3. Williamsburg Apartment Interiors
You may be amazed to know that the interiors of the Brooklyn apartments were all shot in Berlin. The making-of video you can see above (and on Netflix), shares how Unorthodox‘s production team recreated the interiors and the costumes to look authentic. Production designer Silke Fischer said their visit to Brooklyn “was a kind of image-based research: We looked around, we took so many pictures, and we tried to inhale this world by the visual impressions we got…” The production team also went on a tour of Williamsburg with an ex-Satmar woman who had grown up in the community in Brooklyn.
Photo: Anika Molnar/Netflix
Based on the exteriors chosen for the various filming locations in Unorthodox in Williamsburg, the production designer “built made-to-measure sets here to sync with those exteriors” said Anna Winger. Because of the matching that needed to happen, “the lighting was very delicate” and handled expertly by Wolfgang Thaler, the director of photography on Unorthodox. Winger says that the effect was so seamless that in post-production, it was “very difficult to see what’s inside and what’s outside, what was in New York and what was shot in Berlin.”
Behind-the-scenes shot of a dinner scene shot in Berlin. Photo: Anika Molnar/Netflix
The wedding scene in Unorthodox was also filmed in Berlin with an incredible number of extras and detailed costumes (rest assured that no minks were hurt in the production of Unorthodox!).
Photo: Anika Molnar/Netflix
