Welcome to Manc-hattan!
HOW CITY TRANSFORMED INTO NEW YORK FOR HIT NETFLIX SERIES THE CROWN
BRILLIANT pictures show how Manchester was transformed into 1980s New York for The Crown.
Parts of the latest instalment of the award-winning Netflix series were filmed at locations in the city centre back in February.
The production team and nd cast shot scenes in and around nd the Northern Quarter’s Stevenson vennd Square, Dale Street and Back Piccadilly, the historic se John Rylands Library on Deansgate, The University of Manchester’s Renold Building and outside the Peter Street Kitchen on Peter Street in the former Free Trade Hall.
The new season, which hich landed on the streaming ng serduring service last month, is set during Margaret Thatcher’s time as the first British female Prime Minister but the biggest talking point is that it’s the first time Princess Diana is depicted in the series, played by Emma Corrin.
Princess Diana made a solo trip to New York in 1989, visiting the Henry Street Settlement that was a halfway house for homeless families in the lower east side of Manhattan.
And it is these scenes which were filmed in Manchester.
Framestore, an animation and visual effects company, have shared a three-minute video which shows how New York was brought to the region using some very clever CGI and other tricks.
In one part, the area around Albert’s Schloss in Peter St is shown and gives a step-by-step look at how the New York skyline was intricately incorporated into the northern city centre street.
And to be honest, you would think it was really there.
Similarly, the same incredible trickery was incorporated around the Northern Quarter which was transformed into the lower east side of Manhattan.
Ollie Bersey, Deputy Head of 2D from Framestore who was one of the project’s VFX leads, said: “One of the most fundamental challenges in this work was to make the streets of Manchester both very long and very straight.
“In doing this, we had to remove bends and corners in the road, replace a lot of the buildings as well as adding lots as well.
“Little details like steam, fire escapes, extra traffic and classic street lights and traffic lights as well as the removal of anything too modern completed the transformation.”