily add whatever he needed to in post-production.
To match it, visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert did something he’d never done before: turned his greenscreens brown. They call it “sandscreen.” Out in the deserts of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, where director Denis Villeneuve shot much of Dune, everything is varying shades of beige.