Beautiful seven-month-old baby twins, Noah and Oliver make their network television debut this Sunday on BBC One, playing (between them) the character of Baby Noah Robertson in our drama series, The Cry.
The story of The Cry revolves around a couple travelling with their new baby to Australia so we always knew we would need to find a baby of around three months to play the role of Noah.
Working with children of that age meant sourcing twins in order to follow the protocols of filming with babies (which is a maximum 30 minutes of continuous performance or rehearsal on set, and a maximum of two hours in total on set over a five hour period). To ensure careful observance of these sensible parameters, and provide a natural backup if one baby was unable to attend filming, we set about finding Scotland’s twin baby stars!
After a casting call was issued by a local agency that represents child performers, several families came forward and the producer met with a variety of parents and babies. Noah and twin brother Oliver, from Kilmarnock near Glasgow, were discovered when parents Laura and Martin responded to a further casting call, and our director Glendyn Ivin and producer Brian Kaczynski met with the family.
Laura and Martin were carefully taken through all steps of the filming process and briefed on the story of The Cry, supplied with a synopsis of the series, scripts for all scenes involving the babies and the child performance regulations. After careful consideration, Laura was thrilled to come on board.
As filming commenced, the babies, mother and chaperone were given time to settle into the environment on set and meet the actors and director ahead of their starring roles. A backup set of twins also came on board so that if any issues such as sickness with the babies or the parents occurred, filming could continue with the backup twins. In the end, only Noah and Oliver came on set and the reserve twins were not needed.
Throughout the filming mum Laura and their chaperone accompanied the babies at all times, just off camera with the director and camera crew.
Filming speed and efficiency increased exponentially when the babies came on set, as rehearsals would be conducted with a stand-in doll allowing the real baby to brought on set just before “action” and immediately taken off set after “cut”. Watching the speed with which the crew moved when the babies appeared, I often wondered if we should have babies on set more often!
During filming, mum Laura had full and final say over the babies at all times – if ever Laura felt that Noah or Oliver were not ready, we would switch to another actor and either wrap the babies or rest them until Laura felt comfortable.
A key factor of Baby Noah’s ‘performance’ is the fictional plane journey to Melbourne and his inability (like many small babies) to stop crying, a production challenge which was crucial to the story. Through the use of editing and continuity film making (the technique used to film television drama whereby shots taken at different times are edited together to create the illusion of continuous time) we managed to successfully create a very tense selection of scenes with Jenna and the baby. By editing in shots and the use of fake crying sound cues, the impression of continuous crying was created. We managed to successfully dramatise what looks like a stressful long-haul flight to the other side of the world with a small baby, but which was in fact a carefully controlled period of filming on a set in an aircraft hangar in Kent!
When the time came to wrap the babies from the shoot, we all felt a bit sad on set. Having Noah and Oliver around was so lovely and calming. Everyone looked forward to seeing the babies and Jenna said her favourite scenes to shoot of the whole series were with the babies.
Whilst the old adage may be ‘never work with children and animals’ for us on The Cry it was an easy and joyful affair working with Noah and Oliver. We can’t wait for the boys to show off their acting chops, and we’re very grateful to their parents for trusting us with their baby sons’ screen debut!
Read more about The Cry, including interviews with the cast in the full media pack.
