In a workshop outside Paris, Celine Lallement stitched hairs into a silicone baby’s skull — the latest creation from a studio specialized in making ultra-realistic infants for the film and TV industries.
Founded in 2008 and based in a north Paris suburb, Cinebebe produces props that can take more than six weeks of crafting before they are sent to production sets.
“It’s mohair, it comes from the Angora goat. It’s finer than adult hair, so it imitates baby hair very well,” Lallement said as she carefully inserted each strand.
Photo: AFP
At one point, she spotted a problem.
“There are two hairs in the same follicle, that won’t work,” she said before using tweezers to correct the mistake.
Her latest work is set to be used in a film shoot in England, said Justine Ray Le Solliec, who comanages the special effects workshop.
Photo: AFP
With slightly red cheeks, tiny veins under the eyelids, skin folds and pores, it is hard to tell the difference from a real child.
“You can expect to pay around 700 euros [US$723.25] to rent a baby for a day’s shoot and between 9,000 euros and 15,000 euros to buy one, depending on the time required to make it,” Ray Le Solliec said.
From 26-week premature infants to 18-month-old toddlers, Cinebebe’s miniature mannequins are used in about 100 productions every year, mostly in France and Europe.
Photo: AFP
Their work has been glimpsed in hit Netflix series Emily in Paris, as well as last year’s blockbuster French movie The Count of Monte Cristo. The company uses silicone castings for babies, but also creates pregnant bellies, breasts, placentas, fetuses, umbilical cords and even life-sized pelvis models that are used for birth scenes.
“In France, regulations prohibit newborns under three months old from participating in film shoots,” Ray Le Solliec said.
“For infants aged three months to three years, filming time is limited to one hour per day, which can be challenging when multiple scenes involve children,” she said.
Beyond regulations, their business has accelerated since the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.
“It helped us because babies were not allowed on set during that period,” Ray Le Solliec said.
Since the end of the pandemic, their revenue has doubled every year, although there was a “slight slowdown” last year compared with 2023, with a growth rate of 35 percent. The next step is expanding internationally, with a London office planned for this year.
Their production goal is to develop babies with open eyes as well as larger babies for stunt scenes.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS