The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodóvar’s first English feature film, based on the novel What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Festival, along with numerous other accolades, the film follows two close friends, Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton), who reconnect after years of being out of touch. Focusing on Martha’s journey towards death and her wish for a dignified end, the film offers a poetic exploration of life, death and friendship. While the story is set in New York City, most of the film was shot in Madrid. Production Designer, Inbal Weinberg, and Cinematographer Edu Grau ASC AEC explained how they used Rosco SoftDrops® to create a NYC background that elevated the film’s evocative visual aesthetic.
The filmmakers constructed three key NYC sets - Martha’s Apartment, Ingrid’s Apartment and the Hospital Room – on a soundstage in Madrid using Rosco SoftDrops. Inbal commented: “Since Pedro loves New York, he wanted to showcase the New York skyline through large windows in all of the sets. We scouted New York to look for appropriate views, and were lucky to find perfect views for reference in Greenwich Village, Brooklyn and Roosevelt Island .”
Inbal underscored the advantages of using Rosco SoftDrop technology instead of a green screen: “The initial idea was to use green screen and comp the skyline images in post, which Pedro and his company have done in many recent films. However, cinematographer Edu Grau and I had reservations about using green screen. Since VFX work happens after principal photography, we were worried about our lack of control over the final composited image. We felt that the relationship between the background image and actors would seem more natural if we used a photographic backing on set. And we also thought that the actors would feel more comfortable acting against a large NYC skyline image, rather than against a chroma green vacuum.”
The two main characters look out the window of Martha’s Manhattan apartment, with a Rosco SoftDrop in the background.
Inbal explained that, although initially reluctant to the idea of using physical backdrops, Almodóvar and the producers “were open to this new yet classic approach”. She commented: “I think that Pedro liked the idea of using backings as a homage to traditional Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s. His favorite example was the film The Fountainhead from 1949, where New York City’s skyline is seen in glamorous detail through floor-to-ceiling set windows. As a filmmaker, Pedro is always interested in the tension between real life and melodrama, so I think the artificiality of the backing attracted him.”
A Custom Day/Night Rosco SoftDrop installed inside a Hospital Room set.
Edu also highlighted Almodóvar’s use of classic backdrops in his early films as one of the defining features of his distinctive style. He said: “One of the things we liked in Pedro's films were those backdrops — for example, in Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) — something idiosyncratic of his films, and we thought it was a shame to have lost them lately due to digital effects and chromas.”
Rosco SoftDrop is backlit inside Martha’s apartment set to create a nighttime view of NYC.
“There is something artisanal about Pedro's filmmaking that is more related to the physicality of the backdrop, of lighting it and seeing the result in situ, knowing that this was what was going to be seen on the screen, and not deciding how the backgrounds of the sets were going to look in a post-production room two months later. The combination of elements in this film meant that having a backdrop was the best decision for us,” Edu explained.
Day view of the SoftDrop inside Martha’s apartment set.
Phil Greenstreet, Rosco's Head of Technical Development, took photos of the locations that filmmakers had picked in NYC, which were then refined by the RDI team. “We worked closely with Phil and Sarah Horton, Rosco’s Senior Digital Imaging Specialist, to adjust the images, which took a few rounds," said Inbal.
The final artworks used to produce the Day/Night Rosco SoftDrops for Martha’s apartment (top) and the Hospital Room (bottom).
“To receive Pedro’s final confirmation, my team dropped the images into our 3D mockup of the sets, which we built in TwinMotion. We were able to position the 3D camera in multiple areas of the virtual set, to see how the drop looked, and to test our sight-lines.”
3D mockup of the Hospital Room set with a Rosco SoftDrop imagery displayed in the background.
Inbal noted that one of the challenges they experienced was shooting ‘off of the backing’: “For Martha’s Apartment we were able to come up with solutions such as adding neighboring building walls, and a terrace. This made architectural sense, and helped hide the gaps between the SoftDrop and the stage. However, in our set for the Hospital Room, which was fairly small, Pedro was adamant about placing the actors close to the window, and the camera angles inevitably revealed the stage floor. Our ad-hock solution was to use mirror sheets on the ground, and frosted film stripes in the windows.”
Martha’s apartment set featuring Rosco SoftDrop and mirror sheets on the ground.
Inbal reflected on the final result: “All in all, I was very happy with our decision to use Rosco’s SoftDrops. Their presence was a joy on set, not only for the actors but also for the crew, who posed for “NYC selfies”. Most importantly, cinematographer Edu Grau and I were able to control the background in camera, and compose beautiful shots featuring the city’s skyline against our characters. In one pivotal scene in the hospital, the script called for a moment of magical realism, when snow starts falling during a pink sunset. Edu and his team were able to manipulate the backing to evoke a heightened image, perfectly capturing the script’s intention.”
The two main characters watch the snow fall on NYC outside the Hospital Room window.
“These are great examples of the beautiful opportunities that can be explored when working with physical backings. For me, the process was a great learning experience, and I’m grateful to the large team - from Rosco to our producers - that made it happen.”
Inbal Weinberg on the set of The Room Next Door with Rosco SoftDrop in the background.
Edu further noted: “Pedro is something else, and one of the things that represents him and elevates his work, we believe, is this peculiar look at the world that we thought was very nice to recover. The idea of the backdrops was a bit of a crazy decision, but if we were honest with Pedro's cinema and with what we wanted to convey, it seemed to us that it possessed a distinctly 'Almodovarian' beauty.”
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Do you need a New York City background for your next production? The SoftDrops used in The Room Next Door are now available for rent from our Madrid, Spain warehouse! |
Since its release last year, The Room Next Door has garnered multiple awards, including three Goya Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score.
Watch The Room Next Door in cinemas and online
To discover more about Inbal Weinberg’s work, visit her website www.dadafilmdesign.com or follow @inbaldada on Instagram. For more information about Edu Grau’s work, explore his website www.edugrau.com or follow @eduardgrau on Instagram.
To learn more about the product the filmmakers used to create the NYC background for The Room Next Door, please visit the SoftDrop product page on our website.
Photo credit: Iglesias Más
Tatiana Massano March 28, 2025 Questions?
Content Marketing Specialist: Based in the Madrid office, Tatiana is ideally positioned to share inspiring stories of how customers use Rosco products to accomplish their ideas in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
