SOURCE:
Verity Peet
RED Production
Notes as at 06.04.98
WINE ROOM SHOOT PROPOSED SCHEDULE
8.00 am All
except extras meet at location. Set up
9.00 am Shoot CUs Woman: drinking wine (Sc.1)
and smug (Sc.7); CU lips; lips surprised; BCU Int. glass wine swirling; CU
glass knocked over, somersaulting to floor, and smashing; BCU wine seeping
across tablecloth.
Okay to add hubbub
from extras later?
11.00 am CUs Man: MCU with dark background(Sc.3); sweater later (Sc.7); Man bent over
glass swirling, inhales bouquet, head up; examines “legs” of wine (diff. Wine);
looks to left.
All
dialogue from Sc.1, 3, 5.
Important
to get all dialogue as to be used over other shots.
12.30 pm (Packed!)
Lunch break
1.30 pm Extras
arrive. Set up for WS.
2.00 pm WS Man speaking (beg Sc.2) to whole
room (I’ve yet to add this bit!) WS: early evening with few bottles on tables,
one glass each, gentle hubbub; later – more wine, more hubbub; late – more wine
bottles but empty, extras leaving; WS Man and Woman leaving.
Wide shots from position
at back of room?
3.15 pm M2S Man and Woman standing up talking
(Sc.10); and leaving, walking toward camera / exit walking into CU.
4.00 pm Tea Break
4.30 pm Tracking (OK hand held side stepping!)
round table (Sc.5)
5.15 pm Pans and whip pan (Sc.3)
6.00 pm WS tables (Sc.7)
7.00 pm Actors finished. De-rig
7.30 pm PUB!
SYNOPSIS
At a wine tasting class MAN dominates the conversation,
pompously and exaggeratedly describing the textures, tastes and smells of the
wine, and making chauvinistic comparisons to women. Of his four companions at the table the three
men choose to ignore his conceited disinterest in anyone else’s opinion. WOMAN becomes increasingly more irritated,
confronts him, but is ignored. She
changes tack, flirts with him and at the end of the class asks him to go home
with her to taste a particular wine. In
the car she lets him believe she in inviting him in for sex. Once he is tied to her bed she stabs
him. She drags his body down the stairs.
The narrative structure of RED uses parallel action which
cuts between events at the beginning of the evening and actions later in the
evening. So the story is told from the
chronological ending moving backward in time. When she invites him to go home
with her in the final scene the parallel action meets in time.
DIRECTOR’S
NOTES
The roots of this film are in the thriller and noir
genres. The storyline is clearly
thriller style but the directorial style is too. For example it is the sound of
something being dragged down the stairs from scene 2 which is the motivation
for the camera to move down the stairs. The domination of red and dark colours, the sexual innuendoes in the
descriptions of the wine (rather than naturalistic dialogue), and the power of
the female character all derive from film noir. However, the vivid use of the colour red and the continuing use of big
close ups add a new dimension, creating a more dramatic impact. This heightened realism effect makes use of
natural distortion in close pans and motivated whip pans, enjoys vivid colour
mixes between similar shades (eg spilt red wine pool mixing to bloodstained
dark wooden stairs, sc.1-2), permits the subtle use of slo-mo (wine glass
somersaulting to floor, sc. 1), and encourages unusual camera positions which
make use of movement within the frame (eg aerial MS of MAN lying tied to bed,
WOMAN sits astride him, she raises knife above her head into CU). There is no “gore” or sex, but there is the
suggestion of both in the juxtapositioning of shots, for example just as blade
touches flesh in sc 4, we cut to the first shot of sc 5: BCU of red wine
swirling in glass.
MAN and WOMAN are types rather than characters with
histories. He is pompous, chauvinistic
and assumes authority. She is the mouse
that roars.
The 1950’s soundtrack provides both a melodic atmosphere of
innocence and an ironic comment on the action.