B.C. VFX supervisor Stephen James ‘in a daze’ after winning Oscar for ‘Dune: Part Two’

Paul Lambert, from left, Stephen James, Rhys Salcombe, and Gerd Nefzer, winners of the award for best visual effects for "Dune: Part Two," pose in the press room at the Oscars in Los Angeles, Sunday, March 2, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Invision, Jordan Strauss

For British Columbia visual effects supervisor Stephen James, winning an Oscar for his work on “Dune: Part Two” felt something like getting swept up in the swirling sandstorms of Arrakis.

“It’s one of those things where as soon as it happens, time kind of goes away and you’re in a daze as you walk down the aisle,” James recalled Monday from Los Angeles.

“I remember hugging my wife and I shook the hand of Timothée Chalamet on the way. But then it just becomes a bit of a blur. I’ve been watching videos of it this morning with everyone else, realizing what happened.”

The Surrey, B.C., native accepted the Academy Award for best visual effects at Sunday’s show, alongside Wales-born, Vancouver-based Rhys Salcombe, England’s Paul Lambert and Germany’s Gerd Nefzer.

“Dune: Part Two” sees Quebec director Denis Villeneuve continue his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi novel. The visually stunning sequel is filled with towering sandworms, windswept deserts and haunting dream sequences. It follows Chalamet as Paul Atreides as he seeks revenge against those who destroyed his family.

It received five nominations, including best picture. In addition to visual effects, the film won the Oscar for best sound.

James said after accepting the Oscar, the visual effects team took a selfie with a harp-playing sandworm that made several cameos throughout the broadcast, before celebrating at the Vanity Fair after-party.

“In visual effects, we can often feel isolated because we’re in post-production. We’re in Vancouver, we’re not in Hollywood,” the 39-year-old said, adding that it felt special to enjoy the moment with the entire “Dune” team.

This was James’ first Oscar nomination and win.

He contributed to the first “Dune,” but his role grew significantly in the sequel. He notes that DNEG, the company he works for, handled the bulk of the visual effects work on the second film.

He said the sequel required “a lot more complexity with effects,” from more detailed sand simulations to getting “right up close and personal with the worm-riding this time around.”

The film features a pulse-pounding sequence where Atreides rides a colossal sandworm through the desert. James worked closely on helping to bring the scene to life with a mix of practical plate photography and cutting-edge CGI.

The sequence was shot over 44 days in Budapest, with the crew often waiting for the perfect moments of natural sunlight. Scenes were filmed with a stunt performer using a physical version of a sandworm mounted on a gimbal. James and his team then enhanced the shots in post-production, seamlessly integrating visual effects around the practical elements.

James said Villeneuve made it clear that the sequence “had to make sense physically and feel real.” So the effects team spent many hours determining how fast the sandworm should move through the desert.

“The tricky thing is, when you have a kilometre-long cylinder of a sandworm plowing through sand at 300 kilometres an hour, things can get pretty chaotic,” he said.

“Our incredible effects team did a lot of experimentation with how clumpy the sand should be or where it should spread or how we can control it throughout the process.”

James said the team worked to layer several emotions throughout the sequence, capturing everything from “the anticipation as we’re waiting for the worm to arrive” to the “beautiful, spiritual moment” when onlookers witness Atreides riding the sandworm.

“On top of all the incredible technical work, you don’t often get to have this kind of weight to the visual effects and the action that you’re working on,” he said.

After graduating from the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts in the early 2000s, James moved to the U.K., where he landed an entry-level job at DNEG. He started out performing grunt work on films such as 2006’s “Children of Men,” from “blending between multiple takes” to “acne removal.”

He’s worked his way up since then, becoming visual effects supervisor on the 2022 action-comedy “Bullet Train” and HBO drama “The Last of Us.”

James worked with Lambert on 2010’s sci-fi action film “Tron: Legacy” and both Villeneuve and Lambert on the 2017 blockbuster “Blade Runner 2049.”

“You develop these relationships and it gets easier in a way. The work is always hard, but the way you work with each other gets easier and easier because you trust each other and you have this shorthand,” he said.

Though the Oscars whirlwind has felt surreal, James says he’s ready to dive back into work this week.

“It’s sunken in a little bit. It’s back to reality today,” he said.

“Hopefully not too much will change. I’m going to go back to work today and I’m getting back to it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2025.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press