No drama as ‘Little Women’ filming begins

Actors and crews were in town last Friday for the first “Little Women” shoot on the Common, as a small crowd watched respectfully from alongside Ayer Road, and passenger vehicles and school buses moved with little disruption through the center of town.

The fire station, Council on Aging, the General Store, and other town center businesses closed as planned, while the schools and Town Hall kept to their normal schedules. Cars attempting to enter the town center via Still River Road were diverted to Elm Street, but all other roads remained open, subject to occasional delays as horses and carriages were moved to and from Hildreth Elementary School.

Preparations for the shoot began at 6:30 a.m. By 2 p.m. the day was done. An orange Bobcat scooped up dirt that had been spread across the General Store parking lot and a portion of Still River Road; horses were returned to their trailers parked at the elementary school for a late lunch; and the crew packed up, headed to Concord for an afternoon shoot. The number of spectators never exceeded five dozen or so, including a TV reporter from Channel 3 Worcester. After some initial confusion, the spectators and reporter were told they could snap pictures from the Civil War monument side of Ayer Road.

Early-arriving witnesses told the Press they had spotted actresses Emma Watson and Laura Dern, but the scenes being filmed with them took place inside the faux town-center buildings next to the General Store, away from the public eye. The outside extras and action were staged to create the image of a bustling Concord street scene beyond the shop windows. Columbia location manager Tiffany Kinder told the Press there would be more outside action at the two remaining shoots on the Common.

A contingent of Harvard police officers was on duty throughout the shoot, with Chief Ed Denmark occupying the intersection of Still River and Ayer roads to slow cars and direct traffic. He told the Press that no roads had been blocked to through traffic, though signs warning of potential delays were installed at several points throughout town, and large trucks were detoured. He said everything had gone as planned, with no incidents or excessive delays.

For those who bundled up to watch the filming on a sunlit but chilly late October day, there wasn’t much action to see. One could see two horses and buggies waiting outside the 1820 A. Raymond grocery store. Men in top hats and waistcoats, women in period dress, and an occasional Union Army officer sauntered and conversed, pausing between takes. The barrels, hay bales, and wheelbarrow lent authentic detail to the storefront.

Disorienting for some

Some visitors found the changes in the center disorienting. Susan Hammond, coming from Cambridge to speak at Monday morning’s Garden Club meeting, arrived at the main intersection and saw the sign “Concord General Store” on the building in front of her. “I thought, ‘Wait a minute. Where has my GPS brought me?’” she later told a club member. But she soon recognized St. Theresa’s Church, where she had spoken to the same club last January, and her talk on raised-bed gardening took place on schedule.

And when safety inspector Jimmy Snowden arrived at the Congregational Church to check out the sprinkler system, he explained to Paul Green, who was waiting for him, that he hadn’t known what door to come in. “I saw a sign for the lawyer’s office,” he said, “but I didn’t know where the door to the church office was.”

After the sprinkler system passed inspection, Green stayed to meet a Charter technician who was coming to upgrade the church’s internet service. Eventually the phone rang. It was the Charter rep on the line. “Sorry,” he said, “but where’s the door? All I see is a lawyer’s office.”

On Wednesday, as the Press was being readied for the printer, plans for two more shoots were up in the air. A shoot planned for Friday, Nov. 2, had been canceled because, it was rumored, weather conditions were not forecast to be right for the production of the artificial snow needed that day. Several sources said that a Monday, Nov. 5, shoot would proceed as planned followed by a second shoot on Election Day, Nov. 6. As of noon Wednesday, neither Town Hall nor Columbia Pictures representatives had responded to requests for further information.

For late-breaking details see “Little Women Shoot Days in a Nutshell: Nov. 5 and Nov. 6” below as well as the town website. 

Marty Green and Carlene Phillips contributed to this article.