Quote - over here, almost all babies used are twins or triplets (because of the limited number of hours you can shoot with one).

The Hayes Commission set some standards back in the 30s that lasted until the late 60s, with (I think) 14 main rules of things you couldn;t' show, like 2 people in one bed (which is where all those twin bed scenes came from..;)

Of course, aside from stop motion monsters, and glycerined lenses, they couldn't do all that much postwork back then.

 

I have a set of identical twin nieces who appeared as toddlers in a Hollywood movie.  The movie's director came to their hometown, looked in a local directory for twins -- spotted a listing of two girls of the right age, and then gave my sister and her husband a call.  My nieces portrayed the (solo) female lead as a little girl - splitting the duties between them for various takes.

So, yes -- that's how it's done with young children in movies & TV in the States.

I don't know how much they were paid.  Probably not a lot.  Standard scale for extras, maybe.  Whatever that is.

Heh.......I also once worked in the offices of the Army Corps of Engineers in a southern city.  One day, an announcement was made that a movie group which was doing location shots in town was looking for random people to serve as extras.  One secretary in particular nearly knocked people over in her haste to run out of the office door and down the 2-3 blocks to the casting area.  snort  Still makes me laugh thinking about it even today.  IIRC, it was a fairly large Hollywood production.

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