who plays corpses on tv?

[midnightwriter]

in shows like SCI, where there usually is a mangled decomposing body found, then the same body in the morgue, in quite a few scenes. Are those actors, or dolls?

[annettemarie]

I don't know, but I am moving this to the Television forum.

[neetling]

I always look at eyelids to see if they twitch at all and the carotid artery. I'm gleeful if I can catch the "dead" person move.

I wonder how they stay so still if they are actors.

[midnightwriter]

Originally Posted by neetling

I always look at eyelids to see if they twitch at all and the carotid artery. I'm gleeful if I can catch the "dead" person move.

I wonder how they stay so still if they are actors.

In a couple of shows I thought I saw a corpse twitch, but I couldn't be sure.
If they are dolls, it seems like it is expensive? Or they use the same doll and make it up for different injuries? But the faces are different...

I've been curious about it for a looooong time, but I always forget to ask

[annettemarie]

I thought I read where some of those parts were prizes in sweepstakes, etc? But I could be imagining it.

[midnightwriter]

Originally Posted by annettemarie

I thought I read where some of those parts were prizes in sweepstakes, etc? But I could be imagining it.

of actors?

edit: so I just watched a corpse scene, and definitely an actor!

so you have to be an actor for this job, or they take extras? and what skills do they want?

[JessicaS]

They are actors


http://www.wired.com/table_of_malcon...lling_all_cor/

It sounds like Law and Order paid better


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...296805922.html

[katiecat]

I remember reading that one of Evangaline Lily's few acting jobs before Lost was playing a corpse.

[Smokering]

They can digitally fix glitches if an actor blinks or twitches (if the budget's big enough, of course!). Joss Whedon mentioned doing it in Buffy when Joyce blinked once after she died; and also in Firefly with Mal. Not that Mal was dead, but that scene in the pilot just before the opening credits, the really long pan-out on Serenity Valley with Mal staring in disbelief at the world crumbling around him? Yeah, he blinked once. It was a really long shot. But they fixed it. So I guess goofing as a corpse wouldn't be the end of the world, they could just re-deadify you in post-production.

[sapphire_chan]

Valium?

:

It's gotta be harder for the eyes-open corpses.

I bet they had a lot of retakes for giggles in Pushing Daisies.

[Emmeline II]

What a relief to know I'm not the only one thinking about this.

[ashleyhaugh]

i remember some sort of contest ages ago where the prize was a chance to be a dead body on csi, lol