Demand grows for skilled child actors
17:00 28/03/2009

The lack of institutional support and training for children makes it difficult for movie makers to find child actors for their projects, and for children to continue acting, say industry insiders.      

The fact that there are no professional child actors means casting staff have to pick randomly from any available sources: children’s cultural houses, crew members’ children or even on the spot, when filming in remote regions.

Then the children have to learn and hone their skills on the job, under the guidance of professional adult actors and directors.

"We need a long-term training scheme that can cater to industry requirements," says Huynh Thanh Dieu, deputy director of Vietnamese Family Studio.

On the other hand, parents of children who have made successful debuts and are later wooed by makers of TV commericals choose to ignore filmmaking because the renumeration is much higher.

"We cannot match payments of US$1,000-1,500 a day for filming commercials," says Dieu, "but real movies are better for career development."

Dieu, whose studio produced the 200-episode telenovela Gia Dinh Phep Thuat (A Family of Magicians) being aired on HCM City’s channel HTV7, says she has failed to keep the kids together for other projects.

"I can have the scripts writen to allow for further appearances, but the problem is I must find channels ready to show the series," says Dieu.

"Otherwise I have to stall the projects," Dieu adds. She blames haphazard management and lack of vision for wasting the talents of many child actors.

VietNamNet/VNS

Source : vietnamnet.vn