…in a lot of TV shows, but I don’t know how they do the effects. In shows like Law and Order or CSI, they’ll very often have a ‘corpse’ in a scene that gets photographed and maybe carried off. Do they usually use a dummy for those scenes, or do they have the extra who ‘died’ lay still for the shot? Using a dummy would seem to be more difficult for the short scenes (since you’d need to fake up the face, have one of roughly the right size, etc.), but I’m sure for some of the longer scenes I’m sure not having to worry about the ‘corpse’ twitching comes in handy.
My WAG,
For something like a picture they would probably just put makeup on an extra. Its not worth it to make a dummy for one shot.
As for twitching corpses, its not that hard to stay still for a long period. Is the camera alway on the body? And if the person does move they can always re shoot it.
And as for autopsies. Its a dummy. I saw a TV special on it (Yes I do have to much time on my hands, thanks for asking).
It depends. For most TV work, you get an extra - ahem- a background artist- and have makeup and hair fix him or her up as a dead body. Most shots are short enough that twitching is not a major problem, though to forestall this, you make sure to cast a background artist who has done this before and can reliably stay still. Extras casting agencies are usually pretty good about matching special requests, so you can usually get a professionally trained actor who considers impersonating a corpse part of his or her profession and handles the task quite well.
Making dummies is also done, if the scene requires it, say because the corpse is in a position that would be dangerous to a live body, or because there’s some other special circumstance that makes a dummy preferable. Generally speaking, dummies cost much more because the casting, molding, and special makeup work can be quite time consuming. For scenes in deep background, where detail is not so impt., corpse dummies can be rented and dressed as the situation demands, say for low budget horror movies.