FLIGHT OF THE ORNITHOPTER

Aerial transportation on Arrakis involves travelling in insectoid-shaped aircraft

“A dragonfly was mentioned a lot of the time, especially in some of the shots where you see them from a distance,” notes Lambert. “These ornithopters feel intrinsic to the desert, like tiny insects flying over it. We actually built full-size ornithopters with partial wings, and the wings were used as a reference to extend in CG. We built these things in London with BGI Supplies and they were transported to Budapest and Jordan. It needed one of those giant Antonov cargo Russian airplanes to carry it to Jordan. I heard some crazy six-figure amounts to actually get this thing over to Jordan. The ornithopter was there and also on the backlot in Budapest. We actually lifted these things on a crane. That shot where you see Paul Atreides [Timothée Chalamet] and Gurney Halleck [Josh Brolin] holding onto the open ornithopter looking down at the worm is a plate we shot out in Jordan where we lifted up the ornithopter on a crane, and put a camera behind the two stunt performers.” For the scene of an ornithopter being piloted by Paul Atreides through a sandstorm, a conventional methodology had to be modified. “Traditionally doing this you would shoot the cockpit of the ornithopter inside of a studio up against bluescreen, but we wanted to avoid that because you’re out in the open desert and have this strong sunlight,” explains Lambert. “We put the gimbal on the tallest hill in Budapest and surrounded it with a sand-coloured screen. The idea being that on a sunny day you would get all of the bounce light off of the desert going into the cockpit. When you looked at the dailies it actually felt that you were outside flying over the desert. Rather than do a full bluescreen or greenscreen extraction to put the desert behind it, it was just a blend with the plates that were shot out in the United Arab Emirates.”