SCAD Savannah Film Festival celebrated Variety's 10 Artisans to Watch and Creative Impact in Production Design honoree Patrice Vermette Production designer Patrice Vermette promises the third and final instalkment in the “Dune” franchise is going to be “a major spectacle.” “You know when you go see fireworks, and they put everything in, and at the end, it’s ‘Oh, we have this one.’ It’s going to be like that,” he teases. The film sees Timothee Chalamet return as Paul Atreides, continuing the story after his ascent to power at the end of “Part Two.” Inspired by Frank Herbert’s novel “Dune Messiah,” the action takes place 17 years after the events of the previous film and explores the consequences of Paul’s rule as emperor. Vermette was this year’s recipient of Variety’s Creative Impact Award presented at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
During a conversation with Variety’s Senior Artisans editor Jazz Tangcay, Vermette was mindful about revealing anything too specific. The one directive he had from director Denis Villeneuve was “not to repeat sets.” And he didn’t. Vermette shared some insight into how he pulled off the film’s opening sequence, which he says was a “crazy idea.” “The illustrations that I had made showed an expanse of black sand and ships attacking a planet.” One spaceship weighed 55 tons.
For the whole scene, it rains. So, we had spider rigs and touch spinners, and it’s a big battle sequence. We only built one ship that you see the interior and exterior 360 degrees.
Every two days, we had a crane during the day coming in, lifting it. And obviously, we had a pump system to take all the water out.” The results, he says, are “worth it.” Sharing their process, Vermette said, “The fun thing about working with Denis is we never want to repeat ourselves. Even though we’re in the same world.” They have a motto: “Let’s challenge each other.
Let’s make it different.” Before getting into “Dune,” Vermette talked about getting his start in the industry working on music videos. He started collaborating with a director and realized he had found his comfort zone: “I understood the vision of the director.” It also gave him an adrenaline rush. As for working with Villeneuve, he and Vermette shared the same circle of friends and they had worked on commercials together in the early 2000s.
The production designer was a huge fan, but their schedules never aligned for them to work together on a feature. Vermette recalled, “That text message changed my life.” The two were finally able to collaborate on the 2013 film, “Enemy,” Villeneuve’s first English-language movie. When Villeneuve proposed “Dune,” Vermette knew how much Herbert’s book meant to the filmmaker.
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