Inside the abandoned Staten Island prison that has emerged as a prime location for movies and TV shows, including Netflix's 'Daredevil' and 'Orange Is the New Black'

The former Arthur Kill Correctional Facility on Staten Island hasn't held prisoners in seven years, but on Wednesday morning, there was plenty of law enforcement there.

During my tour of the campus, a group of men dressed in SWAT gear barreled into what used to be a waiting room for guests, complete with a children's play area with Disney characters painted on the wall. And throughout the facility, people who appeared to be police officers were walking around minding their own business.

But they were all actors.

What used to be a prison is now a growing hub for film and TV productions and is owned by full-service, Brooklyn-based production company Broadway Stages, which bought the 67-acre property in 2017 for $7 million and a $20 million investment to be completed in five years, according to Broadway Stages spokespeople Warren Cohn and Samara Schaum.

The prison, which opened in 1976 and closed in 2011, has become a hot spot for popular movies like this year's Sandra Bullock-starring "Ocean's 8" and TV shows like Netflix's "Daredevil" and "Orange is the New Black."

NBC's "The Black List" was filming on Wednesday when I got a look at the place. There was even a helicopter parked on the grounds for what must have been a painstaking shoot (but no permit is required since it's private property now).

The fourth episode from "Daredevil" season 3, named "Blindsided," has made headlines recently for its nearly 11-minute one-take tracking shot inside a prison facility during a riot. The scene finds Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), the man known as the costumed-vigilante Daredevil, fighting his way through a group of prisoners to learn the name of a man a bad guy Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) paid to shank him.

It was all filmed at Arthur Kill. In an interview with Vulture, showrunner Erik Oleson detailed how the scene came to be, and that it was director Alex Garcia Lopez's idea to do the "oner" after he read the script. But Oleson didn't initially grasp the extent of Lopez's vision, and didn't foresee it being an over-10-minute take, which made executives skeptical.

"I had to call all the financial people and say, 'Guess what? We're gonna stop filming for a day but have the entire crew there to rehearse,'" Oleson said. "From television production, that's definitely caused some agita."

According to Oleson, the take is actually one shot, with no CGI tricks. Cox did 80% of the scene himself, but a stunt double, Chris Brewster, was strategically swapped in at opportune moments, called a "Texas switch."

Lopez and the crew captured the scene, which begins in an infirmary room at the prison and ends with Murdock finally escaping and getting in to a taxi, on the third uninterrupted take.

Since Arthur Kill has been the shooting location for various productions, there are plenty of props around. But a lot of what's left from the former prison is still there, including writing carved in to walls that is authentic.

As more and more productions leave New York for lower-cost locations, such as Georgia, Broadway Stages hopes Arthur Kill will be a one-stop-shop for multiple shoots at once that could provide at least 1,500 jobs daily. Cohn or Schaum didn't divulge what Broadway Stages charges for a production to use the grounds, but film students, such as from New York University, can film there for free.

Broadway Stages' five-year $20 million investment includes editing facilities, renovations to the pool for underwater filming, and five sound stages (there's currently one).

Below is a closer look at the prison: