Shooting a Morgue scene....

IjabaFilms

IjabaFilms

Well-known member
I'd like to see if I can get some ideas on how I could go about doing a Morgue scene. I'd like to do one but I'm wondering how filmmakers do such scenes. Do they build a fake one, or do they ask permission to use a real Morgue?

I wouldn't imagine making a film would be a good enough reason to be allowed to use a real Morgue.

What are your thoughts?
 
location manager,
you need to find someone that can get you places to shoot.
someone able to find public and private locations needed for any shoot, usually public places would require either permits, sometimes need insurance for the permits depending on the location, also private places is sometimes secured for free, sometimes you need to rent or buy, sometimes you have to custom build a set, depending on the story, location needed and how good the location manager is and the owner of the place you'll be shooting in.

you might try these options and see what you can do:
public morgues
morgues in private hospitals
building a set
 
We shot in a morgue a few years back - no permit / no fee however stipulations were that we couldn't show actual deceased and when bodies were delivered during the night shoot, we had to pause, crew adjourned to another room while the bodies were prepped then delivered to the freezer. We were actually in a ME's office and it was nothing like you see on CSI. More like Uncle Harry's butcher shop with every kind of tool (many from Home Depot) imaginable. Pretty cool and creepy all at the same time.
 
Chenopup said:
We shot in a morgue a few years back - no permit / no fee however stipulations were that we couldn't show actual deceased and when bodies were delivered during the night shoot, we had to pause, crew adjourned to another room while the bodies were prepped then delivered to the freezer. We were actually in a ME's office and it was nothing like you see on CSI. More like Uncle Harry's butcher shop with every kind of tool (many from Home Depot) imaginable. Pretty cool and creepy all at the same time.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this info. How did you approach them about using the morgue?
I want to shoot one of my actors on one of those pull out drawer things.
 
Does it have to be a full-blown morgue like at a hospital? The reason I ask is because I was on a shoot once that used a funeral home's morgue as a set. It was small though and was really more of a place to prep a body for the wake, but it worked well as a morgue.

Just another option.

Oops, I missed the line about the pullout drawer thing. I don't know if funeral homes will have those, but you never know.

Hope this helps,
Andy
 
I'll have to check on the drawer thing for the morgue. That's an important part of the scene. It's just not the same if you can pull a body out of a hole in the wall.
 
IjabaFilms said:
Thanks for this info. How did you approach them about using the morgue?
I want to shoot one of my actors on one of those pull out drawer things.
Click to expand...

I knew one of the ME guys and his brother was our hero dead body. This wasn't a freezer with drawer pull outs. It was more like a large walk-in freezer with a bunch of gurneys. We had a "tour" when we scouted but were not allowed to nor would I have wanted to shoot in there.

Since ours was a state office, I'm guessing you'll have to make some calls to see if you can get what you want and then if they're warm to the idea, scout it out. Would have been bucks to dress it had we used a set though. Something just authentic about the real thing though.

Another thought is an abandoned hospital. We used to have one here in SLC that was used all the time for film shoots.
 
Ahhh I gotcha. Thanks. I'll have to check some places out. Yeah, building a set for it would be crazy expensive. :)
 
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