Little House on the Prairie production designer…
They confirmed their true pioneer spirit.
The crew behind the Netflix reboot of “Little House on the Prairie” recreated every facet of that Nineteenth-century world from scratch — including a pair of 96,000-pound log cabins.
It took over 200 members in the artwork division to painstakingly create the props, and 32 in the costume division to make the clothes.
“When you have a show with a fan base like this … it’s sort of a razor-thin line to walk. You want to honor the things that the fans are expecting … but also you’re doing a new take on it,” “Little House on the Prairie’s” production designer, Jonah Markowitz, told The Post. ERIC ZACHANOWICH/NETFLIX
“They’re hand-sewing every buttonhole. They’re hand-nailing in the nails on the bottom of every shoe,” said production designer Jonah Markowitz.
“Caroline rips a dress in the first episode in the wagon crossing, that might become an outfit that she makes on a doll later that Laura’s holding, by the end of the season that might be patched together as a dish towel.”
Markowitz, who spoke to The Post from the show’s set in Winnipeg while filming Season 2, said this production was in contrast to most period items set in the 1800s, because they filmed on a high-grassed prairie instead of a backlot.
“Usually when you do a Western or something of this genre at this scale, you go to a backlot and you sort of change some things or add some buildings … there is no backlot here,” he said.
The greatest problem for the production division was building the city of Independence, which is in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s third e book, but not in the unique collection. Netflix
For the reimagined “Little House” — which premiered on Netflix on July 9 — the most difficult half was designing the city of Independence, Kan., and building it “from the ground up,” Markowitz recalled.
“We started with a field full of snow that I came to on my first scout here . . . They said, ‘What do you think about putting the town here? And I was like, ‘I don’t know what’s under this snow.’”
Two 96,000-pound log cabins had been constructed for the reboot. ERIC ZACHANOWICH/NETFLIX
The unique TV collection and the reboot are based on the beloved books Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her childhood in the 1800s, so when they constructed the two log cabins, one in a discipline and one on their soundstage, they adopted the steps she described in her novels.
“She writes about how her father made the cabin and there were no nails, it was all notched logs, the doors had no hinges, it was wooden pegs, and we did that,” he said.
Another problem was that the precise building of the cabin was featured in an episode.
Season 1 of the collection was filmed from June until September in Winnipeg, Canada. ERIC ZACHANOWICH/NETFLIX
“So then we had to have all these meetings about how are we going to do these stages of the cabins as we go through the episode,” Markowitz said.
“The assistant directors who are in charge of the schedule come in and they say, ‘We want to have the three logs down and then we’re going to go away for a couple minutes and then have six logs up,’ and you have to tell them, ‘We have to get a road in here with a crane to put those in.’”
“We have a lot of things that they always say are like the hardest things to work with — which are animals, kids, and water,” Markowitz said. ERIC ZACHANOWICH/NETFLIX
Even though there are a lot of shifting elements on set, Markowitz said there fortunately haven’t been any major mishaps.
“We have a lot of things that they always say are like the hardest things to work with — which are animals, kids, and water. And we do it all the time, all three of them,” he said.
The animals — horses, canine and cats — carry a calming presence to the set.
“To go and get to walk over to a horse and have it nuzzle against you when you’re stressed out and working … I think it just adds a real levity and playfulness to the set that’s really beautiful,” he said.
The horses, canine and cats on set present a calming presence, Markowitz said. ERIC ZACHANOWICH/NETFLIX
In Season 2, the Ingalls relocate to Walnut Grove, Minn., so that they had to construct all new units again.
“Everything was new for us, 100%. It was starting completely clean again,” he said.
“It’s actually kind of fun to come back … and build a whole new world, but for the characters you’ve already come to know.”
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