Lara Jay (Fight Choreographer/Stunt Coordinator)

 

Lara Jay joined Paracelsus Films in 2010 when she was asked to choreograph a zombie fight scene for Christmas After The Zombocalypse. Her performance impressed the director so much that she ended up being cast as the "Survivor" and has been with the company ever since. For her work on Zombocalypse Lara enlisted the help of her stunt team from Black Cat Stunt Productions (including her fiancé, Dan Minkle) .  Lara has worked on subsequent Paracelesus Films projects as both and actor and Fight Choreographer/Stunt Coordinator including Paracelsus Films' 48 Hour Film Project Chess Mates, the award winning Massachusetts Flash Film Festival submission Death on Toast and the upcoming How To Win The Internet, in which she is acting, writing, fight choreographing and for the first time, directing a sketch or two... 

 

Lara has been sword fighting and choreographing fight scenes since she was 13 years old.  During college she studied with SAFD Instructor Ted Sharon and was certified as an Actor/Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors.  In her Junior year she attended the International Stunt School in Seattle, WA and became an apprentice in the United Stuntmen's Association.  She has been set on fire, jumped off horses and 40ft high platforms, performed stair falls, studied Wu Shu, and spent extra time with SFX Guru Bill Boggs (My Name is Bruce, Spider-Man, Twilight) learning the ins and outs of safe, yet disgusting gore. 

Lara has performed in Renaissance, Medieval and Pirate Faires, stage plays, short films, commercials and done background for several major motion pictures.  (You can see her in Edge of Darkness and What's Your Number? ).  She has run and assisted in stage combat workshops for all ages, done choreography for many theatre companies in the Boston and North Shore area, and works regularly with Unicovia Pictures in Westbrook, ME where she won Best Actor for her part in the 7DayPSA submission for The Maine Women's Fund, which currently airs in the Portland, ME area. 

In her spare time she has been a street performance, trained horses for driving, worked on a lobster boat, in hot air balloons, been a model for lingerie and art classes, played the trumpet really well for a while (sadly not any more). She, writes, reads, lives and breathes fantasy novels, has performed ghost stories in Salem at various historic buildings for almost a decade, can sail a boat, juggle a bit, wrangle cats (because she loves them), pick up any accent you can put down, and can take any ordinary object and turn it into a viable deadly weapon on screen or stage.  She once took out a German stuntman with a bunch of bananas... 

Lara is currently working on Paracelsus Films' How to Win The Internet, but is also working on several productions with Unicovia Pictures, and is in the pre-production stages of an Untitled Project in association with The Witch House of Salem.  Oh, and she's building her own TARDIS. Cuz, why not?