Fatal accident on movie set - Alec Baldwin shoots cinematographer

[Marcel Birgelen]

The article Martin linked recounts a pretty troubled production where all safety strings are off. Guns that are apparently loaded with blanks, whereas the actor was ensured the gun was cold, resulting in accidental shots being fired... I guess once that happened, stuff should've already been prematurely shut down, because at least someone wasn't doing their job.

All in all, this whole situation looks like a bunch of traditional incompetence heaped up together, something that probably would never have happened if the crew was made up of competent management and a professional, seasoned shooting crew. If they managed to replace their camera team who walked off due to safety complaints within a few hours, they probably replaced other people who brought security concerns to mind, all to save a few nickles and dimes left and right.

Having read this, I guess I'll boycott this movie as much as I can, if it eventually will be released. I think, we really shouldn't sponsor such kind of production companies that put their own profits before the safety of those that work for them.

[Leo Enticknap]

The LA Times has a story that gives some more useful detail. It's pretty long, so I'm not going to quote all of it, but these are the passages relevant to comments above:

Safety protocols standard in the industry, including gun inspections, were not strictly followed on the “Rust” set near Santa Fe, the sources said. They said at least one of the camera operators complained last weekend to a production manager about gun safety on the set.

...

Three crew members who were present at the Bonanza Creek Ranch set on Saturday said they were particularly concerned about two accidental prop gun discharges.

Baldwin’s stunt double accidentally fired two rounds Saturday after being told that the gun was “cold” — lingo for a weapon that doesn’t have any ammunition, including blanks — two crew members who witnessed the episode told the Los Angeles Times.

“There should have been an investigation into what happened,” the crew member said. “There were no safety meetings. There was no assurance that it wouldn’t happen again. All they wanted to do was rush, rush, rush.”

A colleague was so alarmed by the prop gun misfires that he sent a text message to the unit production manager. “We’ve now had 3 accidental discharges. This is super unsafe,” according to a copy of the message reviewed by The Times.

“The safety of our cast and crew is the top priority of Rust Productions and everyone associated with the company, " Rust Movie Productions said in a statement. “Though we were not made aware of any official complaints concerning weapon or prop safety on set, we will be conducting an internal review of our procedures while production is shut down. We will continue to cooperate with the Santa Fe authorities in their investigation and offer mental health services to the cast and crew during this tragic time.”

The tragedy occurred Thursday afternoon during filming of a gunfight that began in a church that is part of the old Western town at the ranch. Baldwin’s character was supposed to back out of the church, according to production notes obtained by The Times. It was the 12th day of a 21-day shoot.

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was huddled around a monitor lining up her next camera shot when she was accidentally killed by the prop gun fired by Baldwin.

The actor was preparing to film a scene in which he pulls a gun out of a holster, according to a source close to the production. Crew members had already shouted “cold gun” on the set. The filmmaking team was lining up its camera angles and had yet to retreat to the video village, an on-set area where the crew gathers to watch filming from a distance via a monitor.

Instead, the B-camera operator was on a dolly with a monitor, checking out the potential shots. Hutchins was also looking at the monitor from over the operator’s shoulder, as was the movie’s director, Joel Souza, who was crouching just behind her.

Baldwin removed the gun from its holster once without incident, but the second time he repeated the action, ammunition flew toward the trio around the monitor. The projectile whizzed by the camera operator but penetrated Hutchins near her shoulder, then continued through to Souza. Hutchins immediately fell to the ground as crew members applied pressure to her wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

Late Friday, the Associated Press reported that Baldwin was handed a loaded weapon by an assistant director who indicated it was safe to use in the moments before the actor fired it, according to court records. The assistant director did not know the prop gun was loaded with live rounds, according to a search warrant filed in a Santa Fe County court.

The person in charge of overseeing the gun props, known as the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, could not be reached for comment. The 24-year-old is the daughter of veteran armorer Thell Reed and had recently completed her first film as the head armorer for the movie “The Old Way,” with Clint Howard and Nicolas Cage.

12th day of a 21-day shoot would suggest that a significant amount of it is in the can. Of course that largely depends on how much of it was or is to be shot not on that location set.

The last two highlighted sentences would seem to imply that an actual live round (i.e. a cartridge topped with a bullet) was fired.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The LA Times has a story that gives some more useful detail. It's pretty long, so I'm not going to quote all of it, but these are the passages relevant to comments above:



12th day of a 21-day shoot would suggest that a significant amount of it is in the can. Of course that largely depends on how much of it was or is to be shot not on that location set.

The last two highlighted sentences would seem to imply that an actual live round (i.e. a cartridge topped with a bullet) was fired.

There seems to be confusion about what this "live round" refers to, from the same article:

A source close to the union said Local 44 does not know what projectile was in the gun and clarified that “live” is an industry term that refers to a gun loaded with some material such as a blank ready for filming.

[Leo Enticknap]

I agree that there seems to be a significant difference in the meaning of some terms - "live" and "blank" being the most important ones - between common usages in the firearms and movie industries. That was why I defined what I meant by a live round. I'm not a firearms or ballistics expert, but from what I've read of the expert opinion, it seems to me impossible for the emission from a cartridge that does not have a solid projectile on the top of it, or in front of it in the barrel of the gun, to pass straight through one adult human, inflicting a fatal injury in the process, and then into another, inflicting a serious injury; which is now what is being reported as having happened.

[Mark Ogden]

This kind of thing has been going on for years, since the early days of cinema, and no one ever learns. This is an excerpt from Kirk Douglas's autobiography.


boo 2.jpeg

[Bobby Henderson]

Baldwin’s stunt double accidentally fired two rounds Saturday after being told that the gun was “cold” — lingo for a weapon that doesn’t have any ammunition, including blanks — two crew members who witnessed the episode told the Los Angeles Times.

A negligent discharge is no accident. It is negligence.

The phrase I heard about trigger discipline from Marines at a shooting range back when I was in high school in Quantico: keep your booger hook off the bang button.

For the longest time in movies I've seen terrible trigger discipline captured on film in movies and even TV shows. Very often actors on screen are handling guns with a finger not just on the trigger, but fucking wrapped around it. They'll have the second finger joint hooked to it. Good luck shooting tight groups with that technique. But that's all while they're walking around, chewing the scenery or something, not with the gun extended and ready to fire. STUPID.

Drawing a gun safely from a holster and presenting to target takes practice.

Many gun owners don't bother with that. A responsible gun owner will train holster drawing techniques with the weapon in condition 4 (chamber empty, no magazine, hammer down, safety on) or condition 3 (chamber empty, full magazine in place, hammer down, safety on). This kind of training is vital when it comes to various kinds of smaller conceal carry pistols and conceal carry holsters.

Even if someone is carrying a "hide-away" pistol in a pants pocket it is still vital to practice. Otherwise stupid shit like this is bound to happen (warning there is some blood in the video):
https://www.kswo.com/2021/10/12/moto...t-himself-leg/
Here in Lawton on October 12 a guy shot himself in the leg while trying to remove a pistol from his pants pocket. From what I understand the guy was trying to adjust how the pistol was positioned in his pocket. Depending on carry position, some guns can be like sticking a brick in your pocket or behind your back. It can get very uncomfortable, especially if using a gun with a thick, double-stack magazine. The story isn't clear if he was in the Walmart Neighborhood Market parking lot or driving a vehicle nearby on Lee Blvd. Witnesses rushed over to help the guy after he was shot. The guy was carry a semi-auto pistol with a round in the chamber. Many kinds of semi-auto pistols have no external safety controls to block the trigger. If you draw the weapon and a round is in the chamber you must not let a finger get on that trigger during the drawing motion. Otherwise you could shoot yourself or someone else.

I was under the impression actors who took part in action movies did more to train with firearms. For instance, there is the training Keanu Reeves and Halle Berry did with real guns for one of the John Wick movies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unp4PaMKezY
I've seen other videos of Keanu Reeves doing steel target training. The guy is pretty damn good. But that skill came via a LOT of training.

[Randy Stankey]

Blank rounds can have little bits of wax or pieces of paper covering the end of the cartridge to keep the powder inside and to provide a bit of back pressure for the exploding powder to push against in order to make a good report. Some do. Some don't. Like Bobby says, sometimes the ends of the cartridge are crimped. Like the spent round I found, sometimes they ends are just rounded over.

As Mark shows in his quote from Kirk Douglass, even blank rounds can spray burning powder, bits of wax and paper wadding, shards of metal from the cartridge or even pieces of the gun, itself.

Blank rounds can be safer...safe-ER...but are never completely safe.

I really bristle at the use of the term, "Prop Gun!"

First off, anything on a stage or a movie set that is used by the actor(s) is considered a prop. If an actor reads a newspaper during a performance, the newspaper is considered to be a prop. Would you use the term, "Prop Newspaper," to describe what the actor reads? No! It's silly! It is just as silly to use the term, "Prop gun."

There is no such thing as a "Prop Gun." I don't care if they are made from plastic or if they are real guns. Guns are guns. All guns are dangerous.
Calling them props just paves the way for complacency and carelessness.

Yes, I understand that the term, "Prop Gun," is being used by news people as a form of jargon to make themselves sound better but when I heard the term being used, my "Wanker Alarm" went off inside my head.

As far as I am concerned, this whole fiasco happened because they are all just a bunch of wankers, pretending to be cowboys.

Guns should not be pointed and fired at cameras. Movie productions still do it.

This is something I talked about with my girlfriend's father. He never said anything like, "This is how we did it..." but more like, "They do it like this in movies..."

No, they would not point a gun at the camera. They would use a mirror. The camera would be 90 deg. to the actor and a mirror at 45 deg. would reflect the actor's image. Not only is it safer but, but the actor can shoot the mirror and break it to get a really cool shattering effect on film.

Really? Why would the people shooting the movie, "Rust," not have thought to set up their shot with a mirror? Once I was told that 'they' do things like that, it seemed intuitive to me. You'd think that it would be common knowledge in the movie making business. Wouldn't you?

They really should cancel the movie and write it off. No one is going to want to go see it... Yes, this sort of thing has happened before, but its been so long I don't remember if they released it back them. I guess they should switch to cap guns....

One of the crew was killed during the filming of one of my GF's father's movies and they considered cancelling production but, after some deliberation, they decided that everybody knew the risks and that "The Show Must Go On" in honor of the man who died. There was an "In honor of..." credit at the end of the movie.

Even so, I'd say that "Rust" should be written off. In her dad's movie, everybody knew the risks and accepted them. In "Rust," it looks, to me, like just a bunch of wankers waving guns around, playing cowboy.

Dad would have been outraged if he was alive, today! He's probably rolling over in his grave, right now!

[Martin McCaffery]

If an actor reads a newspaper during a performance, the newspaper is considered to be a prop. Would you use the term, "Prop Newspaper," to describe what the actor reads?

If it had a headline like "SUPERMAN SAVES THE WORLD" that the audience can see, then yes, I would call it a "prop newspaper". Just like I would call their fake dollar bills "prop money" instead of "counterfiet."

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Trains kill cinematographers too. Just a couple years ago in fact... And that crew had no buisness being on the bridge....

[Marcel Birgelen]

Personally, much like Randy, I find the term "prop gun" pretty confusing, as there are obviously actual prop guns in various forms. IMHO, a gun that can't fire actual bullets is a prop gun and a real gun loaded with blanks therefore isn't. What otherwise determines if a gun is a prop gun? The context it's being used or the kind of munition loaded in the gun? If I go "shopping" at my local bank with a real gun loaded with blanks, will they still call it a prop gun in the police report and the news? Or is a gun used on set automatically a prop gun? If a gun on a set is loaded with real rounds (containing bullets), then it becomes a real gun? What if it's loaded with both?

While it's common in the U.S. to use normal guns with blanks in movies, in quite a few other countries, such a thing is either entirely impossible or at least close to impossible, especially whenever actors without permits are supposed to handle them. In some countries, like the Netherlands, you even need to get a special permit to use "prop guns" that look like real guns, like an airsoft replica with the orange tip removed or painted in the same color as the barrel. The most realistic kind of prop guns you can get are real guns with the barrel adapted, so only blanks can be fired, but they also come with very heavy restrictions.

One of the crew was killed during the filming of one of my GF's father's movies and they considered cancelling production but, after some deliberation, they decided that everybody knew the risks and that "The Show Must Go On" in honor of the man who died. There was an "In honor of..." credit at the end of the movie.

Even so, I'd say that "Rust" should be written off. In her dad's movie, everybody knew the risks and accepted them. In "Rust," it looks, to me, like just a bunch of wankers waving guns around, playing cowboy.

Well, that's my problem here. Stunts can be dangerous and unfortunately, people can be hurt or even die on set due to accidents triggered by unforeseen circumstances. Like Lyle indicated, sometimes an accident is just an accident. But in this case, it looks like the crew was a bunch of incompetent nitwits that ran the show. I guess the 911 recording tells a tale of its own as it apparently caught this conversation:

“OK, this f**king *** that yelled at me at lunch asking about revisions, this motherf**ker.
Did you see him lean over my desk and yell at me? He’s supposed to check the guns. He’s responsible for what happened."

So, I don't think this movie deserves a second chance, at least not with this crew, the companies that bankrolled this and maybe even not with the actors that are part of it...

[Carsten Kurz]

The amount of speculation in this thread is hilarious...

[Marcel Birgelen]

The amount of speculation in this thread is hilarious...

I'm not saying it was aliens...

[Bobby Henderson]

The amount of speculation in this thread is hilarious...

There was a lot of guessing at the beginning of this thread, but as more details have been emerging it seems very clear criminal level negligence was involved in this tragedy.

Witnesses, such as crew members who walked off hours before this tragedy, said three negligent discharges of firearms had already happened. Producers brushed off the safety concerns of crew members and were generally pushing everything to be done in a hurry. It's obvious this production was a shit show. There are even complaints from crew members of not getting paid which is nothing new for the movie industry.

I'll be pretty surprised if one or more people don't end up in jail over this shit.

Civil litigation seems 100% likely, but given the fact most movie productions are insulated in many layers of LLPs, shell companies, international border-hopping and more any civil lawsuits against the movie production are likely to go nowhere. The movie industry is a business famous for violating copyrights, creative accounting practices (such as the "rolling break even") and not paying people for their work. They use the cost of years or decades of court gymnastics as a weapon against individuals, be they writers, crew members, etc. Since that situation is so daunting outright it might leave open the option for wrongful death suits to be filed against individual persons. But even that kind of court action can go nowhere. In the end that's going to make it even more important for the investigation to uncover and corroborate acts of criminal negligence and punish those acts in criminal court.

[Lyle Romer]

The #1 rule of firearm safety is NEVER point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them. Not even if you think the gun isn't loaded. If this rule is followed, you can never accidentally shoot somebody.

Unfortunately, when filming a movie or TV show with blanks the whole point of the shot is to have the gun pointed at somebody while they fire the blank.

[Leo Enticknap]

It shouldn't be necessary to point a gun at anyone during a rehearsal or take. Cutting between the shooter and the target is able to convey that impression without actually taking the risk. And (so I've read) standard practice when a setup calls for a gun to be fired towards the camera is for the camera operator to set it rolling, and then everyone in the vicinity gets out of the way until after the shot(s) are fired.