PRODUCTION DUNE: PROPHECY
An origin story of sorts, Dune: Prophecy aligns itself with the latest film adaptations of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel. DOP Pierre Gill, CSC discusses his creative decision-making and the practical aspects of being on such large sets
T he latest addition to the Dune universe, Dune: Prophecy is set more than 10,000 years before Paul Atreides’ birth. The prequel series follows two Harkonnen sisters, Valya and Tula, who go on to establish the Bene Gesserit – a group of gifted women who use supernatural powers to plan and execute social and political events. Released less than one year after Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two , Prophecy is a natural extension of the director’s work (though the two projects are technically unrelated), maintaining a similar visual style. This was a choice made primarily by DOP Pierre Gill, CSC, who shot episodes 1, 5 and 6.
should look like?’, which was the biggest question at the beginning,” he recalls. “Set 10,000 years before Dune , it could have been completely different.” As a fan of Villeneuve’s films, Gill wanted to ‘stay in that environment’, giving audiences more of that world rather than something totally separate. He and the crew agreed to stay away from other adaptations, like David Lynch’s Dune (1984), for instance. “It’s too weird and different, and it’s going to make things harder,” they’d remarked. To achieve a mirror image, Gill studied Dune and Dune: Part Two , noting their monochromatic aesthetics, which are especially evident during Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen’s black & white fight scene. Gill paid close attention to colour and light when crafting Prophecy , making the Sisterhood appear colder, greyer and softer, and the Imperial Palace warmer, with ‘as much harsh light as possible’.
“When you read a sci-fi script, you never quite understand what’s going on, and you don’t know where you are,” Gill admits. With Prophecy , “you know right away where you are because the colour is always a bit different.” Unlike its film counterparts, Prophecy sometimes adds a vibrant pop of colour, particularly in episode 1. Princess Ynez – the Emperor’s daughter – wears a red dress to her wedding, signifying imminent danger while establishing her character as being unlike the rest. This same dress appears in a Sister’s dream – a highly stylised, foreboding sequence in which Gill could ‘get creative’. Red appears again when Ynez and her brother go out into the city and visit a nightclub. “I purposefully made it redder and more orange, in another zone completely,” says Gill. “The other part of the universe is bringing you into a new colour palette.”
WHERE IN THE WORLD When interviewing for the job, Gill was initially asked, “‘What do you think it
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