The primary exception to the film's subdued color scheme was a fiery red Japanese maple-seen in the cursed video and acting almost as a signpost along the way. "The tree is a focal point of the movie. It kind of unifies the different elements-everything always seems to come back to that tree," offers Duffield.

Nicknamed "Lucille" after a certain red-headed actress, the tree was actually artificial, built by the design team out of steel tubing and plaster, and painted silk for the leaves. Perhaps because it was not natural, it seemed especially susceptible to nature. "Every time we put it up, the wind would come up and blow it over. In Washington, we put it up three separate times, only to have it knocked over by nearly 100-mile-an-hour wind gusts. We tried it again in Los Angeles when it wasn't windy at all, and that night we had 60-mile-an-hour winds that blew it down all over again. It was very strange," Duffield comments.

The red maple was also one of the designer's homages to the story's Japanese origins. Others that might be picked out include an American version of a sliding luminous door, and a Japanese wall hanging seen at the Morgan ranch.

Throughout the movie, Duffield also incorporated a ring motif wherever possible-like the ring-patterned carpeting and wallpaper, and the circular knobs in the kitchen-which calls to mind the film's enigmatic title.

"One of the things I first loved about the project was the title," Walter Parkes says. "Within the context of the movie, it could have a number of different meanings: the ringing of the telephone, the ominous image of an eclipse-like ring of light, or perhaps it is the circular storyline that leads you back to the beginning·"

"Our journey began with a videotape that comes with a warning. Yet, it is the very warning that makes it all the more interesting to us," Gore Verbinski muses. "Taboos are always accompanied by temptation; it's an essential quality of human nature-to discover the forbidden. Knowing this about us is what makes the evil essence of 'The Ring' all the more horrifying."