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From “Elf” to “Blue Bloods”: Veteran Producer Santiago Quiñones on the Unique Advantages of Filming in New York

March 4, 2025

Santiago Quiñones was a co-executive producer on Blue Bloods, CBS’s long-running police procedural that followed the Reagan family through their dynastic run within the NYPD. Quiñones, a born and bred New Yorker, joined the show assuming that, like previous projects, he might be moving on after a little while for another opportunity. Instead, he stayed for a decade, which kept him home alongside his family as his children grew and his colleagues became extended family members.

“I remember when I first started, I was very much like ‘I don’t want to make any friends here’ because I didn’t know how long I’d be there,” Quioñones admits. “That’s the way production is: you’re there for a little bit of time, and then you go away. I didn’t want to get too attached. I’ve had a string of that, having worked abroad on a lot of projects. It was very profound in that way.”

Quiñones has had a long, fruitful career, working both at home and abroad on projects as sturdy as Blue Bloods andas far-flung and epic as Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning The Revenant, where he was a production manager for the Argentina portion of the shoot. He’s also worked on some of the most beloved New York films of the past quarter century, including Elf, 13 Going on 30, and You’ve Got Mail.

As Quiñones moves on after Blue Bloods, he remains in a New York state of mind even as he pursues potential projects abroad. He’s the co-chair of the New York Film and Television Production Industry Council and he’s committed to doing his part to ensuring that New York remains a hub of production. Last week, Quiñones joined the Second Annual MediaMKRS Summit in the city, which brought together 200 industry leaders, employers, union officials, educators, and policymakers to discuss the future of media in the state and the importance of building an inclusive workforce and infrastructure to keep it vibrant and strong. For his part, he was there to talk about how the film and television industry can impact the New York and New Jersey region and why a single series like Blue Bloods can be an engine of positive economic impact and a workforce multiplier, employing thousands of people to play their part in creating the series we’re watching at home. Set designers, camera operators, electricians, caterers, grips, construction workers, and all the businesses the series relies on, from launderers to coffee shops, are absolutely necessary to keep any series or film going.

We spoke to Quiñones about his career thus far, the challenges and joys of filming in the greatest city in the world, and why one of the most iconic moments from Elf had everything to do with a single, simple location change.

Let’s start with the end of your Blue Bloods run, which I know has been an emotional time for you since the last time we spoke.

It’s not only a great privilege to be able to wrap something that went on for so long, but honestly, it was also incredibly sad. Just as fantastic as it was to have been on it, it was really sad to see my crew, who had become family, go away. It became so real when we finished wrapping the stages and all that was gone. I kept saying to myself, ‘We’ll never have those moments back in those places again.’ So it was really hard. And the cast, too, and the writers, it’s ten years of my life. I remember when I first started, I was very much like ‘I don’t want to make any friends here’ because I didn’t know how long I’d be there. That’s the way production is: you’re there for a little bit of time, and then you go away. I didn’t want to get too attached. I’ve had a string of that, having worked abroad on a lot of projects. It was very profound in that way. To amplify all of this, my daughter was going away to college, and I know that there are bigger problems in the world, and it’s so hard to explain what that’s like, but it was unique and I’ve never experienced that before.

And as a New Yorker, too…

As a New Yorker, I feel like in every episode, I got to flex what I know best, and it’s New York. I don’t want to take credit for all the location work that our location manager did, but I know that I pushed for the production value that New York has. In one of the first conversations I had with [executive producer] Leonard Goldberg, I said, ‘This is who I am, and this is what I’m going to bring to you,’ and he loved the idea that I promised to bring production value to New York. He called me after the first episode I produced and said, ‘Wow, you really delivered on that.’ That’s always been my mission when I’m producing something, or location managing, is to bring the production value wherever I am. The location is really the other character.

On your panel during the MediaMKRS Summit, you said something very funny and true—no one would pretend that it’s easy to film in New York, nothing in New York comes easy, but there’s just no other place that can match it. Can you speak to the challenges and opportunities that New York offers?

I could try to explain it, but some of it has become so embedded in who I am that it’s hard to do without getting verbose. The wide perspective is that although it’s hard, the great thing about shooting in New York is that it fills the camera. There’s something about that, having scouted in New York and photographed it extensively, it’s just brings pleasure to the eye. You can fill the frame so richly in New York. And the energy. You can’t match the energy in the background, you can’t match the energy of the traffic, you can’t match the energy of the performance an actor gives because they’re standing in that environment, that all gets into the performance of whatever we’re doing. It’s such a pleasure to watch the process of it, from the very start when you’re scouting it, and the shooting of it, and then the watching of it after it’s done. It’s there. From the eyes all the way through.

(L-R): Ian Quinlan as Luis Badillo and Vanessa Ray as Officer Eddie Janko. Photo: CBS ©2023 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Highest quality screengrab available.

I always think about my friend who lives in the East Village who stood for a minute at a taco truck before realizing it was part of a set.

That’s funny. We were once rehearsing a three-card Monte scene in Times Square for Monk when one of the police officers came up and arrested our actor because it was a no-tolerance zone for three-card Monte. We just had to explain the situation. He didn’t see the rehearsal going on. The officer was terribly embarrassed. Sometimes, we’re too real.

You said something really striking on your panel about shooting 13 Going On 30 in New York City right after 9/11 and having to decide how to show the skyline, and you decided to show it as it is.

We had this discussion in the scout van, which I consider the creative incubator for the director, the designer, the location manager, and the producers. It’s where we drive around New York looking at locations, and it’s really a crucible for the creative process. So we were talking about how to frame the skyline. Should we embrace it, should we avoid it, should we go to get the Empire State Building? But the classic shots are really downtown and seeing the downtown skyline. We decided to embrace it. The movie was warm when the world seemed very bleak, and it was a love story. It was the right time to frame New York and the right way to do it. It’s one of the many pleasures of my career.

Between You’ve Got Mail, 13 Going on 30 and Elf, you’ve really got some of the most beloved New York-set movies of the last quarter century to your name.

I’ve gotten really lucky. The funny thing is there are so many more that I turned down over time because I wasn’t available, like The Dark Knight, which I couldn’t do; I always kicked myself. But I’ve gotten really lucky. During the hard times, it’s good to reflect on your career if you have those things. Now I look at them in a romantic way, but they were really hard. Elf was a really, really hard movie to make. We shot in New York during Christmas time, and we were a big movie, so shooting a movie during the holidays with that kind of footprint was really difficult. You’ve Got Mail was hard for many reasons. But what made that wonderful was Nora Ephron. Nora really loved New York, so I feel like we bonded that way.

She’s a New York legend.

Yeah, and we had that affinity for New York because I’m a New Yorker through and through, and I love New York. When you get people like that into that crucible in that van, you can riff with them about ideas because they know them. In Serendipity, I wanted to show glimmers of new New York, which at the time was the planetarium and had this warm, orange glow. This fit in with what I talked to the designer about, keeping that warm granite movie, like in the Waldorf Astoria, and we kept looking for that. Those are the things that get you through it.

I’m struck by the fact you actually shot Elf in New York City during Christmastime.

Elf was just funny. I kept fighting for Park Avenue, nobody wanted to move over there, and we’re doing the montage where Will Ferrell’s elf is skipping around town and he runs into Santa on the street—that actually was a real person that looked like Santa walking down the street. But it was on Park Avenue where I’d been driving everybody to go to because I just think there’s such a romance about it.