In late May 2021, Denis Villeneuve and his key collaborators were settling in at soundstages in Budapest, Hungary, when the director revealed that production on Dune: Part Two would begin with one of the boldest creative choices of the whole project.

“Denis was still using the mornings to write, while we were busy prepping,” recalls cinematographer Greig Fraser, who won an Oscar for his work on Dune: Part One. “And he came out of his office one day to grab a coffee or something, and said to me, ‘I’m thinking that the scene on Giedi Prime should be black and white.’ I said, ‘That’s genius — and I’ve got a great idea.'”

“I didn’t want to just explain it to him, though,” Fraser adds. “So I said, ‘Give me a day, and I’ll show you.'”

One of the biggest visual challenges Villeneuve and his team...