"DE PALMA IS NOT JUST ABOUT DEPICTING EXTERNAL REALITIES"
Looks like Passion production designer Cornelia Ott was also at the Venice Film Festival. Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten posted a brief interview with Ott last week-- here is the main excerpt in English:[Cornelia Ott] read the script, created visualizations, and communicated via Skype almost daily with the director. Brian De Palma had prepared his own storyboards... Based on these Cornelia Ott scouted locations: more than 30 found in Berlin, where the thriller is set. The locations were then transformed with set-components, such as specially designed and crafted furniture in Studio Babelsberg, says Ott. Thus the Schöneberg Town Hall became the London office of an advertising agency, and the lobby and foyer of the Bode Museum was where a reception was filmed. De Palma is not just about depicting external realities, says Ott. His films are complex and stylized. The film goes from reality to dream sequences and surreal scenes, which are reflected in the design of the sets. It took great effort to create a key sequence in the film, in which a murder occurs: For this Ott had to import a stage set in the Renaissance Theater, to film the dancers performing the ballet "Afternoon of a Faun".