scene where a baby drowns :(

moonshieldmedia

moonshieldmedia

I wrote a scene in which a mother is giving her newborn baby a bath. She lets go of the baby and it dips below the water and drowns. Awful, I know...

Does anyone have a decent suggestion for how to shoot this? It's for a feature film and it's an absolutely necessary scene.

I've been watching baby bath videos on youtube and they never dip the baby all the way under water (for good reason) but I'm fairly certain it has been done in films in the past. It doesn't have to be super graphic, just a very gentle and slow letting go of the baby.

Then of course I'll have the task of finding a mother who will actually let a film crew do this, which I'd imagine would be pretty expensive.
 
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I believe there's a similar scene in "A Beautiful Mind", which Ron Howard discusses on the DVD. I think they had the baby in the bath and added the water in post or something. Might be helpful.
 
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moonshieldmedia said:
thanks for the tip.

just found the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keQtOFycgPs

but it looks like the baby's face never actually goes under. powerful scene though
Click to expand...

Remember that is all that matters. It's quite possible to develop the scene without the baby's head going under water, but leaves the impression that it happened.

There's a shot in Sherlock Holmes that I remade where a bird lands on the prison window. We initially thought we needed to find a shot of a bird landing but closer analysis of the scene (close meaning frame by frame) revealed that you never saw the bird land, it was the sound effects prior that set up the scene
 
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