Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/619377
and would be eventually gutted. This meant that we could have our way with it and not have to restore it. And two, it had three levels that could be painted and dressed as three distinct sets. I took a wide pan photograph of the back of the house from the beach and Art Director Raphael Sorcio erased the shantytown houses left and right to show the director and the studio that with a little visual effects help, it could look like Madoff owned the beach. Sold! The upper level was filmed as the Madoff Montauk living room, kitchen and bedroom. The lower level was furnished as whistleblower Harry Markopolos' Boston apartment, and the basement was turned into Eleanor Squillari's Staten Island kitchen. Along with a stretch of beach for several walk and talks, this location yielded four straight days of filming without moving the company. This beach, where we would lay track and pull focus for a walk and talk between Bernard and Peter Madoff (Peter Scolari) had been the beach where as a young man, Bernie had worked as a lifeguard and met the love of his life, Ruth Alpern. Although Madoff was planned to be mostly a dress-and-shoot location miniseries, we owed the state of New York at least one stage set with a minimum of three walls to qualify for the tax credit. Initially, the plan was to build a small set on stage to fulfill the tax requirement and then film the 19th and 17th floor Madoff offices in an empty suite somewhere in lower Manhattan's financial district. Location fees, traffic congestion, tight service entrances and the possibility of disturbing tenants on other floors with construction noise proved that a stage set was the best option. The ABC stage (71 x 116 feet) was Above: The top of a grand stair in the entry foyer of Oheka Castle on Long Island provided a dais for a scene in which Bernie delivers a speech at a Madoff Cancer Foundation fundraiser. Right: A plan of Oheka Castle. On MADOFF, the litmus test for every location choice was the number of scenes that we could get out of it. Sitting majestically on the highest point in Long Island, and once the estate of German financier Otto Kahn, Oheka Castle offered nine different locations.