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gets that sense that they are being manipulated as much as the protag- onist, only shown what they are per- mitted to see. To me, it was in the detail. It’s a nightmare for the focus puller, but Kirsten McMahon did a really brilliant job.”
Recreating a well-recognised pe- riod of the past, in a project where great importance is placed on realism, locations and production design be- come intrinsically linked to the cine- matography to give a sense of where the story exists in time and place.
“We were not setting out to con- vince people of it,” says Hardy. “We wanted to avoid pastiche. Looking at a lot of police information films from the Seventies, the one thing we re- ally noticed was how bare every- thing seemed to be.
“There were rarely pictures on the wall, furniture was very func- tional and everybody smoked. Hats off to Cristina Casali, our production designer. In 1974 everything felt
stripped back. When I spoke with Ju- lian (Jarrold, directing), the first thing we talked about was the sense of location. I am big fan of concrete, brutalist architecture, so for me it was perfect.”
However, with Yorkshire having now moved inevitably into the 21st century with the rest of the UK, cer- tain extra measures were necessary.
“Tom Burton our production de- signer did a great job in creating the world of 1980,” recalls Martinovic. “He did the lion’s share of location scouting prior to pre-production and was able to find filmic locations that fitted the mood of each scene.”
Hardy elaborates: “Something as simple as composition would be- come a very careful choice. We would find a location that had all the right ingredients but to the right there would be a MacDonald’s and so you really had to hold the frame. Stylistically that then meant there would be a combination of quite for-
mal, static architectural wides which juxtaposed the more ‘liquid’ ap- proach to the highly charged inti- mate moments.”
Red Riding does indeed have an overall theme: it’s British and it is unforgiving. If a theatrical release for Red Riding is achieved, as is hoped, then that theme may make it to the big screen worldwide. NATASHA BLOCK
The 1974 and 1980 episodes of the Red Riding trilogy – which aired on C4 in February and March. Red Riding 1974 was originated on 16mm Super 64-D 8622, ETERNA 500T 8673, ETERNA 250D 8663. Red Riding 1980 was originated on 35mm 2-perf ETERNA 250T 8553, ETERNA 250D 8563 and ETERNA 400T 8583
Photos: The many faces of Red Riding including DP Rob Hardy on 1974 (first from left top row) and DP Igor Martinovic (third from left top row) on 1980
FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE • THE MAGAZINE • EXPOSURE • 23