The way the beetle, the purrs and the tone of voice made ‘Dune’ come alive

and a film filled with beautiful scenes from alien planets; skyscraper spacecraft; and some of the most beautiful theaters in operation today. It’s wonderful to see, . But there is a wet element that unites everything: word structure. It breathes the film – so much so that it makes Dune in wing-flapping ornithopter ships look surprisingly real. The secret of such magic, according to voice makers Theo Green and Mark Mangini, was to create and use natural words, rather than create digital creations.

Working together with Dune in the director, Denis Villeneuve, both wanted to make a “real science fiction film with things we have never seen or heard of,” Mangini told Engadget.[It was] almost if you pull out a microphone and record the sound as if the objects were real. Everything we did … is the emergence of this great philosophy to make a two-hour and forty-minute song that sounds organic, as if we were. [making] filmmaking. “

That wisdom was necessary in making the words of Bene Gesserit, a seemingly spiritual force that allows members of Dune in a religious system to dominate others. Think of this as a Jedi concept (Star Wars he is in debt enough Dune, do not forget). But instead of a hypnotic wave of hand, the sound of Dune in words are like a punch in the gut at the same time as a punch in the face. If you were to lie down somewhere where the hero of the movie, Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), was testing his powers that belonged to Bene Gesserit, you would easily wake up.

For the words of the world to be true, Green values ​​three things. There is a singer Jean Gilpin, who claims to be “smart” in making witches’ words with parents. Voice makers also wrote Dune in the actors express their lines in several different ways, which they played through the subwoofer and record the final. This is an old-fashioned approach known as “worldizing,” or recording words that are played through speakers in a visible setting.

The last part of the wording is very simple: every time a person starts using this technique, some of the noise in the world disappears. In the first demonstration with Paul Atreides, we leave to hear the birds chirping in the morning and a distant storm to calm us down. This is a natural phenomenon that draws us into the inner world of Bene Gesserit’s power: As Frank Herbert described, calling on their parents and using modern psychological techniques to destroy others.

Green and Mangini also went to an old school for making noise Dune in ornithopter ships. They are similar to the helicopters throughout the film’s entire universe, but they sound like larger insects. To accomplish this, Mangini is said to have incorporated the sounds of a big cat, a tent peg, and a winged wing beetle. They weren’t working from existing libraries, either. Green had to bring the beetle into the quiet room and find a good song.

It was all because of the sound of the birds’ wings. In an effort to fix their driving machine, the two took the beehive tapes and changed them to sound like RPMs swaying in the car engine. The wing of the ship’s wings came from an unexpected source: Mangini’s Chevy Volt.

Once their job Dune After the event, the soundtrackers read some 3,200 new words for the film. Only three or four people started out as electricians or engineers, says Mangini. This also echoes the way Villeneuve conducted the show Dune and its classic animation: Go real if possible. For sound producers, the push for realism also led to other creative methods. Nose of Dune in For example, sand worms began as Mangini’s voice swallowed a microphone.

Green likens the use of clear words as a means of avoiding a “magical valley” that distorts visuals. Our eyes know when certain things look false, and this takes us away from the reality of the film. “I think [the uncanny valley] it’s logical, “he said.