The production came to Manchester earlier this year to film scenes.
The Crown took audiences by storm last month thanks to the long-awaited introduction of Princess Diana, but just earlier this year, the production had already taken Manchester by storm – attracting locals to Stevenson Square to get a peep of scenes before they were released this Autumn.
Transforming the already NYC-style quarter with pop-up subway stations, yellow traffic lights and even the iconic yellow cabs – the cast and crew spent a long weekend filming during early mornings in the city, and now, fans can see exactly what it took to make the backdrop convincing for viewers.
Released by the series’ VFX specialists, the new video shows a number of finished scenes, CGI and all, before stripping them back to how they were before post-production. As expected, a lot of the scenes that showcased the exterior of Buckingham Palace were created with special effects and green screen, however, it’s an interesting watch to see the finer details that you wouldn’t have noticed upon a first watch.
Check it out below:
Filming across Dale Steet, Peter Street and Stevenson Square, the video shows all the fancy effects it took to turn our city into the Big Apple – with small details including extra fire escapes, skyscrapers in the background and more added in post to make the transformation as convincing as possible. And they did a pretty fantastic job, too, with even us avid Mancs almost fooled by the tricks they used.
The Crown isn’t the first production to take advantage of the Northern Quarter’s New York-esque buildings and streets, with huge Hollywood productions such as Captain America and Jared Leto’s upcoming movie Morbius taking to Stevenson Square and Dale Street for the art deco style buildings and old fashioned fire escapes that form much of the concrete jungle.