Do the kids get to see the movie or what?
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I guess that would be up to their parents. I read that Kiernan Shipka wasn’t allowed to watch Mad Men when she was on it until the later seasons.
I remember for Aliens they had a child psychologist check in with the actress that played Newt once a week to make sure she was okay. Each time she was like “I’m fine and having a blast”.
Being on set is such a different vibe than the tension that a complete film can create. It’s almost incomparable.
These days, anything intended to be terrifying will be using special effects, with placeholders on set, such as a person in a black suit covered with ping-pong balls.
Each movie scene gets set up carefully, and the actor gets told in advance of what will happen. Even for something like “*You’re going to walk upstairs, hear a strange noise, and run back down in terror*”: a crew of people are watching you to make sure you’re okay, a guy follows you with a silly microphone boom, and the scary noise will only be added after filming.
Context is a big part of determining what’s scary or not. Some kids may still get scared, so the people working with them will use humor to defuse the situation. Consider how quickly the mood changes when you see Pennywise the Clown become clumsy and stub his toe.
But mostly still, [special effects](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9xUl_Xmhtg) will limit what the actors see and hear firsthand.
Children are amazingly resilient and the ones who are actually traumatized by something fictional are rare. Child actors tend to have to be more mature than their nonacting counterparts. Also, making a movie is very different than watching one. A child may be immersed in the scene but have no idea how that pertains to the bigger picture. Consider that the scariest parts of many movies is the anticipation. They don’t have to deal with that.
What is shown as a final product is absolutely not what it looks like on set. A film has to be edited, sound effects and special effects added, cut and pasted together to form a cohesive narrative.
The set has dozens of people around, managing the lights, cameras and the set. What looks like a dark set is not going to very dark to the actors on set. There will be no scary music or even sounds while filming – these are all added after filming.
In most cases, a 5 minute “scary scene” is made out of possibly dozens of short takes spliced together. The actors are coached on where they need to move and how to react for each cut. Then they break and reset the scene for the next take. What is 5 minutes in the film could take hours or days of scene by scene cuts and takes. Then, of course, there will be multiple takes perhaps different angles etc.
I had this same thought when I saw the music video for “Kids” by MGMT. But I think that kid was legit terrified and I can’t believe a parent allowed that
Sometimes they don’t, and the trauma you see on screen is real. Here’s Wil Wheaton talking about his experience: [https://wilwheaton.net/2022/08/when-you-watch-the-curse-you-are-watching-two-children-who-were-abused-and-exploited-daily-during-production-no-adults-protected-us/](https://wilwheaton.net/2022/08/when-you-watch-the-curse-you-are-watching-two-children-who-were-abused-and-exploited-daily-during-production-no-adults-protected-us/)
Even the teen cast of *Salo, 120 Days of Sodom* had a great time filming, not necessarily understanding the grim nature of the movie they were making.
I didn’t think the newer IT movies were particularly scary, but the actor that played Pennywise was a nice fella when not acting, making sure the kids were OK after each scene.
I think that does a lot too.
in Doctor Sleep, Jacob Tremblay’s performance of “baseball boy” was so good that his costars were freaked out and kinda traumatized by that scene. But he was having a blast
I believe they put in some behind the scenes for that part of the film because it is truly an upsetting watch.
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