W. C. Fields has been attributed to having said "Never work with children or animals" as one of the secrets to success in filmmaking. On Monday, Ian and I ignored this bit of wisdom and attempted to make a quick and silly video with Henry and Clara.
Part of the problem with working with kids is when they still don't know how to read. I would read the line for Henry to repeat, but sometimes he'd forget the last word, so we'd have to start all over again. Or he'd say the line right, but not be looking in the right direction. Or he'd say the line right, but not with the right emphasis or emotion. Or the cat would walk in front of him, distracting him. My point is that being five, it was hard for him to understand why he had to keep saying the same thing over and over again and he started getting frustrated and wanted to stop when we nearly had all the shots we needed. We were able to convince him to stick with it until the end, but it took a lot of cajoling.
Finally, we were ready to move on and shoot Clara's scenes when Ian realized that he never turned on the microphone. We had to shoot everything again! He told Henry, who just collapsed into a pile of frustration and disappointment. After weighing the options, Ian decided to call it a day and break the set. Henry was happy to get out of his costume, but Clara was so disappointed that she started bawling. Even after she stopped crying, she just would not cheer up. I even picked her up and swung her around, which usually gets a big squeal of laughter out of her, but this time I got nothing. The only thing that got her out of her funk was teaching her how to do a basic clapping game. The act of learning and playing a game together put a smile on her face and she was fine for the rest of the evening.
Was it a mistake to try to make a movie with the kids? No, but it was a real test of patience for everyone involved. I can imagine that if we weren't related to the kids, it would be easy to swear off working with children ever again.
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