One of Malcolm’s brothers from the series Malcolm in the Middle stands out particularly because he shines mainly through absence in family life: Francis. An actor has now revealed why the character had to go to military academy.
Francis is the oldest son of Lois and Hal Wilkerson and has a hard time. Especially his mother’s strictness negatively affected him during his childhood.
In the series, he is sent to military academy because of his rebellious behavior. It is located in Alabama. However, he cannot stand it there for long and flees to Alaska.
Basically, the series tells the story of Francis largely detached from the rest of the family. They are mostly spatially separated, and Francis rarely sees his parents and brothers.
That the character received his own storyline separate from Malcolm and Co. was, according to an actor who was there at the time, due to a practical reason.
The series is currently celebrating a revival and returned with Malcolm in the Middle: Unfair as always. Here you can see the trailer:
Laws make creative
What was the reason? The actor Justin Berfield, who played the brother Reese in the series, was a guest on Joe Vulpis’s podcast and talked about the character Francis. A clip of that can be seen on TikTok.
He recounted that the production, like all others, had to adhere to strict laws regarding the work with children on set. Minors can only shoot for a certain amount of time per day.
According to Berfield, at that time it was between 9 and 10 hours. However, the children also had to fit in three school hours and meal breaks. In the end, about five hours of actual shooting time with the children remained.
That is a very short day for a production. The Francis character was therefore specifically built in because we needed something to film. Many of the parent scenes contained the children. […] So they filled it [the remaining hours, ed.] with Francis, completely separated outside the household.
Justin Berfield
Basically, it was a compromise to not waste unnecessary time and money on set. Every minute counts during filming.
Meanwhile, a character emerged from this who, precisely because of his absence in the family, provides an exciting contrast to the rest. Often laws indeed ensure that creative solutions to problems must be found.
Does the law also apply in Germany? Laws are, of course, always changing, and today the regulations here are clearly defined. An example from the Filmcommission Berlin Brandenburg: Children under 3 years of age are not allowed to work in the conventional sense, but can only be filmed with parental consent while displaying their natural behavior.
Children between 3 and 6 years can spend 3 hours daily on set. Between the ages of 6 and the end of compulsory full-time education, the maximum time increases to 5 hours, but only 3 hours can actually be worked.
Those who have completed compulsory full-time education may work up to 7 hours daily on set under the Youth Employment Protection Act. You can see that the overtime for which film sets are notorious cannot be managed with children. In Malcolm, it led to a cool character. MeinMMO editor Niko explains the secret of the original series: Malcolm in the Middle is still really good after 20 years because the main character is as boring as we are
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