It can be difficult to perform a death scene onstage. You don’t need to come up with a dying plan if you’re going to play dead in a film scene or another situation where you won’t have to truly ‘die’ in front of an audience. If dying in front of an audience is required.
In a movie or a single-camera TV show, the pot-shot on the “dead” actor not ever lasts long enough to disclose that they are falsifying it. The audience does not have enough time to observe the “corpse” because the scene is taken away at the correct time.
The actor can use the easiest way by holding their breath during the take. The heartbeat isn’t an issue because it isn’t audible. A scene with a dead body may last several minutes, but most sequences are made up of several different shots, each lasting only a few seconds, so an actor only needs to hold their breath for a few seconds each time. They do occasionally breathe, and if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice it. Of course, a corpse actor can destroy a shot by coughing, sneezing, or even laughing, but that’s not a problem: just reset the scene and reshoot it.
