Steven Spielberg forbid Greta Gerwig from using digital technology to shoot her new period piece, Little Women.
The actress-turned-director reached out to the movie mogul for advice on how to film scenes using candlelight after he did such a good job of nailing similar sequences in Lincoln, and he opened up his film archive for her.
“He opened up every piece of research he had done (for Lincoln), how he’d decided to light things, given that it was all candlelight, how he decided to shoot interiors,” Greta tells The Hollywood Reporter.
“And he opened the camera he shot Jurassic Park with and he had me smell celluloid, because he said, ‘You have to shoot on film. It smells different. You cannot shoot a story that takes place in 1861 digitally. I won’t let you do it!’
“And so I actually did end up shooting on film. And when (Sony Pictures chairman) Tom Rothman asked me why, I said, ‘Steven Spielberg had me smell a camera!'”
