How to Get Baby Actors to Pee on Cue

Who doesn’t love babies? But having them on your set can be challenging. There are very specific working rules that have to be followed, and then there’s that moment when you need your young actor to deliver the goods. What if they’re teething? Crying? Pooping? Or just having a bad day?

But we digress. Let’s take a look at how to create intimacy, story, and casting magic on any video set.

And… action!

We just wrapped post-production on a spot for Jackson Memorial Hospital. We used a plethora of creative problem-solving methods to make the movie magic happen.

At Kestum Bilt, we’re transparent internally and always with our clients. We believe in trust. So we let our clients know what production costs entail so that there are never any budget surprises.

Video miracles, made daily

For our Memorial Hospital shoot, we paid particular attention to our casting. We needed to ensure we had enough “backup” babies on shoot day.

Because of the necessary constraints of shooting in a hospital, we trimmed down the production crew to the absolute minimum needed for a shoot of this complexity:

• 1 Gaffer
• 1 Props person
• 1 Grip
• 1 Wardrobe/Make-up person
• Director of Photography
• Assistant Camera
• Director

By keeping the crew small and nimble, having lots of casting backup babies, and finding a way to get our babies to pee on cue (a little bit of art direction mixed with some VFX), we were able to focus on what was important: intimacy, story, and emotion. Effectively telling the Jackson Memorial Hospital story.

We also shot in one location at the hospital. That allowed for fast set-up, shooting efficiency, bringing each set to us, and moving from one shot to the next.

Oh yeah: make sure you have plenty of baby “dolls” on hand. Babies have a very limited time on set, so dolls help you light and block without disturbing your precious baby stars.

The result was a fun, heart-warming spot.