What is Shemping?
1.
(v) Derived from the time after the second era of Shemp with The Three Stooges; Shemp suffered a heart attack and they needed to replace him with someone that looked like him to finish shots from the sides and from behind.
- The act of replacing an actor/actress for picture shots when it is physically impossible to have the actor/actress
Using Martin Sheen's brother for over-the-shoulder shots in "Apocalypse Now!" was a stealthy example of shemping.
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2.
A film technique in which an actor who quits or dies in the middle of filming a movie is replaced by a lookalike who is shot mostly from the back. Named for Shemp Howard, a member of the Three Stooges who died of a stroke during the production of several Stooges films.
In the middle of the film "Return of the Pink Panther," Inspector Jaques Clouseau's plane crashed into the ocean, presumably to hide the fact that the actor that portrayed him, Peter Sellers, had just died. In a few shots, Inspector Clouseau is seen from the back as an actor impersonates his voice, a technique known as "shemping."
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