Why do Russian filmmakers break a plate after starting production?

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.

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.

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.