Research & Development: Suspiria by Dario Argento

This film was suggested to me to watch for the lighting and general appearance of the film.

The story is about a young girl who moves to Germany to start a term at a ballet school just as another girl has dissappeared. As the film progress, Susy learns of the secret to the school.

Focusing on the lighting and set design, I felt that though the film's style is unrealistic and supernatural the set design is beautiful. The image below, the drawings on the wall are really detailed, though you do not really pay attention to it, the deep pink in the middle of the wall fading into soft purple works really well to make the character stand out.

The use of red is very bold in this film. The front entrance to the school is red, and some walls inside are painted in deep red. I am not sure if that is to emphasise the feeling of danger or make the audience unsteady but it works really well. Since watching the film, it has given my ideas of how I can experiment with lighting and the background. Though my film is very lighthearted and not a horror film like Suspiria, there are techniques from this film that I really like.

I have done a simple lighting test in my room, but now I am going to do a lighting test in the location I wish to film, where I will be experimenting with colour gels and spacing. I am going for a stylised appearance, I do want the setting to be influenced by African art and props but not overly expressed because the story is set in England and in modern times.

I am going to experiment with different types of lights such as redheads and LEDs because since colour gels are going to be used, using lights that get hot quickly won't be beneficial but deciding exactly how I want to light my scene and what lights would work best on producing the softest shadows is what I am looking for. 

I noticed that shadows were heavily used in scenes where the walls were bold colours without any patterns, I know that I shall be having soft shadows in my film but it was good to see how harsh shadows can be used in a film like this, especially in the image below with the blue lighting.