(Image: Marcel Bozzuffi, right, in William Friedkin’s “French Connection,” from 1971. Image credit: 20th Century Fox)
Updated 5/14/20 with information about NYC-Subway.com
The MTA has posted a new version of one of its evergreen articles on filming in the subways.
Not much new info if you’re up-to-date on their process—although you might be interested in learning that some 28 productions made use of the system over the past year with shooting schedules that went from one day to 40 (no mention of who took more than a month to shoot subterranean).
If you’re not familiar with what’s involved in such shoots, you’d be right to imagine that it can get a bit complicated. Any agency involved in moving five million of us around each day needs to stick to very specific procedures. For example, if you’re shooting anywhere on the ‘roadbed’, it’s mandatory for principal crew to take an eight-hour safety course, the same one that MTA employees attend. Your production will also need to post $2 million of insurance for each cast and crew member on location.
For a bit more detailed look at what steps you need to take, check out this page in an earlier article, “The Art of Making Movies in the New York City Subway”. You’ll also find links on that page for the exact steps you need to take, as well as mention of some of the notable films that feature the underground, including two classics, The French Connection and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
Here’s the MTA’s basic info page on shooting in the subway.
For a website devoted to a wide variety of historical and current information on New York’s subway system, try the guide NYC-Subway at https://nyc-subway.com/
