Editing Techniques and Insights from Dune's Sandworm Sequence

Joe Walker emphasizes the power of editing and sound in creating tension and emotion in cinematic storytelling.

### The Art of Editing: Insights from Dune's Oscar-Winning Editor Joe Walker
* 🎬 In a masterclass interview, Oscar-winning editor Joe Walker shares his editorial techniques and insights from the Dune franchise, particularly focusing on the **sandworm sequence**.
* 🔊 Walker emphasizes the importance of watching edits with the sound off to appreciate the visual rhythm, stating, "**You turn the sound down, forget about the dialogue, and it's a laser fight**."
* 🐍 He describes the sandworm's introduction as a "**strip tease**," carefully using **abrupt cuts and editing rhythm** to create a sense of **disorientation for the audience**.
* 🌌 Walker discusses the contrast between wide and close shots to enhance the vulnerability of characters, especially Paul, who faces the ultimate challenge of **riding a sandworm**, a creature that can **reach 400 meters in length**.
* 🎶 The choice to delay the introduction of music until a critical moment amplifies the emotional impact, as Walker notes, "**One of the very strongest things that you can do sonically and editorially is kind of wipe the sink out and go music**."
* 🎥 He reveals that the intense sequence involved **44 days of filming** dedicated to the sandworm, showcasing the **meticulous planning and execution** required to achieve the desired effects.
* 🧠 Walker also highlights the significance of **timing in editing**, particularly with subtitles, to ensure that the audience is **engaged without being distracted** from the visual storytelling.
* ✂ Ultimately, he believes that editing is about **inviting the audience to invest in the story**, treating each cut as a **precious decision that enhances the cinematic experience**.

and also the choice of where to put music CU. As far as there is not a single note of music, we chose a certain moment to kind of flip from sound effects to pure hands. One of the very strongest things that you can do editorially is kind of wipe the sink out on the editing part podcast. We're learning from the best of the best, Oscar-winning editor of the Dune franchise, Joe Walker. In this in-depth masterclass interview, Joe is going to break down every frame of the sandworm sequence. Joe explains why he watches his edits with the sound off. You turn the sound down, forget about the dialogue, and it's a laser fight. He gave us an exclusive look at the storyboards and how it developed, how they introduce the sandworm. It's a strip tease; the worm is just showing a bit of leg, how he uses abrupt cuts and editing rhythm to disorientate the audience. I love how nightmarish it is, and the intriguing strategy of timing subtitles. If you want to read, go to a

[__] Library. This is we're in a cinema. This is the editing podcast brought to you by Lick. This episode is part one of a three-part series that we're releasing on the making of Dune 2. And if you're new here, please subscribe. I always see the two films as one film in a way, and I feel like in this particular scene, this scene wouldn't have the tension it does if you didn't know what a Thumper could lead to. We know what a sandworm can do because there's in part one that explains that the largest and most dangerous organism on Arrakis is the sandworm, capable of reaching 400 m in length. Here, he's got to face the biggest challenge, which is climbing on a worm, and it's seen as the ultimate kind of test of strength for a Fremen warrior. The loneliness really of Paul in that wide shot, I think, is something that I really wanted to breathe. I could have cut to it in a very typical fashion, just

as reference as to where he is, but we lean into it and say, Look how vulnerable the kid is. You know, genuinely a lot is at stake. This is, he's got either got to prove himself or he simply is going to die from this. You've already got there a kind of thing that's very typical for the film, which is a contrast between a big wide and a big close. There's a sort of sense of contrast in this film visually and in sound, mostly because the film really is about a human drama on an epic scale, and that a big ingredient in the film is the landscape itself. There's a little moment between chn and Paul where she knows his weaknesses and his frailties. You know, it's embracing those very wide range of things and kind of meeting that out carefully. [Music] Even just with the timing of Paul's eyes, it come just went one, two, fre, and then you chose to make that cut. Why did that feel right to you? Look, eyes is like one of the most dynamic thing things that

you can be aware of in an edit. Sometimes, me and Denny, you know, known to just turn the sound off. I should now, uh, beside the... When you do that, one of the things that really leaps out at you is not only the rhythm of the scene, sort of unadulterated, but also the intensity of the eyes. A rhythm in an edit can be a visual thing. It can be an eyebrow being raised in the middle of a dialogue scene. It where you turn the sound down, forget about the dialogue, and it's a laser fight. You know, it drives me nuts when people don't pay attention to that. You know, I'm playing off the rhythm is kind of an interesting thing to do. I like dwelling on this shot, and then you go, That's a hard C, that's yeah, you know, Crunch. And I'm always looking for that, looking for ways to be abrupt within generally smooth, you know. It's not editing in your face quite often. I'm sort of just letting things play out, and for you to be able to sort

of Lean Forward into it and then subvert it with a kind of abrupt cut. It's just controlled pacing, and also something in many of Denny's films is just settling on the back of somebody, and then it always feels like a kind of vulnerable point of view. They don't know that you're there; they don't know that you're watching them in a way. As we even did mention earlier, a wide shot will also make him vulnerable, but an intimate shot can do the same effect. Yeah, that is their blind spot, and for us to be, I guess, like inside that space, we're literally right behind him. His neck is on the line, yeah, and there's something super brutal about that, the way it clicks down. How would you then describe this fuming sound? It's probably, I feel, it's close to dance music in some way. Also, there's something about the pace of it. The pace is just right for that. For me, it's not fast, and it's not too slow. That's carefully chosen. I don't know what the BPM is, but

I'm going to go and work it out. It even looks like the majority of shots and Paul seem to be relatively locked off, but then when we're then cutting towards Charlie's perspective, it's handheld. Yeah, for me, that kind of creates like another degree of separation and vulnerability onto Paul as well. I don't know how to express that, but I kind of feel it when I'm cutting it that there's a little bit more freedom in the movement on the fman side, and that there's a rigidity to the kind of and the straightforwardness and a minimalism to the shots on Paul's side. It sort of adds to a tension and also a gap between these people in terms of their experience, expectation, and honestly, it's kind of like, you know, I'm grateful to be talking to you because you can tell me what I was thinking 'cause I'm, you know, it's sometimes hard to explain what you've felt, but you're highlighting things that I did feel intuitively. I would have cut to his

reaction first, but you chose not to. No, I wanted to make the point that he's a little slower reacting. They've seen this so many times before. That's kind of worrying to me that he isn't reacting as quickly as they are. Okay, okay, okay. Denny chose to shoot this in one. I think it was a brilliant choice of his to try and capture this, him being perplexed, and to follow it, just that hunting feeling. It's not just some dumb beast coming at him at speed. It's something playing with him, like he's the prey. Quite, yeah, yeah. And in the storyboards, for example, it was more divided. There was a detail shop, for example, planned and even shot that was available to me. But I think it was a brilliant choice of his. But I think he really wanted to capture all in one. You want to feel the thing coming at you for longer rather than going in and satisfying that desire to see more straight away. Yeah, I would have been tempted to see some action shots like

to like and made it loud, but actually not cutting towards that again, just keeps that sort of Predator feeling. It's the strip tease; the worm is just showing a bit of leg. There's a nice little balancing rhythm there, you know, the rhythm of the three things, you know, click, click, rise. That is just the best way to establish a pattern of rhythm, isn't it? Yeah, and how much more powerful is it for the fact that we didn't cut earlier and now we're getting as far cuts now. That is a huge escalation contrast, right? It's a contrast of rhythm again. It's super vulnerable in the wide, just seeing this little figure running for the clappers, and the more you see it, you more you think, how the hell is he going to do this? It's still building up tension. T me through the sound of that shot for me. I had like a huge emotional like, oh God, experience. I felt the power of the worm in that, especially, you know, I started laying sound against the scene when it was just story.

bards and to try and almost for my own benefit really to kind of get a sense of how long to hold shots and the kind of power that we're trying to convey. And also, it's a difficult thing where you're in loud scenes. It's a perennial problem cinematically is how do you keep interest when things are just permanently loud. So you're trying to kind of find as much variety and shape in June part one. Theo Green, one of the two sound supervisors, was embedded with us and was developing those sounds all the way along. Denny always used to talk to me about the fact that the worm was going to be the size of a skyscraper and to try and convey that sense. And that made me start to investigate sounds of twisting iron and girders and creaking. We found some deep sort of ship creeks and we're feathering all those here. Hi, hello, editing Hayden here. Do excuse the messy office. Well, we've been editing and I can never look after

the office when I'm working. While we were editing this episode, there was a moment where I, uh, I got a little bit distracted, and I ended up making a fan cam of Paul the tradies to Lincoln Park. I am Paul Betres, Duke of Baracus. Become so I can't feel, and I actually shouldn't have done this because now that I've used Lincoln Park, I'm going to get a copyright strike on this video. Ah, there's a trap you won't lick. Is the music platform where you can license mainstream music and put it in your content. Genuinely, that is a crazy sentence to say. I'm able to in my YouTube videos use tracks from Mumford and Sons, amazingly music from Daft Punk, or if you want to be a little bit more cheeky, you could use music from Sabrina Carpenter. She has the biggest song of 2024, and I can license that and put that in my YouTube video. Honestly, one of the most fun things I like to do on Licked is just dive deep in there.

there are tracks in there from my childhood and tracks I never ever would have thought I would have been able to use on licked as an editor. This is giving me huge unique opportunities to be able to tell my stories. Go explore L, check out that catalog, and of course, you can find that link in the description. Let's cut to the fan cam of polar trades one more time. Yep, thank you, and now let's keep nerding out about Dune. So, this is when the cuts kind of can be a little bit jarring, a little bit aggressive. It's like, Let's add to the panic, I guess. Yeah, and the wall of The Cutting Room. At one point, Denny, I think he said, Maybe we should be less Lawrence of Arabia, more roadrunner. And so, like, my assistant printed that, um, you know, Wile E. Coyote picture and put it on the cut wall. You could be like, Lean to that kind of extravagant action. I have to tell you a little bit about how it was filmed. So, a scene like this

doesn't just get shot in a day or two. It's like it was 44 days of worm unit for this part of the sequence, and that was the second unit working. There's a sizable part of the worm surface that Tim and also stunt man can work on, and with a ton of dust being thrown at them every day. I had a Cutting Room in the same studio, and I'd see all these people, draggled people, going past every night, having had two tons of, you know, [__] thrown at them. Tell you, so many of those things were practical, you know. That's the really the joy of cutting, that they're straining as hard as they can to give you some, as much of the picture as you can, and VFXs are doing brilliant things, you know. I am responding to a guy throwing a hook onto a worm's scale. Yeah, it was all there, and they know when they've got that shot. Takes like 18 takes to get the timing of that Focus ball right, and the action of the

hook itself was there. Any takes when the guy threw the hook and hit the cameraman or something every time. Yeah, and then you know this one soundwise. We were thinking, I mean honestly, it was an instinctive thing of going with a particular image and I felt like that was okay. He's on the worm now and it marks the beginning of his attempts to kind of master it. It's not scoring, it's not interfering, it's holding a pattern which is you know, it's nicely minimal and or it's amplifying a feeling. It's not holding your hand and saying this and then and doing that kind of Mickey mousing and then you know it's going to erupt into something but when and how you don't know. There's a process in the scene where you'd lose a sense of space and then you see the kind of sun coming down so you realize that the worm is leveling off. There's so much dust you can't see the background and deliberately I cut wide.

the worm is kind of trying to turf him off its back. The note I got from him was that it should be like being at the back of an old school bus and going over a major road bump. And actually, there was even in the sound at one point, I put in the sound of a, you know, sort of axle going over a [Applause] bump. Well, even for that, it's like that made me jump when I saw that in the cinema, that erupting cloud of a huge abundance of sand just hitting the camera. I love how nightmarish it is. You never want him to look as though he's mastered something before he's challenged by it. And then in comes the, uh, another big contrast right before that impact. And also the choice of where to put music, 'cause one thing we haven't mentioned about the scene so far is there is not a single note of music. And the whole idea is that it's going to be the natural sounds, the wind, the breaths, the thumper.

and the movement of the world is trying to kind of not play all your toys at the same time and to let Hans's music sort of later emphasize a more spiritual quality to the scene. You know, we chose a certain moment to kind of flip from sound effects to pure Hans. That's the biggest shot in the scene, you know, that one of the very strongest things that you can do sonically and editorially is kind of wipe the sink out and go music because that does a very special thing to an audience, absolutely. It becomes bigger than the picture and want to play it in exactly the right place with kind of considerable intention, and it just felt like that's the moment where we're going to do it, and then in comes the big P things. This is possibly the Messiah, and that's what we're getting to, and that's what Star is going to see, and that's what the crowd is going to see, and you have to kind of not just set up that this guy is athletically capable of

riding a worm. The big thing that the whole scene is about is he's a [Music] leader holding him. One shot really draws that out. Then you've got a backlit Messianic look there. Yeah, very deliberately [Music] designed. Even a small detail with that. He says it and then the subtitle. Yeah, I don't know how to describe it, but it just felt right to wait for a moment. I mean, I I can't express to you how much time we take timing the subtitles. I'm always trying to kind of get people to look at the screen first. Yeah, you know, because otherwise if it subtitles absolutely in time with the dialogue, then you start reading the film. And like if you want to read, go to a [ __ ] Library. This is we're in a [Music] cinema. I like just slowing it down actually and showing his kind of mastery is just leaning into a more spiritual element, you know, going into the sun, you know, this. It's slightly exaggerated, the kind of thing crashing.

through that Doe would have happened quicker, and we've shown it to be quicker here. We're just sort of, I like to describe it as calm, yeah, and Transcendent. And I think, yeah, and then having that in contrast to what we just had barely a minute ago, it's just like that really does show The Journey that he has just had. The fact that he stood up, taking control of the Le. One of the things is probably really interesting for me to explore is in his interviews. I always do love talking about the spectacle part, like what of the loud Big scenes, but as I've come to learn in all of this, like those don't work without the appropriate sort of emotional context. I've actually come to really like the more intimate scenes now as well, and also just sometimes the comedy. Like, the first movie wasn't that funny, but this actually had these small elements of Comedy towards it as well. Anything else I should know? Uh, beside the worms and the Harin. Beware of the trapdoor.

spiders and centipedes are very nasty. Not the big ones; they're harmless, but the little ones you have to worry about. Got to get three every time I think that that funny, but it's even funnier the way that I held on Paul's face falling and what Paul gave me. But the little ones you have to worry about. This just such a great reaction, but the little ones you have to worry about. And don't ever, ever listen to that sh. Yeah, and we've gone across the line. If you noticed, you know people who are into editing will know about the idea of crossing the line or the 180° roll. And it's interesting that they shot, you know, Stuger on the left looking left to right, Paul looking right to left in matching shots, but they also shot it around the other way for sort of two different ways of getting the scene. And actually, I kind of found that there was like a way of using both for like for good purpose because I've gone away to the other crowd. I could go to this we know that.

they're where they're standing, so it's not too dangerous to do that. Well, so cutting into the crowd kind of then made you breaking the line just like not as jarring, not as jarring. That was a really good get-out-of-jail-free card. Yeah, and it's also partly driven by what where was the best performance and the one where he's really opened up. Like, this is was the best performance. J J theer Spirits, they whisper a night, they can possess you. Really be careful. They are demons, but this true. Don't listen to them. Okay, so that's cross, that's crossing the line for an abrupt cut. Yeah, but it works. I like bit. Yeah, yeah, you're completely breaking the line, but that's what makes it a jump. It's spooky, like we get spooked, but then like it's also just really endearingly funny. It's endearingly funny that he wants to spook Paul out just as he sends him out to a rather deathly situation. I don't know.

What was really necessary, and I'm so glad we had this stuff to play with, is the fact that you've got to kind of like clear the pallet a bit from a very, very dark scene where you know a guy's just seen his mother swallow a poison and start hallucinating. The next scene, he's going to be thrown out into the desert. You know, we talked about abrupt cuts with, you know, big Normy queues of action, but it's possible to do that in dialogue. And I kind of, you know, if I'm looking at editing, trying to adjudicate whether somebody's a really good editor or not, or adjudicating something for an award or something, then actually the dialogue scenes give a lot away about their kind of thinking. And you know, if you can make a conversation between two people interesting, and particularly for a prolonged pages of dialogue, I think that's where you're a master. Well, where are a lot of people making mistakes in editing dialogue, and then how can they then make that work? Cutting too much. Mhmm.

just kind of too much. Yeah, you don't allow people to kind of peer in. I mean, I know that there are some people who will find, you know, anybody used to a social media diet from the last five years will find some of this excruciatingly slow probably, but they're just not, cinema is not for them, right? I'm kind of really into that invest, you know, inviting the audience in to investigate and peer. That's what's so kind of great about cinema, is you're looking at minute human moments on a massive scale, and to give the time to do that is important. I think you have to kind of treat every cut as if it's your last 75 cents, you know that, and each one is going to cost you, and if you overuse it, then you, you know, you tie people out. You should think about it as being the most precious decision. I mean, unfortunately, you just described all of web media content. Oh, I can't put that in now. I'll lose all my clients. [Music]

'Dune 2' Editor Breaks Down the Sandworm Sequence

The Editing Podcast

Masterclass with Joe Walker: Editing Dune's Sandworm Sequence

Joe Walker, the Oscar-winning editor of the Dune franchise, shares his editorial techniques in a masterclass interview.

He discusses the importance of watching edits with the sound off and using abrupt cuts to disorient the audience.

The sandworm's introduction is described as a strip tease, while the editing rhythm and timing of subtitles play a crucial role in building tension and vulnerability for the characters.

The Cinematic Techniques of Denny's Films

Denny's films use controlled pacing and intimate shots to create a sense of vulnerability in the characters.

The contrast between locked-off shots and handheld perspectives adds tension and separation between characters.

The decision to shoot in one continuous take enhances the feeling of being preyed upon, while the careful rhythm of cuts escalates tension and builds anticipation.

Behind the Scenes of Dune's Worm Sequence

The sound design for Dune's worm was crucial, with the supervisor embedding himself with the team to develop the right sounds.

The filming of the worm sequence took 44 days, with practical effects and a dedicated stunt team working amidst challenging conditions.

The editing process involved a mix of aggressive cuts and unique storytelling opportunities, with the use of licensed mainstream music adding to the creative process.

The scene's sound design and visuals work together to create a minimalistic yet impactful experience, with the worm's movements and the dust cloud adding to the tension.

The absence of music until a pivotal moment amplifies the scene's emotional weight, while natural sounds and subtle effects build anticipation.

The transition from sound effects to music is strategically placed to create a powerful impact on the audience.

The Art of Cinematic Timing and Storytelling

The scene features a music leader holding a character, with deliberate backlighting and timed subtitles to draw attention.

The director emphasizes the contrast between calm, transcendent moments and loud, big scenes, highlighting the importance of emotional context.

The use of matching shots and crossing the line in editing adds depth to the storytelling, creating a dynamic and engaging narrative.

Cutting into the crowd can create a smoother transition and break the line without being jarring.

Abrupt cuts in dialogue can be effective, especially when transitioning from dark scenes to lighter moments.

A masterful editor knows how to make prolonged conversations interesting and invites the audience to invest in the characters' minute human moments.