LMGI COMPASS
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Winter 2020
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Opposite page: Director/Writer Greta Gerwig (standing, right)
on the set at the School of Philosophy, next to Orchard House in
Concord, MA; a full view of Amy's school house set.
think if you go into the Alcott house in Concord, a lot of things
aren't there but are in the story. Louisa made up a lot of things
about where she lived. They did live for a number of years at
Fruitlands before they moved to Orchard House. Fruitlands
is where we shot Meg March's house after she got married."
HISTORICAL ACCURACY
Throughout pre-production, the location team interacted with
various historical groups. "They care for and preserve historical
buildings," Dresser says. "We were able to partner with them and
use some of their properties. They fit perfectly into our story.
They don't usually allow filming in these buildings, so it took a
lot of planning, time and care. These are true historic gems that
we were fortunate enough to have access to."
One of them was the Crane Estate, a 21-acre seaside property
in Ipswich. "We shot a lot of our European sequences here, in-
cluding the beach scene at Crane Beach," Dresser says. "We were
always planning to use that beach," Merims adds. "It's a public
beach. When we scouted it, Greta fell in love with shooting there.
It was late fall but still warm enough. The actors didn't have to
go in the water.
"The most challenging thing for all of us was trying to help
Greta depict two years—1861-62 and 1867-68. We were on loca-
tion from the end of October to mid-December, and we were try-
ing to get four full seasons in three months."
FAVORITE LOCATIONS
Pascal's favorite location? "Probably the March house," she says.
"Orchard House was just down the road. We were really inspired
by the house itself, which production designer Jess Gonchor re-
built. It's such a little jewel box."
Merims' favorite location? "It was the side of a hill overlook-
ing a valley," he says. "It's the scene where Jo rejects Laurie's
proposal. It was a cow pasture owned by a farm, overlooking a
valley, and it was absolutely gorgeous. There was really no need
to do anything. It might have been the 1860s."
Gonchor's favorite location? "The publisher's office at the be-
ginning and end of the movie," he says. "We built it in Boston,
in an old Steinway factory. I loved that. We shot the European
scenes in downtown Boston, Boston Common (America's oldest
park, founded in 1634) and in a European-style mansion out to-
ward Gloucester."
Oliver's favorite location? "We were filming at the historic Ly-
man Estate in the dense city of Waltham, and they wanted to film
the Hummel House in the middle of the woods where the March
sisters' poor neighbors lived. We needed to find it within a mile
