Kaleidoscope is currently streaming on Netflix. The heist thriller series features Breaking Bad and The Mandalorian star Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap, a gang leader and mastermind of the heist.
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As per the streaming giant, the official synopsis of Kaleidoscope reads:
“A master thief and his crew attempt an epic and elaborate heist worth $7 billion dollars — but betrayal, greed, and other threats undermine their plans.”
Created by novelist Eric Garcia, the show follows a non-linear format. This means that the episodes do not follow any particular pattern and can be watched in any order, all leading to the same finale.
The shooting schedule for the show kickstarted in September 2021 but was halted in January 2022 due to COVID-19. Filming soon resumed and was completed by March last year.
Kaleidoscope was the first production at Netflix’s Bushwick studio
In 2021, Netflix established a production studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and Kaleidoscope became the first show to shoot there.
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When it was inaugurated in 2021, a spokesperson told the Daily News that the 170,000 sqft studio would provide “a state-of-the-art production experience for filmmakers.”
The building, located at 333 Johnson Avenue, houses a mill, six soundstages, flexible support space, offices, and meeting rooms. It is stretched across roughly two avenue blocks just off the L line.
The Bushwick studio was the first filming location for Kaleidoscope.
Apart from this, other Brooklyn locations like Nostrand Avenue, Fulton Street, Van Dyke Street, Dwight Street, and around 3rd avenue, and 53rd Street were also utilized by the team to shoot several sequences.
A wide variety of locations in New York served as shooting locales for Kaleidoscope
The Kaleidoscope (earlier named Jigsaw) team set base next in Manhattan to film several key scenes. In the series, Pap decides to carry out his grand heist in the most densely populated borough of New York City. It is also important to note that the show is set around 2012 Hurricane Sandy, so the focus of the series is on Manhattan.
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Further, since the series is about a major financial crime, it’s not a surprise that numerous frames were lensed in 28 Liberty situated in Manhattan’s financial district, which is dotted by top financial institutions like the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The Kaleidoscope crew also utilized the Midtown East neighborhood, which is home to Grand Central Terminal (where the 1998 film Armageddon was shot).
Cedar Street, located 0.4 miles from the Financial District, was the next spot where the heist drama was filmed. In November 2021, cameras were also seen in Manhattan locales like Lafayette Street and Great Jones Street.
The team traveled to New York’s easternmost county, Suffolk, in January last year to record some crucial sequences. Locations around the Town of Huntington, such as Dix Hills Diner and Gold Coast Jewelry & Pawn could be seen in the backdrop of the show.
The Netflix drama also features Patchogue (a village) and a hamlet, Blue Point-based Corey Beach at 1 Corey Avenue.
Garcia talks about his idea behind the show
In an interaction with Newsweek, Garcia shared that he conceived the idea of Kaleidoscope in 2014, and wanted to make a show that will be about $70 bn going missing during Hurricane Sandy. He explained:
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“I had written an email to a friend with this notion of ‘I don’t understand why we have to watch things in order’ with batch delivery. Like it exists now so there must be some way to do this, and these two things slowly came together.”
In order to make it a non-linear show, Garcia worked with “a lot of master plans,” which led to both confusion and excitement among the cast and crew.
