A Haunting in Venice production designer reveals challenges of filming in Italy

Speaking to CondeNast Traveller, A Haunting in Venice Production designer John Paul Kelly revealed some of the surprising challenges of filming in the picturesque Italian city.

The film itself is set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and the Venice of the 1940s was very different to the Venice of today, Kelly says, and they wanted to portray the city that had became a home for refugees after the war.

"We wanted to show a Venice with bread lines and markets and windy streets. It wasn’t about the Venice that’s usually depicted on the Grand Canal and Rialto Bridge and what you see today," he says.

In order to accomplish the exterior shots as well as the dilapidated grandeur of the Palazzo, Kelly decided it made more sense to build their own palazzo in the UK. He says: "We realised that we probably wanted to set it in the backwaters of the of the canals that have a tucked-away, secret feel. But we couldn’t find a palazzo with interiors we liked, or that was right for our story—with a secret garden on the roof and things like that. So we came back to London and decided we would build our own palazzo at Pinewood Studios."

However, there were specific spaces used on location. Poirot's house, for instance, was shot across "a few houses" including Palazzo Malipiero and The Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello di Venezia. 

"[T]he main job from a production design standpoint was referencing all these lovely places we'd seen and then actually building them as a palazzo in Pinewood."

Kelly and his team build all of the interiors of the house as well as an exterior set outside, "so we could have the waves crashing against the walls and the shutters slamming and the rain. We also built the exterior so we could have our own gondolas come into the building."

Building the exteriors at Pinewood afforded the team a level of environmental control that wouldn't have been possible on location, but also gave the film a grounded, real-world feeling and not the uncanniness of a green screen. 

"He was really adamant that when the actors stood in the middle of our palazzo in Pinewood they felt like they were in a palazzo in Venice," Kelly says.

Further locations used included Campiello dei Miracoli, Campo Santa Maria Nova, Campo Santa Maria Nova, Campo San Giacomo dell'Orio, Rio della Canonica, and Scala del Bovolo. 

The Italian film commissions offer productions an average of $57.7m (€52m) per year of film funding, according to the Italian Film Commissions group. This can be combined with a competitive 40% national tax credit. Recent productions to film in the country include The White Lotus season 2, Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, and Universal’s Fast X.