oh i mean jesus look at that [ __ ] that is just
ugh on today's episode we're going to take a
look at a fantastic scene from Dune and we're going to extrapolate we're going
to reveal the techniques that Denis Villeneuve has used by storyboarding so
here we go we're going to play the film
[Music] so we start off on this really dark
wide shot we've got here in the center of the screen a doorway
the mother comes in from the right hand side of the door
she's tiny in frame you see that absolutely tiny in frame
our next frame we're now in a medium shot showing the mother who's stood in
front of us she's now static and paul coming up from behind
[Music] and he stands
actually very interestingly he stands just over his mother's shoulder so we've
got the mother she's roughly here
he basically walks towards the back of his mother because in a way
he's looking for protection he's still not he's hiding behind her somewhat if
we look at the very last frame of this shot
[Music] he's now over her shoulder looking in
the same direction as her finding some some safety behind his mother
oh i mean jesus look at that [ __ ] that is just
got a person in a room they are they are surrounded by books this immediately
tells us that this person is comfortable around knowledge is probably very
knowledgeable as well because that's a visual motif being used here and there
is a chair in the center of the room it's not got a chair opposite it she's
not waiting for someone to sit down in front of her she's going to be in
control even though she is seated so let's draw this out let's see let's see
if we can work out some uh some other imprint interesting information so we've
got our chair here apparently denis valeneuv um wanted the woman to feel
almost like uh a queen chess piece sat in this chair she's incredibly regal as
well she had this tall hat on waiting for him to arrive
so the beginning of this shot we see just here we see how benner jesuit here
we see this lady she's actually not even looking up she's looking straight
forward so she's expecting him to land into her eye line that is actually super
a really powerful choice as well because she's so in control she doesn't have to
have to raise her head this shot although it looks similar is
not the same as this two shot here it's actually slightly tighter so we're going
to create a new frame for that this one is far more equal however if you notice
paul's eye line is now bang on the same height as the banner jesuits eye line
and they still made sure that there is enough space for our bene jesuits uh
head piece to be in frame so let's just make sure that we
get this about right it's really important to analyze every
scene that inspires you that's why i chose this scene myself i feel like this
scene was so strong and if you think about it production value-wise there's
not a whole lot going on in this scene there's no big explosions there's no big
um arguments no one's shouting at one
another you know it's a subtle expression of conflict of power struggle
and that is in itself so important because it helps you understand how to
build your scenes how to build innate conflict and struggle between characters
your mother stands behind that door no one will get past her now we get a new
shot so we've got the power play and now we're reminded that the mother
is still relevant to this scene the mother is stood outside she's center
frame and she's looking down um and
almost like a uh a nun in prayer oh god that was a glimpse of fire there
for a second again new shot
fire love it so we've got the shot of paul
flash of fire and back to paul again now that lets us know by going from paul
to fire back to paul again and he looks slightly concerned
we realized that that was his vision no one else's if we had cut say to the
mother instead we would have been confused who saw that
fire or was that fire just some interpretation of this moment of
pain right so i think we have gotten all the way to the end the climax of this
scene we've seen how this scene has been put together through these shots how we
consistently can see how often a new frame is added in to keep the visual
variety in there the use of cutaways to really enhance the intensity of the
scene literally using fire to represent not only what paul was seeing but
represent the pain that his mother and he was feeling the way in which he
framed shots to show the correlation between the mother and son's journey and
the power dynamic and how it subtly shifts over the scene this is a textbook
example of how to use framing camera movement and imagery to really
tell your story and if we didn't break this down with storyboards
i honestly don't believe we would have gotten half as much of the information
on how denively new transformed this scene from the book
into the film so successfully