Kids in Film

Thursday, March 11, 2010

It always amazes me that some of the largest films will try to cut costs when it comes to kids' education when out of school to work on a film. They can afford the stars but not the teacher. The animals always have a welfare worker on the set, whether it's a dog, a horse, chickens, birds or pigs. But there will be no one there for the welfare of kids.

Glad to have all the films in Georgia but when do kids--babies, teenagers, 5th graders, extras, principals get the same care as the dog. One lawsuit or accident would more than pay for the child's teacher on a set.

I have seen with my own eyes children working 14 hours a day. I have seen children get minimal schooling if any. Kudos to the producers who care about the kids. To the child labor department who has not set foot on a set on behalf of children in 25 years, I ask are horses worth more than kids? To Sag, why isn't there anyone required to be there any time any child (extra, principal, baby, teenager) sets foot on a set. There are kids working as extras who go from film to film and often working long hours with less than basic education. Even principals have lagged behind in their education and are often on a film set much longer than 9 1/2 hours.

Surely our kids are worth the salary of one teacher. I personally drive a 1991 Acura, and I have yet to meet a teacher who is living in Hollywood style mansions. Writer friends and you know who you are, teacher friends, film friends, parents of kids, students I have loved and taught, Mothers of these students who know I speak the truth, please put a stop to animal rights except for kids. Kids are not props or set decoration, and some of you know that; and I thank you for helping to provide a safe and healthy educational environment for the kids in film.

Children

A mother is a mother because she has children. I am a mother because I have children. I have two sons which makes me a mother of sons. They are both grown now, and yet the anticipation of my older son coming home reminds me of various incidents from his entire life. Not that it's any kind of obsessive reflection; it's more a flash, almost like a subliminal flash in seconds. It reminds me of something I saw on PBS today of these computers you carry around in your glasses or backpack. This is a research project of folks at MIT. You meet a person, and his photo and name flash on a tiny screen inside your glasses. Then when you meet him again, his name will flash on the screen, barely noticeable to the eye. It's probably much less than a second, yet it's enough for the brain to remember the name of the person with this fleeting reminder.

It was a fascinating program this morning, "Allen Alda in Scientifi American Frontiers" on PBS, August 1. All I discovered watching this program is my mind is like a computer. I say "David's coming home," and it triggers memories of details I rarely think about. For example, how often do I think about him riding his big wheel all around the big wraparound porch of the old antebellum home we rented on Napier Avenues in Macon, Georgia. For him, it was his own private freeway, and he loved it. I might remember this occasion with a photo or conversation. I rarely think of it; but all I have to do is open up my mind, and I am bombarded with multiple images like this. It's as though I have an entire novel of David riding his big wheel to view on a state-of-the-arts Kindle, but it's compressed like a computer chip or a zip drive.

So much for my son coming home! I'll see him on Monday, and that will be a good reminder he is grown up now. When he and his brother were young, it seemed as though they'd be young forever. I couldn't even conceive of them as adults someday. Now it's hard for me to think of them as anything other than adults except in those brief flashbacks when every memory is present like I'm wearing a computer in my glasses.