Maxim Bogovid / Sputnik
This is not simply a white plate, it’s specially prepared: the names of all the participants of the filming process have to be written on it, as well as the name of the movie.
Anton Novoderezhkin / TASS
One of the versions of how this tradition emerged is linked to the legendary Sergei Eisenstein. During the production of the now-legendary movie ‘Battleship Potemkin’ (1925), actors were not hurrying up enough, dragging on their lunch time. And the director allegedly broke one actor’s plate against a tripod out of anger. Then, the filming finally resumed and the movie itself, as it’s well known, made history.
Alexei Danichev / Sputnik
Nonetheless, people only began to break plates during filming en mass in the 1990s, when the Russian film industry was going through a crisis after the collapse of the USSR. Everyone from the filming crew would take a piece as a keepsake. By the way, most film crews are a superstitious kind and some believe it to be a bad omen if the plate doesn’t break the first time.
Mikhail Pochuev / TASS
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