Denis Villeneuve's SF epic Dune is nominated for an Oscar in 10 categories, including best sound. For Villeneuve, the film is virtually a "psychedelic journey" that is often carried by sound - by Hans Zimmer's music, but also by all the sounds that bring the desert world to life.
Sound recordings in the Death Valley for Dune / BTS (c) Warner Bros.
The sound crew consisted of Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett, who previously worked with Villeneuve on Blade Runner 2049. They were again involved very early on in this film and were already present during filming in Budapest.
To make the alien world sound relatively familiar nonetheless - Villeneuve speaks of an almost documentary approach - many important sounds in the film have organic origins. Among other things, bees were sampled (for the ornithopters) or microphones were buried in desert sand to get to know the dunes as a resonating body.
The following two clips give very interesting insights into the whole working process in terms of sound. The first one is only about 11 minutes long and lets the sound crew briefly and crisply talk about the highlights during an interview round, the second clip takes more time as an official BTS video. Despite many overlaps, even the shorter clip contains its own info, namely some tricks on how the sophisticated sound mix was adapted from the theatrical version into the playout for home theaters.
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