What a Cry Baby!

There is something that sort of bothers me, that I happened to notice a lot lately because of the accident of my viewing habits and it happens more in TV episodes that movies but the problem is something that happens in both.

For some reason a director wishes to create an emotion in the audience that requires a baby, a small toddler, to cry, for whatever reason. The child is too young to act or even understand what is happening that filming is going on so how does the director get the baby to cry on cue?

Do they pinch the child or what? Does anybody have any knowledge or thoughts about this - its a small technical point that arouses my curiosity in that it always seems to break my concentration on the flow of the story if only for a brief moment .

Somebody sing me a lullaby. Sniff, Sniff.

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You have to think like a hero merely to behave like a decent human being.

I'm sure it varies, but I'm guessing they don't cry on cue--they just don't use the takes where they fail to cry.

Yeah, I think these days it's all about waiting. They'll lock a camera off and leave it on record... babies cry at some point. They may even hire people with babies that constantly cry.


I've heard in the old days, they would actually pinch the baby to make it squeal but these days that wouldn't be allowed.

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In shows like Friends, they would shoot so you couldn't see the kid's face and use a recording of a baby crying. I noticed they did this with Ben once and it was really off. They used a newborn cry and Ben was about nine or ten months and too old to still have that cry.

They also usually use twins or triplets. One of those suckers is probably crying at the moment they need it to.

For a simple shot I understand what your saying, but I seen this occur in more complicated scenes. A longer take with no cuts - action maybe going on and then in the middle of the scene the baby begins to cry, is picked up, passed to another actor who begins to pat the baby on that back and comforts the baby and the crying stops and the scene continues all without a break.

It's probably easier to accomplish with digital cameras but with film it could get to be an expensive proposition.

In "the kid" with charlie chaplin they were having problems getting the kid to cry.

Chaplin asked the dad if he could do something about it. Dad and mild walked off set, when they came back kid was bawling his eyes out. Up to you to guess what really happened to the kid but i'm sure it wasn't pleasant

Yeah, I know they do things more realistically a lot of times. On sitcoms they use the cheap easy way a lot.

For newborns sometimes they don't use real babies, but use robot babies (I guess you would call them). Other than that, I guess you use the grumpy twin when you need a crier.

I've read lots of actors hate to work with babies and small children because it takes so long to get the shot. I'm sure there is a lot of waiting and hoping.

They do use animatronic babies, but they more work the scenes around the baby like waiting for it to cry then do the scene. They also work the scenes and use camera angles to kid us into thinking we're seeing upset babies in dramatic scenes.

On an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun that I watched, they had a baby. According to the cast interview on the DVD, the baby was impossible to work with and they couldn't get any filming done. So they went with a toddler, which did work.

Notice in this short and funny scene, where the baby is at.

I remember that episode. It was really funny.

My friend used to watch this soap opera (yes it was really a friend). I remember one scene when you could see an actor getting visibly frustrated when the baby wouldn't be quiet and she had to practically yell her lines.

Now I wonder why they just didn't take the baby out of the scene?

It's my understanding they they typically give it to its mother until its nice and calm, then rudely take it away and start filming. Naturally, the kid cries for its mother.

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