Site created 12/15/97.		page created: 6/17/02 Writer/Director John Harrison talks Frank Herbert's Dune If you've read The Digital Bits for any length of time, then you'll probably know how much I enjoyed the SciFi Channel's miniseries version of Frank Herbert's Dune. And you'll also no doubt be aware that I was none too pleased with the original DVD release of the same miniseries by Artisan Entertainment. My concerns about that DVD actually found their way to the man responsible for writing and directing the miniseries, John Harrison. You may recall that John's been featured here at The Bits before, in our special feature on the audio commentary recording session with John and George Romero for Paramount's recent Tales from the Darkside: The Movie DVD. During a break in the session, John and I talked about his work on the Dune miniseries, the lackluster DVD (and the hope for a better disc in the future), as well as Children of Dune - the sequel miniseries which he had just finished writing at the time. Now... more than half a year has gone by since our first meeting, and we've stayed in touch over the months. Children of Dune is deep in production as I write this. And, FINALLY, Artisan has released a better version of the original Dune miniseries on DVD. This new 3-disc Special Edition Director's Cut features a longer, never-before-seen cut of the film in anamorphic widescreen with sound in both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround. And that's just scratching the surface. Given that the new disc has just arrived in stores, I thought it would be a good time to sit down again with John to talk about the miniseries in-depth. What follows is a transcript of our conversation. We discuss John's early career working under Romero, some of his early projects as a young writer/director, how he got involved in Dune, the changes he made to the story during the adaptation process and why he felt them necessary, his collaboration with famed cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and even his next project, an adaptation of the book The Johnstown Flood. John will also give you some fascinating insights into Children of Dune - think of it as your first real sneak peek at the sequel miniseries. Be warned though - spoilers for both Dune and Children of Dune are unavoidable in any discussion of story, and such is the case here. But if you're a fan of the miniseries, or if you like Frank Herbert's original novel, I think you'll find our discussion fascinating. I hope you enjoy it... Bill Hunt (The Digital Bits): I know that your career had a pretty interesting beginning, starting out as you did in Pittsburgh. People don't usually think of Pittsburgh as a thriving film community. So tell me how you first got interested in filmmaking in that environment. John Harrison: Well, I actually wanted to be involved in film or theater from a very early age. I'd always been involved in school plays and that sort of thing. I don't know why - it was just something I gravitated to. Back when I was coming up, there wasn't the impetus to go to film school. That wasn't quite the route to go that it is now. But one year, when I was in elementary school, we were taken to a local theater, where the American Conservatory Theater happened to be in residence. They had come from New York, and they were looking for a new home, and they ended up in Pittsburgh. They are, as you know, one of the preeminent theatrical companies in this country. And we were taken as school children to various productions. And I went to one of these, and I'd never seen anything like it. It was a seminal experience in my life, and it really convinced me that theater was what I wanted to do. So I continued to perform through college, and spent some time as an actor in summer stock. Bill Hunt: So acting was really the pull that brought you in at first. John Harrison: It was. But then I had kind of a concurrent career as a musician, which dates way back to singing in church choirs and playing in school bands and the like. And I had a couple of opportunities which diverted me for a few years. In my early twenties, I was actually on the road for about four years as a professional musician. And then when I moved back to Pittsburgh, there actually WAS a thriving film community. At that point in time, in the mid-to-late seventies, the public television station there - WQED - was one of the leading producers of programming for PBS. And at the same time, George Romero, who is one of my dear friends and one of my mentors, was making all of his Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead films there. Bill Hunt: And George is from that area? John Harrison: He was actually originally from New York, but he went to college in Pittsburgh and he's been making films there ever since. So that was a perfect opportunity to be learning filmmaking at that point, because back in those days, it REALLY was independent filmmaking. You went door to door to raise money, there wasn't this huge distribution network that there is now, the independent film distributors were not owned by the major companies. It was a different world back then. With two of my partners, I put together a small production company and did industrials and commercials and - this was prior to rock videos, but I eventually ended up doing rock videos when that started to happen. So anyway, we teamed up with George, and I worked in various capacities for him. And that's really how I got my start in film. Bill Hunt: That's an amazing way to be introduced to the film industry - working with George Romero, who's become this legend of guerilla filmmaking. John Harrison: Well, I'll tell you... it was great, Bill. Because the wonderful thing about that time, was that in the independent film community, you had to struggle of course to get anything done. But having said that, once you got a project up and running, you basically had to do everything in order to get the movie made. The segregation of roles was not very well defined back in those days, because it just couldn't be. I was George's assistant director, I did the score for a couple of his movies, I acted in a couple of his movies, I wrote for his television show - you had to learn everything. And that was the beauty of that period of time. You didn't specialize. Bill Hunt: So this was really film school out in the field. John Harrison: Yeah - really doing it. Bill Hunt: Now you've done a lot of films as a composer... Day of the Dead, Creepshow... John Harrison: This came out of my musical background. As I say, I'd been on the road for about four years with a guitarist named Roy Buchanan, and made a couple albums with him. And when I started getting into film, again it was by pretty much, "Hey, we need some music. Where are we gonna get some music?" "Well, Harrison's a musician. Why doesn't he do some?" [laughing] And that's how it worked. Bill Hunt: It's not like that these days. John Harrison: And it's too bad. It really is too bad. Because I think that the interdisciplinary aspect of all that was really how you learned. I learned all different aspects of filmmaking, and they all inform each other. My writing informs my directing, which informs my writing again. Having been a composer, having been an AD, having been an actor - all of those things have contributed to whatever kind of a filmmaker that I am now. Bill Hunt: What was it that first interested you in writing? When did you first start doing that? In what venue? John Harrison: Well, I started to write simply to get directing assignments. Since I was living back East, and not in Hollywood, there weren't many opportunities for people to come rushing to my door with directing assignments. And so I decided that the only way I could really carve out a career was to write things that people wanted, and then I would be able to direct them. Or I would write things and hopefully, if I sold one or two of them, they'd give me a shot to direct. And that's not unusual even today. As it turns out, I love writing movie scripts. I don't necessarily consider myself a great writer, but I do like to write movies. And that's a very specialized kind of writing, and I think I've learned the craft pretty well. Bill Hunt: You started out doing that with Romero on some of the Tales from the Darkside TV episodes, is that right? John Harrison: Yeah. George and his then partner, Richard Rubinstein, gave me a couple of early breaks. A couple of very significant breaks. When I moved out here, George had read one of my screenplays that I'd written on spec and he introduced me to his agency, which was the Gersh Agency. And that's how I got my first agent. And then George and Richard had a television show called Tales from the Darkside, and they asked me to write for it. So I wrote a number of episodes. One of them was actually nominated for a Writers Guild Award, which was kind of crazy. And then they gave me the chance to start directing them too. Bill Hunt: So you really started cutting your teeth directing doing TV work. John Harrison: Yeah, and that was also a great experience, because episodic, anthology TV work was like making a mini-movie every week. It wasn't like having to fit into the machine of working on a TV series that already had a life. Writing for Tales for the Darkside was like writing a small film each week, as opposed to writing for Hill Street Blues or E.R., when you have the same recurring characters and the same basic situation. Each one of these was completely independent from the others. And that gave you a lot of freedom. Bill Hunt: And I imagine directing episodic television, especially something like that, really teaches you to be inventive and creative with how you do things as a director. John Harrison: [laughs] Well, we had no money. We had something like $90,000 or $100,000 per half-hour episode. So these were like low budget Twilight Zone episodes. And so you really had to come up with new ways of creating the suspense. It really relied on story and whatever in-camera film style you could come up with. 'Cause there just wasn't any money for effects. And again, I did the music for those, I wrote them, I directed them - whatever I could do. Bill Hunt: Looking at Internet Movie Database, I see that you also have a writing credit on Disney's Dinosaur. How did that come about? John Harrison: That was a very interesting situation. I had been asked by Disney to come over and write some stories for them. They had initially wanted to do a version of Welles' Time Machine as an animated feature. And I wrote a story which everybody was excited about. Unfortunately, the rights issues got in the way and they didn't make it. So they hired me to write an original story - a ghost story. And unfortunately, they decided not to make that. That was gonna be incredibly expensive, so it didn't happen. But they had this other little movie that they were toying around with and they wanted to redo - I say little facetiously - and they asked me if I wanted to come on board. And I had never done anything like this, Bill. Writing for animation is a VERY different kind of writing. But I thought, what the heck? I've got a window of opportunity here and I can commit to a month. And I'll go over and see if I can help out. And it was a fantastic experience. One month turned into about two years of work, off and on. And so I co-wrote Dinosaur. Bill Hunt: How much of what you wrote actually made it to the final film? I know with an animated film like that, there are tons of people involved, and lots of changes and revisions constantly. John Harrison: Yeah, that's actually the kind of writing it is. It's constant re-writing. Because you write in a room with the animators. And then the animators go away and they animate. And then they come back and show you what they've done and you make changes, and it's a constant process. There's never really a finished script ever, until the movie is done. I would say, my contribution to that is various dialogue of mine, but mostly my contribution is in the nature of the story structure. Once we got that nailed, I actually went off and started working on Dune. Then they brought me back, while we were waiting for Dune to go up, and I made some polishes. They later brought in other writers to do gag lines, fun lines and that sort of thing. But my major contribution was the structure of the story. Bill Hunt: How did you go from that to Dune? How did you first become involved in that? How were you first approached? John Harrison: Richard Rubinstein called me, with his partner, Mitchell Galin. I had done a movie with them - well, as I told you, I'd worked with Richard and George for many years. And then Richard hired me to direct the Tales from the Darkside movie for Paramount. So he and I had a long history. And he called me in '98, I believe, and said, "I've gotten the television rights to Frank Herbert's Dune. And we're setting it up at the SciFi Channel. And we know you've done work for the USA Network, which owns the SciFi Channel. Would you be interested in coming in on this?" And of course, I jumped at the chance. Bill Hunt: Now, you were a fan of the novel Dune... John Harrison: I had read Dune in college and I loved it. That, along with Asimov's Foundation Trilogy were really the two seminal sci-fi works for me. And so, yes, I loved it. I was not partial to the movie. I happen to love David Lynch's work, but I didn't care for the film that much. Bill Hunt: It's interesting that you mention that, because that was my reaction to the film as well. I love Lynch, and I loved Herbert's book, but that film really was disappointing for me. And part of the problem is, I don't see how you can take that book, which is so dense with detail and material, and condense it into a 2 or 3 hour movie. I just don't think you can do it. John Harrison: Well, in all fairness to him, I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have tried it, and I don't think he really wanted to either. I think he saw a much larger tapestry for the work. And from everything I've heard or read about it, there's a HUGE amount of footage that exists that never got seen. So when we had the opportunity to do it as a miniseries, I thought, well here's a chance to really translate the book properly. So I went to SciFi, and I wrote a proposal and said, "Here's how I want to adapt the book. I want six hours, and I want to take the three novels that make up Dune - the three different sub-books - and I want to make each one of them a night of the miniseries." Thankfully, they agreed. And that's how we made it. Bill Hunt: There must have been a certain amount of fear, going into that adaptation process, about getting it right. Clearly, you set yourself up in such a way that you probably had a better chance of succeeding than anyone else before you, but that's still a monumental task, adapting that novel. John Harrison: Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a great piece of literature and it's so rich with character and theme that I knew going in that any adaptation was a risky piece of business. First of all, there was a huge fan base out there that would challenge any changes I had to make. And yet changes were inevitable, because you can't take a novel like that and translate it to a film without making serious, serious adaptive changes. Bill Hunt: What were some of those changes that were necessary? What was your unique contribution to the material? John Harrison: Well, one of the things that I tried to do - a novel is such a different experience than a movie. A novel is really an interactive experience. You have to bring so much of your own imagination to it. And a novelist also can play with the narrative structure in a way that's really difficult to pull off with a movie, unless it becomes like Memento, where it's the calling card of the film. Watching a movie is more of passive, linear experience - you're guided through it visually and aurally. So what I wanted to do was to make sure that the story I was telling had more of a straight line narrative. And that meant that the structure had to be very well mapped out from beginning to end. What is going on? What is the character arc and the story arc that I'm trying to tell? And once I kind of seized upon that, it was really about finding what in the book supported all of that. And I have to say, Bill, that my intention from the beginning was to be as true to the book as I could be. I wanted to make sure that whatever the character motivations were, they came from the novel. I took as much dialogue as I could from the novel. When things happened, how they happened - that sort of thing. I tried to, if not make it a totally accurate adaptation, make it a completely faithful adaptation. So that anything I did to change something could be justified by the text, even though it wasn't exactly what was written. Bill Hunt: I think the two major changes, or the things that are most obvious, are the removal of Paul's inner monologue throughout the story - which is difficult to do on film well anyway - and the fact that the character of Princess Irulan plays a much more active role. John Harrison: Yeah, the interior monologue is just not a good cinematic device, unless you're gonna go sort of noir, and have a voiceover narration. And that's a legitimate device. But in Dune, EVERYBODY is talking internally. And the internal narrative in Dune is not about "this happened and then this happened and this is why that happened". In the book, it's really about subconscious behavior and intuitive behavior and the kinds of things that are really difficult to put on the screen, unless you approach it as Lynch did, which is to sort of stop the movie and listen to this narrative. So instead, what I did was I took the internal monologues of the book and I externalized them. I found ways to put them into dialogue. So that was a big change. The other two changes involved characters. One was the character of Thufir Hawat, who in the book doesn't die as early as he does in the miniseries. But the end result is the same. He became a pawn of the Baron throughout the book, but it was a narrative device that I just couldn't sustain. I would have had to lay too much pipe in order to make all of that work, for an ending which - in the book - happens rather abruptly and quickly and almost doesn't justify all of the groundwork that I would have had to create. So I changed his role somewhat and reduced it a little bit, in order to have more time cinematically for what I thought was really, really important, which was Paul's adventure with the Fremen and his life-style changing once he goes out into the desert. The other big change, which you mentioned, is Princess Irulan. In the book, she's a huge presence, because she's the narrative force at the beginning of every chapter. But I thought, why not use her a real flesh and blood character, as opposed to just a narrative device? Because, after all, she plays a critical role at the end of the story. Bill Hunt: Which doesn't make as much sense on screen unless she's a physical presence. John Harrison: I really think so. Irulan serves a dual purpose. I enlarged her in order to make that ending more profound, and also to give us a way into the life-style of the Corrino family. And again, everything I did, I took from the book. It was justified by the book. Even if it was hearsay or a character talking about someone else. That is what you see in the character of Irulan now. SciFi's poster for Frank Herbert's Dune and Artisan's new 3-disc Special Edition Director's Cut on DVD. Bill Hunt: Tell me about this new director's cut that's featured on this new DVD release. Because I think she - Irulan, I mean - becomes much more interesting in the new cut. There's much more of her actively engaging in investigation and subtle manipulation in the director's cut. John Harrison: Absolutely. The director's cut is the script that I wrote. So it had all of the connective tissue that you're referring to. In the production, of course, one is constrained for television by running time and commercials and previews and all the other things. So in a 2-hour movie for television, you end up with about, in this particular case for the SciFi Channel, about 88 minutes of program. Bill Hunt: And that's per night of the miniseries. John Harrison: Yeah. Instead of 120 minutes, you get 88 minutes. So I had to, of necessity, leave a certain amount of footage on the floor. Bill Hunt: The good thing was, you were able to shoot all of it anyway. John Harrison: Well, we shot it all. We shot the whole script. I knew that there would be time issues, but I was hoping that there would eventually be an opportunity to put it all together in the way I originally intended. Having said all of that, I think the broadcast, SciFi version - as it initially played - is a totally coherent version of the story. It's just that the director's cut deepens one's understanding of all sorts of other issues, like Irulan's conspiracies, like why Yueh is the one who has betrayed the Duke. There are a couple of additional scenes of Paul with his mentor, Kynes, which talk about the "mahdi" and why that's important in Fremen culture. There's an additional scene between Jessica and Leto which, in my estimation, deepens our feeling for how much they truly love each other, making his death that much more tragic. So all of these things really make the picture more complete. You know... my mentor, George Romero, has a great saying: "Sometimes longer is shorter." And what he means by that is that if you're watching a movie and you don't make all the connections, or there are some elements that are missing, you can watch a 2-hour movie and it feels longer because you're struggling to understand it. Whereas if you have say an additional 20 minutes of footage that adds detail and expands your understanding - in an interesting way of course - that 140-minute movie will go faster in your mind than a 120-minute one would. Bill Hunt: That's true. And it's amazing how much more satisfying the additional 30 minutes here is. I liked this miniseries as it was originally, but the new footage definitely adds to the experience. It also makes the miniseries a little edgier, a little more mature. You see more of the Fremen crusade - it's a little more intense now. John Harrison: That's true. And again, without the constraints of broadcast television, which limit the amount of violence and mature sexual themes - the nudity and so forth - I can put all that stuff back in. And it was very important for me to have that stuff back in, because the Fremen culture in particular had elements that were very well defined by the way they behaved with each other. That involves nudity, that involves their sexual practices and so forth. This was not included to be salacious at all - this is all part and parcel of the Fremen culture as discussed in the book. Bill Hunt: I think you definitely get that - all of these moments of nudity come out of cultural issues or character issues. John Harrison: Now granted, I couldn't put that on broadcast television in the U.S., but it was always intended to be there. And thankfully, we've been able to put that back in. Bill Hunt: I assume for some of those scenes, you had to shoot a television version? John Harrison: Well... yes. And some of it we just did with editing. I shot it the way I knew I wanted it to be, and than my editor, Harry Miller, and I figured it out. Bill Hunt: When we talked before, you also mentioned to me that this cut of the film - for this new 3-disc Artisan DVD - has never been seen before. It's different than any other cut. I know there was a difference between the original television cut, which Artisan released on DVD before, and the cut that appeared on the European DVD version. What are the differences between the European cut and this final one? John Harrison: The version for Europe, which was broadcast and released on DVD, is different than the U.S. version - you're right. It's a little longer and it does have some of the nudity. But it has some cuts that I made for the European broadcasters, particularly in the scenes with the Baron. There are some trims and some shortening - the scene with Jessica and Leto that I mentioned earlier. There's a scene with the Baron in his spa talking to his nephew after they've tried to assassinate Paul. Those scenes were cut or trimmed for Europe for one reason or another. They are in this version. So this particular version has never been seen anywhere before. It's my final cut, as I always intended it to be. Bill Hunt: In terms of the special effects, were there any scenes that had to be finished with effects for the DVD? Scenes that hadn't been finished prior to this? John Harrison: Not really. I was fortunate enough to have producers who supported me during the production so that I was able to finish everything right up front, even if it wasn't released prior to this. We did go in and we may have re-outputted a couple of effects scenes to film to get a better resolution, little things like that. But I didn't have to go in and generate new effects for this version. My producers had sequestered enough money so that I was able to do these things and set them on the shelf for later. Bill Hunt: I wanted to talk about the theatrical approach you took to this project. I imagine that was initially motivated by the budget limitations of shooting this for TV. But it also really worked for the story - it adds a real sort of dramatic flavor and gravity to the miniseries that fits the subject material well. John Harrison: I agree with you, Bill. When we started to talk about Dune, I began to think - once it was written - about how we were going to make it. I did a scouting trip across North Africa and Europe to look for locations, thinking we would do this as a location movie. But it quickly became clear that we weren't going to have the money to do that well enough. And once I had to confront that, it was a question of, "How am I going to make something that's unique?" I mean, with the money we had, we could have done something chincy on location, and sort of fake it, but that was really gonna be - to me - not a great option. And on top of the money, which dictated shooting time as well, I realized that with the production schedule I was gonna have, I didn't have any margin for error. So if we were down in the desert and there were sandstorms - or just moving around in the desert, period - it would require a commitment of time that I just wasn't gonna have. So all of those things led me to believe that if I stuck to the production plan, it was not going to have the elegance that I wanted it to have. But I was lucky, because I had Vittorio Storaro and Miljen [Kreka] Kljakovic as my cinematographer and production designer. And we started thinking about how we could come up with a different way of doing this. The producers said one of the ways we could do it with the money we had was to do it all on a soundstage. That meant doing it with a lot of sets or doing it with greenscreen. And I was adamantly against doing this as a greenscreen or bluescreen show. I didn't want actors operating in a room without any reference to where they were supposed to be. And I had seen Vittorio's trans-lights in other films that he had done, particularly Tango and Goya. So Vittorio and Kreka and I sat down and started to figure out how we could use trans-lights and actual sets to create the illusion of epic proportion, when in fact we were basically just using a theatrical style. Once we had decided to do that, then I had to convince everyone that we really had to embrace that style. We couldn't really try to fake the audience. We couldn't go to the audience and say, "You know, that thing in the background is not really a backdrop you're looking at - that's really the desert of Arrakeen." [laughs] We had to embrace the limitations. And I must say that Vittorio and Kreka, without their confidence in this, I'm not sure that I could have convinced everybody else, or that even I would have taken the risk. But knowing that I had two artists like that back me up, I was able to say, "You know, it's a big challenge. People might not like this - it's a risk. But we've got to go for it all the way. And we've got to be true to it." Bill Hunt: Well, the thing to me is that that's sort of the handshake you make with the audience at the very beginning of the film. And I think, as someone on the other side of the equation, it's very easily made. Even in terms of the structure of the story - and little touches like some of the Baron's dialogue - it has a very theatrical, almost operatic, feel to it. And so the production style really works. John Harrison: Well, you know, I wanted it to have that epic quality - that sort of transcendent quality, Bill. Because that's really what the book is about. The book is not a space story - it's not a western set in outer space. This is a very human drama, about the human condition. So it deals with politics and religion - themes and issues that are already on a kind of an elevated plane to begin with. There's no way to bring that down to a kind of a normal world. Bill Hunt: And the reality is that good science fiction isn't about the trappings of aliens and space ships anyway. It's about the people. All the rest is just a vehicle to tell an interesting, human story. John Harrison: That's a wonderful way of putting it that you did, which is to make a handshake with the audience right away. And say, "Okay... we're dealing with opera here. This is theater. We're not trying to trick you. We're just asking you to embrace the movie for what it is." Bill Hunt: And once you make that handshake, it's not just that you accept that the exteriors were shot on a soundstage or that the production is very colorful in terms of artistic design. But it even goes further. You accept the fact that the special effects aren't quite up to feature film quality because of budget limitations. Everything you see becomes acceptable to that world. And all those other issues become less important than the story that's being told. John Harrison: I think that's true. Once you give over to that world and accept it as it is - it's not unlike watching some old movies, where location scenes are done in a soundstage. You accept the world that you're stepping into. As long as the world is consistent - that's the big deal. That's the key. Bill Hunt: I wanted to ask you, how did Vittorio Storaro become involved in the production? What attracted him to it? How did you convince him to come to a project like this? John Harrison: I must admit that it wasn't too hard, because he loved the material. It turns out that Vittorio had been asked many years ago by [director Alexandro] Jodorowsky to consider getting involved in that version of Dune, which was one of the earliest efforts to translate the book into a movie. Bill Hunt: Really? That's interesting. John Harrison: Yeah, it's funny how it all worked out. He couldn't do it at the time, because he wasn't sure exactly which way Jodorowsky was gonna go. And he also had the opportunity to go off and make this other little film, which turned out to be Apocalypse Now. [laughs] So he ended up doing that instead. But it kept coming around. I think Ridley Scott had talked to him about doing it at one point when he was making an effort. And ultimately, it just never worked out. Now... Vittorio will tell you that it was all meant to be, so that he could get to do this version. Which is very flattering and I love him for saying that. But it turns out to really just be a happy coincidence of events. My assistant director, Matt Clark, was doing an Alfonso Arau movie with Vittorio, that Woody Allen was in. And he just happened to say to Vittorio one day over lunch, "My friend is gonna go this thing. Do you ever do television?" And Vittorio said, "Sure, I do television all the time." And so - almost as a joke - Matt said, "Well, my friend's got this book that he's adapting. Maybe you'd be interested in hearing about it. It's Dune." And Vittorio dropped his fork and said, "Frank Herbert's Dune?" And Matt said, "Yeah." Of course, Vittorio was interested immediately. And so one thing led to the next, and he and I got together one day here in Hollywood at Chateau Marmont and had a nice afternoon talking about it. And we were just in dead sync about what we wanted to do. Dune cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (left) preparing a shot on the set. Dune production designer Miljen [Kreka] Kljakovic (left) and writer/director John Harrison. Bill Hunt: And he's a pretty fascinating guy, which people will learn on the new DVD if they didn't know it already. He's got a whole approach in terms of how he begins a project, and specifically this project. John Harrison: Well, this is the thing about working with someone of the caliber of Storaro. Of course, he's a brilliant cinematographer. But he spends so much time with his projects talking about how to use light and color to psychologically lead the audience through the picture, in a way that I have not really heard too many other people talk about. He and I spent hours talking about the color scheme of this movie, as it would illuminate the characterizations - not just because it looked good. And you're right, he does talk about that a lot in the interview that they did with him which appears on the new DVD. We ended up spending a lot of time with Kreka and Theodor Pistek, my costume designer, trying to bring it all together. We had a wonderful collaboration and he and I have become really good friends. Our families are friends. I'd really love to work with him on anything again, because frankly I've been studying the guy for years and ripping him off in everything that I did. [laughs] There are actually a couple of gags in the movie, that I showed him I'd used in other films I'd done, that I'd taken directly from his work. The opportunity to work with a guy of that caliber was just a dream come true. Bill Hunt: Is there anything about science fiction in particular that you find interesting? You've done a lot of horror and genre material before, but this is your first foray in to science fiction. John Harrison: Yeah, I guess you could say that. I don't - you know, science fiction is a weird phrase. I don't know what it means. I prefer the term speculative fiction actually, because I think science fiction implies something which I'm not that interested in - as we were saying before - which is just hardware and technology. I am interested in those things, but only as they apply to human evolution, if that makes sense. Nobody's ever asked me to do a romantic comedy and I suppose I would if I ever had the chance. But I guess my career has been with storytelling that has been hyperbolized, whether it's horror or science fiction. I think it's because I like that kind of storytelling. I like those kind of transcendent themes. I like stories that are about bigger issues than just the everyday kind of story. Which isn't to say that I don't like other movies that aren't like that. I happen to be a huge fan of Scorsese's kind of movies and stories about real life. But I've just always been drawn, both as a writer and a director, to stories that are more hyperbolized. Bill Hunt: I actually have the same sort of leanings. Once you take characters out of the real world, so to speak, and place them in another place and another time, if you set all the window dressing of doing that aside, what you have left is an opportunity to tell an interesting human story. And human beings were basically the same creatures centuries ago as they are today, or will be centuries from now. John Harrison: That's exactly right. And that fact is what makes it interesting. Bill Hunt: While we're on this subject, I want to move on to taking about Children of Dune, the sequel to your miniseries. Because you've written the project. And you were originally going to come back again and direct it as well, but things haven't worked out in such a way that you're able to do that. John Harrison: Mostly because of schedule. It's so difficult to get a project of this size mounted. They're very expensive. I wrote the script last year and got it finished before the writer's strike, so that in case we could get the production going, we'd have a document that we could still work with. But raising the amount of money needed, as always, is a very, very difficult thing. And at the same time, I had acquired the rights to another book, which I've wanted to do for many years. And we were able to set it up with Scott Free and ABC. Bill Hunt: Which is...? John Harrison: It's called The Johnstown Flood. It's a disaster story which took place right at the crux of a very important moment in American history, in 1889. It was the biggest disaster in American history up to that point - 2,200 people were wiped out in a half an hour. The entire city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania was destroyed. Bill Hunt: Which might have otherwise become a key center of industry in this country at the time. John Harrison: It was, yeah. It was poised to become one. And, like Pittsburgh, it was part of the whole change. That's why I say it occurred at a pivotal moment in American history, because we were emerging from an agrarian culture to an industrial culture. And this occurred right in the middle of that change. That's part of the beauty of this story. It was written by a man named David McCullough, who's a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. And I have always wanted to do this story, and we managed to set it up at ABC as a 3-hour event movie. So I had the opportunity to go do that and Children of Dune was on hold. Well... suddenly the money became available for Dune and I'd already committed to Johnstown. Bill Hunt: When do you begin shooting Johnstown? I assume you're in preproduction now. John Harrison: Hopefully, before the end of this year. But I just couldn't leave and do Dune for the nine months it would have taken to do that, and also do The Johnstown Flood, which I had committed to write and direct. I just couldn't work the schedules out. Bill Hunt: But you still wrote Children of Dune. And you're producing it too? John Harrison: Yeah, I'm one of the producers on Children of Dune. And so I'm working on it all the time, even though I'm not there physically directing it. Bill Hunt: Tell me about the script for Children of Dune. I know from our previous conversations that you've done something interesting here, which is to take the second and third books and combine them. John Harrison: Yes. Well, again I had to come up with a proposal for how we could adapt the sequel - what would we do next? And there were all kinds of ideas thrown around. Could we take Dune Messiah and make a four-hour out of it, we could take Children of Dune and make a two-hour. And none of the ideas really worked. And so my proposal was to take the two books and combine them. And really tell - whereas the first miniseries was about the rise of House Atreides, this is about the fall of House of Atreides. This is about the transformation of what Paul has done and the end result of that - which is the climax of this next miniseries - with the emergence of his son and a whole new chapter in the Dune mythology. The God Emperor chapter. Bill Hunt: And once you get through Children of Dune, the whole series becomes something completely different anyway. John Harrison: It's a whole new game. Because the sort of world that existed - the empire that existed prior to that - has been completely destroyed. And it's a whole new set of issues and complications. So to me, it made perfect sense to combine Messiah and Children, and make it the conclusion of the Atreides saga. If you know the books at all, Paul - in Messiah - is struggling with what has happened with his revolution. And there are two major themes with this new miniseries - this is really the whole story of what Children of Dune is about. The first is that, as Herbert says in the books, when religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows. And what has happened, of course, in Dune Messiah is that this theocratic government has grown up around Paul, with this religious class now in charge of just about everything. And it is a merciless kind of an empire, which really crushes everything in its path. Bill Hunt: And it's gotten out of control. John Harrison: It's totally out of control and Paul knows it. And yet he's powerless to stop it. He even refers to this in the first miniseries - he's seen it coming. He talks to his mother about it on the cliff near the end. And really the only way he can do anything about it at all, is for Muad'Dib to vanish. He can't be killed, because that will just make him a martyr. He can't discredit himself, because then that would only give more power to the religious bureaucrats. So what he has to do is to set the stage for the emergence of another leader who can restore unpredictably to human destiny. And that is his son. So the whole miniseries is about how he sets that in motion in the first part and then vanishes - or dies we think - and how the children - the twins, growing up under the tutelage of Aunt Alia, who is slowly going mad - must emerge in their own right as the heir apparent. Particularly the son, Leto, and how he becomes the God Emperor. And that's what the next miniseries becomes about. Bill Hunt: Now is this a two-night miniseries? John Harrison: No, this is another six hours. This is another three-night miniseries, like the original. And it's in production right now - they're shooting in Prague. I think it's going very well. Obviously, the creative team is a little bit different. A young director named Greg Yaitanes is directing it and he seems to be doing a fine job. He and I have a great rapport. There's a different cinematographer and a different production designer. Most of the same cast is back, obviously in the major roles. Susan Sarandon is a newcomer to the cast, taking the big role - the villain - Princess Wensicia, who is one of the Corrino daughters. Irulan's older sister. And it's going very well. It should be on the air sometime in the early part of 2003. Bill Hunt: In terms of the look of the miniseries, is it sort of following the same path as the original? John Harrison: Up to a point, but not quite the same style. It probably will not have the same theatrical style that we created on the first one. And I think that's justifiable, because after all, this story begins at least twelve years after mine ended. So visually, there will be some differences, although a lot of things will echo what we did. For instance, the whole city of Arrakeen doesn't look at all like it used to. Now that Paul's been the Emperor for a while, it's the capitol of the whole universe, with all these temples and a much different skyline. So there will be differences, but they'll make sense. Bill Hunt: Well, I'm really looking forward to it. Early 2003 you say? John Harrison: Yeah, it's a great story. It's nothing but conspiracy and intrigue and back-stabbing and betrayal. It's a very cool story. And it does have the these two great themes. The other one, which I neglected to mention, is that every revolution contains the seeds of its own destruction. Bill Hunt: Let's wrap up by talking about this new DVD. The set obviously contains the miniseries itself, split over three discs, which is good because not only do you get the anamorphic widescreen video everyone's been waiting for, spreading it over three discs means that the video bit-rates are that much higher, allowing for better quality. John Harrison: I was gonna way that the compression is so much better than before. Bill Hunt: Yeah, I noticed it right away. John Harrison: We shot it 16x9 and I always meant for it to be seen that way. I was lucky to get somebody like Lou Levinson over at Post Logic to do all of the color timing and transfer under Vittorio's direction. Bill Hunt: So Vittorio was involved in that? John Harrison: Oh, yeah. Bill Hunt: That's good to hear. The other nice thing about this new DVD is that the added space on each disc allows for the addition of full Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, as well as DTS 5.1. And you actually did full-length audio commentary for each night of the miniseries too... John Harrison: [laughs] I sat there the whole six hours. Bill Hunt: And you brought in some of your production team as well for each night of the miniseries. John Harrison: It was fun to do that - to have those guys with me. Who wants to hear me the whole time? [laughing] But they also have different perspectives on it. It was fun to get in a room together and talk about it. Bill Hunt: And each night has a different flavor, because you bring a different mix of people in. John Harrison: That was deliberate. Because each night of the miniseries has its own feel anyway. Bill Hunt: The set of extras is also rather unique here. Usually you get the sort of HBO "making of" piece and a glossy, EPK documentary. But these are pretty thoughtful. For example, there's a video featurette of you with other science fiction writers, including Harlan Ellison, talking about science fiction. John Harrison: I have to credit Susan Ricketts, who was the producer on this DVD, with a lot of these ideas. She came to me and said, "What can we do that's different?" Her whole idea about the "messiah" complex - using people like Elaine Pagels - I'm so happy about that, because that's the kind of stuff that influenced me in making the miniseries. I think that people who are interested in the story will get a great deal out of these features. They're not directly about Dune, but they're about the things that made Dune happen. Bill Hunt: Well, and it's a vision for a DVD special edition that you don't get often these days, except on some of the very best discs. It's rare. John Harrison: And to have people like Harlan Ellison and Ray Kurzweil - these are brilliant guys. I was just happy to be included. Bill Hunt: Well... the disc is great. I think fans are finally going to be very happy with it. I know I am, and I was a pretty tough sell after being disappointed by the original Artisan release. They've done a nice job on this new one. John, as always, it's a pleasure talking with you. Thanks for chatting with us about Dune and giving our readers some very cool insights into your adaptation, as well as a taste of what fans can look forward to in Children of Dune. John Harrison: I've really enjoyed it too. ---end--- The staff of The Digital Bits would like to thank John for taking time to speak with us about his DVD work. Thanks also to Artisan for their support, and to both the SciFi Channel and Victor Television Productions (for a few of the photos seen above). The new 3-disc Frank Herbert's Dune: Special Edition - Director's Cut is now available in stores. And you can read my in-depth review of the set by clicking here. Hope you enjoyed the interview! And as always, I welcome your comments. Bill Hunt billhunt@thedigitalbits.com
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