How do you intentionally make a young child actor (toddler, infant) cry and scream without it being considered some sort of child abuse?

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I’m not necessarily saying I believe it is or isn’t, but it seems that if you were to repeatedly and intentionally elicit that reaction, outside the context of filming, for no other reason that personal entertainment, then it might at least come close to being child abuse, depending on how you go about it (hence the question).

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5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There was an artist who took photos of children, right after taking away the lollipops that she had given to the kids. I always figured it was something similar for TV and movies.

https://www.boredpanda.com/photographer-gives-lollipop-then-takes-it-away

Anonymous 0 Comments

My understanding (and I may be wrong) is that a parent takes a toy or food treat away and stands just off camera with it. Or sometimes just handing the child over to an actor is enough to provoke crying. As others have noted, it’s really easy to get a tired child to cry, too. There are some sort of child welfare people on set to see that circumstances don’t veer into ‘abuse’.

That being said, I couldn’t bear to make my child cry on purpose for any amount of money. But that’s just me.

Anonymous 0 Comments

For young children, they often aren’t actually crying for the scene. You might see one shot of an unhappy face, but then for most of the scene they would be turned away from the camera. The sound of them crying is added in like any other sound effect. Otherwise it would be pretty difficult to catch the other actors’ dialogue over the screaming child!

The unhappy face shot would be fairly easy for young children as well – crying is how they communicate, so just wait for baby to get hungry, cry, quick camera roll then feed him/her.

Anonymous 0 Comments

They cry and scream all the time on their own. Just wait for it and put it together in the cutting room.

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is better in r/answers.