How to Film with Child Actors

As of today, it seems that we will have a child actress on board for our production of Poppie’s Café of Monsters, and despite all the ensuing paperwork that will come along with it, it seemed like a stroke of genius to say the least.

Since the auditions for our three vampire roles have been a little slow and we have not yet had the perfect actor for the lead vampire, Chloe came up with the idea of using a child actress for it – a girl who has worked on previous student film productions at our uni and smashed her roles every time. Sadly, due to reasons of confidentiality, I cannot give away her identity here, but those who know her will also know that she would have deserved it nonetheless.

This idea was taken from the book/film adaptation Interview with the Vampire, in which little Claudia, infested by the bubonic plague, is bitten by the vampire Louis and turned into a vampire herself. Because of that, her body never actually grew further than that of a child, having scarring implementations for the girl, who matured to a woman on the inside, but was never able to express her womanhood on the outside. Together with her two companions Louis and Lestat, on which she desperately relies due to her appearance of a child, she roams the earth, never completely free.

With this idea in mind, Chloe approached the mother of said child actress and asked whether she would be interested in the role. Both she and her daughter agreed, and this left us only with two vampire roles to fill.

Implication for My Work

With this setting, it was obvious that I – as the cinematographer of this project – would also need to learn how to interact with child actors in general. Since I have never previously worked with child actors – and I am neither a very competent person around children – I figured that I could do some research on it as well to improve in this regard.

Whilst the director is naturally the go-to address in this regard, as they have most of the interaction with the child actors, my job might require me as well due to me being the closest to the camera and requiring said child actors to interact with me (or at least with the camera) as well. For this, I delved into the deep ocean that is Youtubersity to find a couple of ideas and solutions to working with child actors.

My Research

My research online brought me a lot of insights onto the delicacy and carefulness that has to be applied in regard to child actors on set.

In the following, I have compiled 13(ish) tips and tricks that I have encountered during the course of my research and which helped me understand the importance of being able to care well for a child actor on set. These are:

1. Kids don’t need the subtext, they only need to know what to perform

2. Thus, you will need to physically play out their performance for them

3. (Which is why you would benefit from sportswear if their performance is very physical)

4. Build a relationship with them

5. With kids, rehearsals take place in form of physical exercises

6. Playfully experiment with facial expressions and grimaces

7. Break their performances down into smaller increments

8. Ensure extra breaks

9. Keep them entertained during downtimes to keep their energy up

10. If they are school children, organise around their school calendars

11. Reassurance is key – try to only give them feedback in a positive way

12. Always have something sweet on set to keep them entertained, and

13. KNOW YOUR LEGAL REQUIREMENTS AND PAPERWORK!

14. Have a legal guardian on set solely for them

15. Obey regulation around working hours

16. Do a proper risk assessment – children can get far more creative on set than adults!

My Individual Learning

It is true that we unlearn much as we grow older and become adults. Whilst acquiring and reading these tips, I realised that I’ve forgotten how I have been as a kid and how the world has worked for me back then.

What I am now personally taking away from this is the importance of playfulness and building a true relationship with them. Whilst this approach will require that little extra time, it is vital in order to make the entire endeavour work. Children do have very fine senses of realness and fakeness and their attitude towards you will be dependent on their assessment of your relationship to them. If your engagement to them feels fake, they won’t invest much into their engagement to you either. Which, in turn, will make the quality of the film production suffer.

I furthermore forgot how physical and palpable a child’s understanding of the world is and how dependent their energy levels are on being entertained. Whilst adults – especially introverted ones like me – might crave mental downtimes, children are usually kept engaged through entertainment.

Finally, a very practical aspect that I would have forgotten to reconsider is scheduling around school days and school calendars. I guess I’ve been out of school long enough to forget that this was different from the flexibility people enjoy in higher education. This will also be a good reminder for Chloe, our producer on set.

Disclaimer

For those of my avid readers who know what child actress I’ve been referring to, they could very rightly argue that she was technically not that much of a child anymore regarding her age. Whilst that might be true mentally if you were thinking about smaller children, it still holds true legally, with her being under 18 years of age. However, although she might be a teenager already, my research still did help me in regard to dealing with her professionally.

Whilst I know how I would engage with a mature actor/adult (e.g. refer to experiences that require a certain amount of life experience in order to fully understand the required situation, action or emotion and being able to replicate them), it was a tremendous linchpin for me to understand that child actors will require you to physically walk them through the actions you need them to do instead of explaining the rationale behind it.

Explanations of the latter sort will naturally only serve you well if the person receiving it has already experienced it. Which is not the case with child actors and will not necessarily be the case for teenagers either. This might even become more difficult regarding the fact that a teenager’s development might be exceptionally far ahead in one area, whilst unexpectedly behind in another.

With that in mind, I feel that I would be able to stretch across all three realms, being able to fill the gap in understanding between both childhood and adulthood, depending on where she currently stands both emotionally and psychologically.

My Application

Since the planning of principal photography (and principal photography itself) is still underway, I sadly did not have a chance yet to apply my learning in regard to dealing with child actors, but I will follow up with an update on this as soon as possible.

For now, it’s enough to know that I would be prepared for a child on set.

References:

Butt, K. (2018) 10 Questions to Ask Yourself When Directing Child Actors [online]https://www.raindance.org/directing-child-actors/ [Accessed on 27 February 2019]

CineMovie (2009) Directing Child Actors [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYwSxrc7Efs&index=48&t=0s&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev [Accessed on 27 February 2019]

Derek Boyes (2014) Directing Children [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80uKFPU8r4Y&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=50&t=0s [Accessed on 27 February 2019]

Film Courage (2016) Directing a Child Actor by Anna Rose Holmer [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caQo4WuNHQY&index=49&t=0s&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev [Accessed on 27 February 2019]

Raindance (2018) Three Tips For Working With Child Actors | Filmmaking Tips [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dksNoGB3ghw&t=0s&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=47 [Accessed on 27 February 2019]

Rice, A. (2008) Interview with the Vampire London: Sphere

Jordan, N. (1994) Interview with the Vampire [DVD] USA: Geffen Pictures Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110148/mediaviewer/rm3677473792 [Accessed on 27 February 2019]