The director continues, "I am a big fan of horror films. But there are the ones that simply shock you, and there are the ones that operate more subversively. These have a particular psychological manipulation going on that the viewer is not completely aware of. When they work, there can be a tremendous residual effect-those films stay with you longer, because they get under your skin. All horror films are derived from an essentially very simple premise, as it is in our film. It is only in the execution that certain films elevate themselves beyond the genre. These are the ones that inspire me because they scare me the most. Ultimately, it is about the craft."

Crafting "The Ring" involved a creative team that included director of photography Bojan Bazelli, production designer Tom Duffield, costume designer Julie Weiss, editor Craig Wood, Oscarš-winning composer Hans Zimmer, multiple Oscarš-winning special make-up effects artist Rick Baker, and Oscarš-winning visual effects supervisor Charles Gibson.

While much of the principal photography was accomplished in and around Los Angeles and on soundstages, portions of "The Ring" were filmed on location in the state of Washington. The Pacific Northwest winter provided a seemingly perpetual overcast and cold, gloomy weather that only added to the story's atmosphere of dread. The lack of sun also lent itself perfectly to the soft light and lack of shadows that Verbinski and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli were employing to complement the story's surrealistic moments.

Bazelli expounds, "In lighting the sets and the actors, we tried to eliminate all the shadows cast by the actors, which is meant to subconsciously alter the viewer's sense of perception and add a heightened sense of ambiguity."

While the gloom and doom were integral to the story's themes, the cold, wet weather was not as welcome a climate for production designer Tom Duffield and his team. "The toughest thing for me creatively was trying to build sets standing in six inches of muddy water," Duffield says ruefully. "It was also quite an experience trying to make the paint stick. Paint doesn't stick in the rain, and it rained nearly every day."

Duffield states that renowned New England painter and illustrator Andrew Wyeth heavily inspired the overall palette of "The Ring." "In Wyeth's work, the trees are always dormant, and the colors are muted earth tones. It's greys, it's browns, it's somber colors; it's ripped fabrics in the windows· His work has a haunting flavor that I felt would add to the mystique of this movie, so I latched on to it."