DePrez collaborated closely with Salles on the intricate details of the interiors and the film’s color schematics. She found particular inspiration in the works of several mood-driven artists, including the mid-century realist Lucien Freud and contemporary New York painter Alice Neil, for the film’s disquieting palette of muted earth tones and watery greens, greys and blacks. By using such unexpected colors, she attempted to make Roosevelt Island even more its own private world, much the way the Dakota apartment building becomes its own microcosmic universe in “Rosemary’s Baby.”
“A big thing for Walter was highlighting the contrast between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan, making a stark difference in energy between the two and especially in the colors,” explains DePrez. “Whereas Manhattan is seen with a vivid palette, Roosevelt Island becomes almost monochromatic, a world washed of all brightness, a world where the inner senses take on more power than the outer surroundings.”
To emphasize director of photography Affonso Beato’s use of light and shadow, DePrez further painted the walls of the apartments with semi-gloss and constructed the floors with the option to become shiny. “Affonso loves reflective surfaces, so we made certain the floors and walls had surfaces that, when lit, could mimic the mirror-like look of water,” she explains.
Meanwhile, there were also mechanical considerations. Apartment 10F was rigged with poured concrete so that it could be repeatedly flooded and sprout surreal puddles of up to six inches of water. Both apartments shared a day/night 40' x 100' photo backdrop depicting a panoramic composition of apartments on Roosevelt Island as well as Manhattan and Queens. Also constructed on the soundstage was the rooftop water tower that plays a pivotal role in the film’s climax.
Meanwhile, further layers of mood and eeriness were being added to DARK WATER by Affonso Beato, the cinematographer whose work has ranged from several collaborations with Pedro Almodovar to the visually innovative Spanish film “Dot The I.” Beato collaborated closely with Walter Salles to come up with a camera style that would create a sense of increasing confusion and panic—without ever being predictable. The two shared a philosophy that sometimes it is what you don’t see on camera—what is hidden in the shadows or alluded to—that creates the most fear.
So rather than jump right in with familiar horror-film conventions, Beato chose instead to ground the film initially in a raw, gritty realism…and then subtly, bit by bit, begin to shift from that as Dahlia herself begins to believe there has to be a supernatural force in her new home.
“I felt that if the supernatural element in the film was going to be accepted by the audience it would have to be very realistic right from the start,” explains Salles. “I believe the uncanny is far more disturbing when it happens in an environment that seems completely ordinary. So we established a reality for Dahlia and Ceci’s lives and then slowly we drift away from it into something less anchored. Affonso really understood that in shooting this story, it was more important that we spark the audience to feel frightening emotions, things rather than actually see ghosts and demons. It was a great pleasure to work with him in this way.” Another vital element in creating the film’s shifting, unsettling moods was the score, for which Walter Salles brought in Academy Award®-nominated composer Angelo Badalamenti.
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