The six-part Netflix series Eric follows Vincent (Benedict Cumberbatch), a prominent puppeteer whose life falls apart when his nine-year-old son Edgar goes missing on his way to school. Written by Abi Morgan and directed by Lucy Forbes, the story is set in the seedy underworld of 1980s New York City. While many of the exterior scenes were shot in the Big Apple and New Jersey, the interiors were largely filmed in Budapest, Hungary. Cinematographer Benedict Spence BSC and Production Designer Alex Holmes explained how Rosco SoftDrops were instrumental in creating the 1980s Manhattan look needed for the production’s set design.
“Our challenge was that we were shooting almost all of the scenes in Budapest, Hungary, on soundstages and on location,” Alex recalled. “We spent six months in Budapest building interior sets. It was only in the last three weeks of the production that we travelled to NYC to shoot exterior street scenes. As a result, we had multiple New York City apartments to build that required views through windows onto Manhattan facades… and we looked to Rosco’s SoftDrops to help create what we needed.”
inside a Budapest soundstage.
The filmmakers installed three Custom SoftDrops inside Korda Studios to provide multiple window views from Vincent’s apartment. “This was a traditional Brownstone apartment with four living room windows and a kitchen that needed to look out onto our ‘street’,” Alex explained. “It also had side windows (built on a corner) and back windows too. For all of these, we used Rosco SoftDrops to take care of our backgrounds. They really helped create the illusions we needed.”
Cinematographer Benedict Spence also highlighted the importance of using SoftDrops to help create the 1980s New York City look for the production: “We needed to create a believable exterior world outside of the windows of our hero set builds! We wanted to really feel a 1980s New York City outside each window. The opening of Episode 1 cuts hard from New Jersey exteriors into our Hungarian set builds, so creating a completely believable cut was incredibly important for telling a believable and enveloping world for our audience.”
exterior location in New Jersey.
By illuminating the SoftDrops from the front and/or back, the filmmakers were able to easily switch between different times of the day making the background look more realistic. “We had a number of different times of day to shoot across all our set builds – day, night, and dusk – and the SoftDrops were integral to creating those moods and selling those times of day on camera,” said Benedict.
A Custom Day/Night Rosco SoftDrop provides both day and dusk views outside
of Vincent’s living room windows.
Pleased with the results of the Custom SoftDrop, the filmmakers used the same day/night technique for another ‘art deco’ set design they had built in the studio – the apartment that the character Ledroit lives in with his boyfriend. This time, however, the background was created using several Day/Night SoftDrops selected from Rosco’s extensive collection of Rental Backdrops.
Rental SoftDrops #R0574, #S0320, and #R0521 were shipped in from Rosco's Madrid, Spain location to create day and night views outside of Ledroit’s apartment.
“The SoftDrops were amazing,” Benedict said. “I’d never used them before, but there was zero learning curve. They worked exactly as described and were a joy to light. At the touch of a button on a lighting desk, you can change your entire set and backdrop between Day, Night, and Dusk – something we would not have been able to do with a standard painted backdrop.”
Many thanks to Benedict and Alex for sharing this wonderful story with us. To learn more about Benedict Spence’s work, visit his website: benedictspence.com or follow @benedict_spence_dop on Instagram. To see more examples of Alex Holmes’ set designs, visit his website: Alexholmes.com.au. Be sure to watch Eric on Netflix to see the compelling portrayal of 1980s New York City that the filmmakers achieved using Rosco SoftDrops.
If you need to incorporate backdrops into the set design of your next project, explore Rosco’s catalog of Rental Backdrops – which now includes the three NYC brownstone neighborhood SoftDrops that were made for Eric – or contact us to discuss the Custom SoftDrops that your project requires.
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