I’m watching Boardwalk Empire and there is a scene that takes place where one of the main characters is arguing with his wife and there are two small children in the dining room supposedly waiting for their breakfast.
The boy child actor looks no more than 12 to 18 months old and he is sitting in a high chair screaming his head off. This is not acting, this is a very upset child that is apparently supposed to be crying during the entire scene. The dialog that the adult actors are saying ties into his cries. You see his face, you hear his cries, so you know it’s real and not cut together in editing.
My question is this; how do they make a very young child cry on camera and how is that ethical? They wouldn’t allow you to let an animal suffer on camera, how can they let a small child who has no idea what is happening cry for a 2 minute take, assuming they just did it once? Do they just wait for the kid to start crying and then set up the scene on the fly?
If a baby or small child starts to fuss during a scene where they aren’t supposed to they can cut and wait for someone to sooth the child, but how do they get a perfectly happy child or baby to start crying because they need him to? I’m talking here about babies and children that are too small to know when and where they should be crying…
I remember a few years ago some photographer did a series of shots of crying toddlers. There was some controversy because to get the kids to cry s/he would give them a sucker or other candy, then snatch it away. The kids would get upset and cry briefly, but generally calm down after a minute or two (and some soothing from a parent).
Most people would agree it’s not ethical to deliberately make a child cry, but it can be done without physical harm or any effects lasting more than a minute.
Yeah, I can’t imagine they do anything more than give them something fun and take it away. Additionally, there’s that great tumblr someone linked to: Reasons My Son is Crying. Kids will cry at the drop of a hat and a parent is always off camera with a blanket or whatever will soothe the kid.
Was the crying significant to the scene in any way? Perhaps the kid just started crying and due to lack of comforting while the scene was being shot, he just went on?
In my limited experience, that’s pretty much how it goes shooting with little children. You can make an elaborate plan involving the taking away of favourite toys of a kid who will then reliably cry, and you will see that on that day, snatching of said toy induces endless giggling.
So you just plop a baby in a scene and see what happens. Acting is reacting, and the baby will react, so most things that happen will likely be ok. Remember in Breaking Bad the baby said: “Mama” at just the right moment, because her mum was standing behind her? Would have been impossible to plan, of course. I didn’t see the scene in question, but perhaps the kid was crying because of the shouting in the scene. Perfect (re)acting, if so.
Since the scene involves scripted adults who are talking about the crying child… and the child is in fact crying… they either added those lines coincidentally or they made the child cry for the take.
I wasn’t there so I have no idea how it was done, but it sounds like it’s common to make children cry on camera and nobody considers this cruel in any way. I guess that answers my question.
Bringing up a very old topic, I know, but I definitely consider it cruel and have stopped watching shows precisely because of this issue … including Boardwalk Empire because of this very scene (which is how I found this post, googling about that) and ER, for instance.
I’m sure there are other viable ways to replicate children crying (already recorded audio added later to scene with child facing away from camera, etc.) without having to traumatize child “actors” this way. As a parent, I would never have consented to let my daughter be used this way for “entertainment” purposes when she was little.