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So Lets jump right in! Your child just booked a role as a "Photo Double" for an upcoming show. I am sure you have a million questions and are wondering if this is something your child would even enjoy doing! Before we begin, let me introduce myself.

Hi! My name is Jenny! I am an actor / professional Photographer and busy mom to 2 child actors, Sawyer age 8 and Olivia age 9. We live and work in Los Angeles, California. We have been navigating and learning this industry for almost 4 years and its been a crazy ride.

Last Year my son Sawyer was cast as a photo double for Young Luke Skywalker in Disney Plus's new Series Obi-Wan Kenobie

I self submitted him for this role not knowing what it was, I just knew he would be a photo double but did not know the real name of the show or anything about it. Being somewhat new to self submitting and background work in general, I had absolutely no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. Honestly, I had no idea what a photo double even was! The day we finally went to his wardrobe fitting we put two and two together.

Lets break it down.... You are still wondering, What is a Photo Double?

A photo double must resemble an actor as closely as possible in height, build, hair color, and complexion. They often need to look like they could be the actor's twin. A photo double can be used when a principal actor is in a scene but is not the focus and is essentially functioning as a Background Actor.

So the long and short of it is, the photo double must resemble the principal actor enough that they can double as him in scenes and you think you are looking at the principal actor but in reality it is the photo double. This is used alot with child actors due to legalities and rules that protect them. They can not work on set as long of days as an adult actor so by using the photo double it lengthens the amount of scenes they can shoot that day of that character.

Now there is a similar role of a person who is a "Stand In" that is often confused with photo double. They are not the same thing.

Stand-Ins (often called the second team) take the place of a principal actor for rehearsals, camera blocking, and lighting setups. They do all their work behind the scenes and are never seen on camera. Stand-Ins get to work closely with the actors and production crew to help ensure everyone is on the same page for every shot.

A stand in gets used almost every scene because they fly in and are in position before the first team of principal actors come in.

Most times a photo double has to go to wardrobe for a fitting before they start filming. They have to wear the exact outfit that the principal actor wears for each scene.

Well this all sounds Great right? I mean your kid will be basically the principal actor minus the up close shots and they will film everyday right? Why else would you be coming in to set for 2 months.

Oh I am so sorry my friend but this is not the case. Most days you will get used very little and more likely not at all. oooch

So what will you be doing for those long 8 hour scheduled days with a 7 year old boy. This is when it gets tough....

Most Days you will be in some sort of holding room or small trailer from the time you get there till the time you leave. Just sitting waiting and hoping you get called to set. In our case our location was crazy hot! And our show was top secret so the less we knew the better. So we hung out in our trailer playing round after round of UNO.

The rare times when we did get to venture out this is what it looked like...

Ok, I know, Now I am making this opportunity sound awful...

That is not necessarily true, everybody is different, and while we are pretty chill and really don't complain when we get paid to sit around, there were days he was on the verge of tears. You can tell children everything that I am telling you here and they still won't understand it. My son would ask, why do they keep using that other boy? I can do that. Talk about heart breaking for a mom to hear. I even tried to quit 2 days in and once you are committed there is no quitting. Exhaustion and disappointment will take it's toll on the strongest of us.

Now that I covered the negative, a lot of fun and good came out of this experience.

• We had our trailer next to Obi-Wan's and the other main actors at base camp. I mean you have to remember, I'm a middle aged mom with a little boy (which is what we were commonly referred to at base camp hahah) but like to go sit on the set of a major show like this and have a trailer next to these stars is pretty cool.
• This show made Sawyer SAG Eligible
• Sawyer gets a credit on IMDb for this! so cool
• Did I mention he made and saved money for his future
• We had some amazing memories and uninterrupted time together that we will remember for the rest of our lives

One night we were filming a Night scene and we were walking back to our trailer from craft services at the bottom of this rock quarry we were filming and all of a sudden coyotes started howling all around us. They were all up at the top ridge looking down on us. It was a little scary but being around coyotes enough now, they really don't want anything to do with you. They were just all chatting with each other but the way their howl's echoed in that quarry was incredible and even beautiful. We just looked at each other and held hands and ran back to our trailer laughing. We both talk about that today.

There are countless other memories and conversations we had together which I am not sure we would of had without having to spend so much time alone together. We would walk around the outside of the trailer hunting for rare rocks and played countless games. Even those times he was disappointed, I had the opportunity to talk with him about how we all go through periods of disappointment in our jobs. That it will happen again in his life. That really the only way to get thru those tough times is to try to find the good in it or make the day good in whatever ways you can. I would like to think he learned a life lesson somewhere in this.

And the days he did he get to go to set are magical. Memories he will always have and experiences at 7 years old that are 1 in a million!

So while I can not tell you for certain if this is an opportunity you and your child should take, Hopefully I gave you enough information and stories from our real life experiences with photo doubling that you can get a feel for what to expect. 

Break a Leg!

~Jenny and Sawyer

Jenny Puranen Photography services Los Angeles, California, Malibu, California, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and The South Bay area
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