And… Action: filming is back in New York

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about the small park in Sunnyside, Queens. A child sailed back and forth on a swing. Other children ran on a jungle gym and played basketball.

But upon closer inspection, the street lamp lying on its side turned out to be a prop. This also includes the police car on the corner and the candle-lit memorial at the entrance to the playground. The woman who rushes up the stairs shouting, “My baby!” was an actor.

The cast and crew of the CBS police drama “Blue Bloods” had recently infiltrated the park and converted it into a movie set. Donnie Wahlberg and Marisa Ramirez, actors who star as New York City police detectives, were on hand. Authoritative voices were amplified via multiple walkie-talkies.

“Silence please. Rolling. Background. And… action.”

After a hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 and disruptions caused by writers' and actors' strikes last year, film production has returned to New York City.

In the weeks since the strikes ended, the number of permits issued by the city for projects filming on public land has rebounded quickly — doubling between November and December and continuing to rise since then. Last month, the city granted 389 permits for 88 different projects, including television series such as “Daredevil,” “Law & Order,” “Elsbeth” and “FBI,” as well as major feature films such as “Friendship” and “The Penguin.” ”

“It's firing on all cylinders,” said Pat Kaufman, commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment. “It's happening.”

Across the city, several large-scale studios are under construction by developers hoping to attract a steady stream of film projects.

And efforts to encourage film and television productions to choose New York over other cities and states recently got a boost from a measure that expanded the state's decades-old film tax credit, a program supported by the industry but panned by critics who claim this is the case is a bad deal for the taxpayer. a new reportcommissioned by the state government, concluded that the tax credit was “at best a break-even proposition and more likely a net cost to the state.”

Still, film production in New York generates an estimated 185,000 jobs, $18 billion in wages and $81 billion in revenue, the city said. And officials say the industry's recovery after a months-long work stoppage is an important part of New York City's overall economic health.

For some New York film industry workers, the pandemic's forced shutdowns and strikes have been devastating.

“I was out of work for six months,” says Alan Pierce, a veteran cinematographer who has worked behind the lens on several New York TV shows, including “Succession” and “Billions.”

“It's not like a vacation,” Mr. Pierce said. “It was very nerve-wracking.”

Rossana Rizzo, a camera operator who has worked in the industry for more than two decades, said she was heartbroken to see her colleagues suffer. “I noticed people were selling things” like movie equipment, she said.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Ms. Rizzo has worked on several New York shows, including “Pose,” “And Just Like That…” and “Russian Pop.” The strikes made her hometown seem different. “It's funny how depressed the city feels without the film industry,” she said.

Ms. Rizzo and Mr. Pierce noted that film production supports many other businesses. When the film industry is busy, “everyone is busy,” Pierce said. “The restaurants, the delis, the hotels, all kinds of shops, schools, churches, car rental companies, dry cleaners and lumberyards and much more.”

It's easy to see why New York City—with its striking skyscrapers, striking bridges, stately brownstones, quirky tenements, and unique characters—has inspired creatives with cameras for more than a century.

“Pick any corner of New York, and every corner you photograph will be interesting,” says Anastasia Puglisi, executive vice president and co-executive producer at Wolf Entertainment, the juggernaut behind several television shows shot in the city, including the “Law & Order” franchise and “FBI.”

“You get more in New York in terms of neighborhoods and different types of people and different socio-economic locations, and parks and skyscrapers and water — so much more in New York than anywhere else,” Ms. Puglisi said. “From a cinematic point of view, it's kind of a dream to film here, because it's endless.”

(A exhibition currently on display at the Museum of the City of New York with the title “You are here' celebrates thousands of films made in New York over the past 100 years, from old classics like 'Midnight Cowboy', 'Shaft' and 'Ghostbusters' to newer favorites like 'The Wolf of Wall Street', 'Joker' and 'Hustlers' . “)

Before the pandemic and the strikes, which stretched from May through November, filmmaking was booming in New York City.

According to the city's media office, production peaked in 2019, with more than 80 episodic television series and 300 feature films filmed that year.

There is now a collaboration to ensure that New York can compete with Hollywood in attracting TV and film projects. A 26,000 square meter development with high-tech sound stages, called Sunset Pier 94 Studiosis in the works along Manhattan's Hudson River, and the even larger, 30,000-sq.-ft East End Studios is is coming to Sunnyside.

In addition, several new studios have been announced in Brooklyn, including two from Bungalow Projects, a real estate development company focused on building manufacturing facilities.

The co-founders, Travis Feehan and Susi Yu, have worked in New York for decades and recently researched studio spaces in Los Angeles to ensure their New York venture would be comparable.

Many of the camera cranes and large LED screens used in feature films require extra-high ceilings, which are harder to come by in New York.

“If you look at a studio in L.A. or in Atlanta versus New York, in many cases it is far inferior to New York,” Mr. Feehan said.

“This is a big, big, big thing,” said Ms. Kaufman, the commissioner. “The more movies and TV shows that we come here and use our city, our iconic locations, all of that, that's another library that gets to stay open on Sundays.”

Seeing New York on screen is also a draw for tourists; companies such as On location tours take fans on trips to locations from scenes from 'Sex and the City,' 'Gossip Girl,' 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and more.

Sometimes the connection to New York is tenuous: After the death of actor Matthew Perry, fans placed flowers in front of the building used as an exterior shot of “Friends,” despite the fact that the sitcom was filmed in Los Angeles.

Even die-hard New Yorkers admit they are thrilled when they discover their street is being used as a backdrop.

Christine Bord runs @olva social media account that tracks filming locations, usually spotted and submitted by local residents.

When film crews put up a brightly colored flyer to reserve a parking spot for production, “people get really excited when they see it and want to share it,” Ms. Bord said. “It's like peeking behind a curtain and seeing a little bit of how movie magic works and what a movie set looks like.”

In December, Ella Morton was lucky enough to come across a set in her neighborhood of Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. “There were a lot of police cars there, and I couldn't tell if they were real cops or TV cops,” she said. “It was some kind of mixing.”

Suddenly Mrs. Morton was impressed. “I saw a majestic woman, all in black, and I thought, 'That's Mariska Hargitay,'” she recalled. “And I thought, 'Damn, I just walked into this.'

Ms. Morton stood transfixed as the star of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” was called into action.

Although the scene was short, it did not disappoint. “I saw her walking authoritatively from a veranda to a car. And that was the extent of it,” Ms Morton said. “Her gold captain's badge glinted in the sunlight. It was pretty perfect.”