Rosemary's Mise-en-scene

In preparation for shooting our film I've been going through my netflix que and watching every old horror movie I can find. Many horror films share similar thematic and cinematic tropes with one another, so it's been an incredible helpful exercise for me when I was writing the script. I've just finished the film "Rosmary's Baby"

One of the biggest hesitations our group has in shooting at 918 Danby is that many of the walls if not all of them are stark white. I've been told this will cause issues with lighting and wardrobe, and for the past few day's I've been really worried that our locations pure white walls would be the end of us. However after watching Rosemarie's Baby (a film shot in an apartment painted entirely mental asylum white) I found that I really like the way the white backgrounds interacted with the characters. 

First off our main characters are young newlyweds and are fairly new to the city of New York. This motif is reflected in many of the shots where we see them talking and interacting with each other.

The light background sort of blends together to highlight the drama surrounding the couples problems communicating to one another. The background also helps to give us an idea of how new their relationship is both to eachother and to their new city. We see evidence of this when the two young lovers go next door to visit their elderly neighbors. 

Herbert's study practically overflows with visual intrigue. Just from this one shot we can tell what kind of man he is and what kind of life he leads.

Rosemarie's baby is certainly a must see if you're interested in production design.