What's your favorite aspect of your job? Is it the explosions themselves?
Explosions are fun, but I like the more mechanical aspects, rigging the mechanical things, figuring out how we're going to build something and then making it work, to give the director what he wants.

Just how intricate does it all get?
Some of it is pretty intricate. Sometimes the easiest-looking thing can be the most difficult to do. It involves electrical, plumbing, welding, wind and explosives, and all of it is tied together.

Is there one effect or battle you've been a part of on Dune of which you are particularly proud?
I think some of the earlier battle scenes are pretty good. They built the set before I got here and it was all made out of Styrofoam. That makes adding explosives and fire very dangerous and very difficult because you don 't want to set the whole set on fire. So we had to come up with ways around the set that would actually gave the director a nice, realistic-looking explosion. That was one of the more difficult things. We also had a water tank that we had to flood with 12 cubic meters of water within a couple of seconds. We couldn't use the usual dump tanks, so we had to come up with special tanks that had to be fabricated and designed. And they worked very well.

How does your experience on Dune compare with your previous experiences?
The difficulty isn't really much different. It's working in the Czech Republic that makes it more difficult. They definitely have a different way of dealing with things. People are eager to help, but they don't have the same urgency that an American film crew would have. The supplies are very difficult to get, very difficult to find. Just working in the Czech Republic makes it more difficult than anything I've done in the states.

This is your first time on a project with John Harrison. What's it been like to work with him?
It's been great. There have been a lot of time constraints and John Harrison has been extremely patient. He' been kind of the rock for this movie. Most directors would have freaked by now. He's been very good.

What about the rest of the crew with whom you're interacting? How are you getting on with them?
There are a lot of talented people. [Cinematographer] Vittorio Storaro is incredible. When we first started the translites, everybody kind of looked at him and said, "Is this going to work? Is this going to look like the desert?" And when we saw some of the dailies afterward, it was pretty amazing. Kreka, the set designer, is a genius. And Pistek, the costume designer, is fantastic, too.

We've been hearing a lot about the translites. Can you give us a little more insight into what they're all about?
It's 150 feet long, maybe 40 feet high. It's all printed. Vittorio's son, Fabrizio does it for the show. He pulls pictures and drawings, touches them up, puts them together, shoots them and prints them up. It's very expensive. It's kind of like a backdrop, except that it's very realistic.

Does the translite have any effect on you and your job?
I have to be careful, especially when we do some of the battle scenes in the desert and we've got explosions close to them. We don't want to put holes in them and we also don't want them to move from the concussion of the explosions. Besides that I really don't have to deal with them a whole lot.

How familiar were you with Dune? Had you read the Frank Herbert novel?
It was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. I was really looking forward to working on this just because of that fact. I'd seen the David Lynch version of the movie and was not crazy about it. It was too David Lynch. I read the script for this and it was very true to the book, so I was excited to do this.

What's your gut instinct on how Dune fans will react to this version?
I think fans are going to like it. I think people who are big fans of the book will get a big kick out of this version.

What's been the single best aspect of participating in this mounting of Dune?
The people. The people have been great. It's been a tighter crew than anything I've ever dealt with before. The division between the different departments is a lot better here than on other movies. The division is a lot less fuzzy. If I need a hand with something, grips will help me, lighting will help me, and vice-versa. You don't have the union rules you have in the United States, where the electricians don't want you picking up their cords.