Fatal accident on movie set - Alec Baldwin shoots cinematographer

[Leo Enticknap]

As this is very much movie-related, I thought it deserved its own thread, rather than being posted as a random news story. From the Daily Mail:

Alec Baldwin has shot and killed a cinematographer on the set of the upcoming Western movie Rust, after a prop firearm he was using in a scene discharged in a tragic accident.

Director of Photography Halyna Hutchins, 42, was fatally struck in the incident on Thursday at the Bonanza Creek Ranch movie set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where writer-director Joel Souza, 48, was also injured.

Baldwin, 68, was confirmed as the individual who fired the prop gun, which somehow unintentionally launched a projectile or projectiles at the crew members, in a statement from the Santa Fe Sheriff's Office.

The actor was seen in tears outside the sheriff's office following the tragic death, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

It was not immediately clear whether the prop gun was somehow loaded with real bullets, or if the gunpowder used in theatrical blank cartridges may have launched debris of some kind from the barrel.

No criminal charges have been filed, but police said that a criminal investigation into the incident is currently active to determine the circumstances of Hutchins' death.

According to investigators, it appears that the scene being filmed involved the use of a prop firearm when it was discharged,' sheriff's spokesman Juan Rios said in a statement. 'Detectives are investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged.'

'The incident remains an active investigation. As more information becomes available, updates will be provided,' he added.

Representatives for Baldwin, Souza, and Rust's executive producer did not immediately respond to inquiries from DailyMail.com late on Thursday.

Hutchins' devastated friends were too distraught to talk, but Ariel Vida, a production designer who worked with the director of photography on 2020 film Archenemy confirmed her death to DailyMail.com, tearfully adding: 'I'm sorry, I can't talk about this right now.'

Filming for Rust was set to continue into early November, according to a news release from the New Mexico Film Office, but production has now been halted on the film.

The movie is about a 13-year-old boy who is left to fend for himself and his younger brother following the death of their parents in 1880s Kansas, according to a synopsis. The teen goes on the run with his long-estranged grandfather (played by Baldwin) after the boy is sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher.

In 1993, Brandon Lee, 28, son of the late martial-arts star Bruce Lee, died after being hit by a .44-caliber slug while filming a death scene for the movie "The Crow.´´ The gun was supposed to have fired a blank, but an autopsy turned up a bullet lodged near his spine.

In 1984, actor Jon-Erik Hexum died after shooting himself in the head with a prop gun blank while pretending to play Russian roulette with a .44 Magnum on the set of the television series ´´Cover Up.´´

Friends took to Hutchins' Instagram page to leave tributes underneath a video filmed two days ago that showed her riding a horse on her day off.

James Cullen wrote: 'I will miss you my friend. This is devastating.'

Another friend Jack Caswell added: 'I feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me. You will be so missed' while Tina Presley Borek said: 'Heartbroken.'

Hutchins, who lived in Venice Beach, California, was considered one of Hollywood's rising stars - named in a list of cinematographers to watch in 2019 by American Cinematographer.

The daughter of a soldier, Hutchins grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle before going to college in Ukrainian capital Kiev.

She later moved first to the U.K. to work on documentary filmmaking before traveling to LA to study for a master's degree in cinematography and switching to movies.

Her credits include horror film Darlin and, shortly before starting work on Rust, she had completed filming on Blindfire - a crime drama starring Brian Geraghty and Sharon Leal.

The Santa Fe Sheriff's Office says it responded to the movie set at around 1.50pm after a 911 caller indicated someone had been shot in the arm.

'According to investigators, it appears that the scene being filmed involved the use of a prop firearm when it was discharged,' the sheriff's office said in a statement.

'Detectives are investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged,' the statement added.

Police said that a 42-year-old female was airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

A 42-year-old man was rushed by ambulance to Cristus St. Vincent's Hospital where he is being treated for injuries, and is expected to survive.

'There was an accident today on the New Mexico set of Rust involving the misfire of a prop gun with blanks,' read a statement from Rust Movie Productions LLC.

'Two crew members have been taken to the hospital and are receiving care. Production has been halted for the time being. The safety of our cast and crew remains our top priority,' the statement concluded.

The Santa Fe Sheriff's Department confirmed to Deadline that the incident was being investigated, with criminal investigators on the scene.

There is no indication that there was any criminal activity involving the incident, given the production company's statement.

Albuquerque's KOB 4 news anchor Tessa Mentus tweeted a photo from her network's chopper, showing a church set blocked off.

Another KOB 4 reporter, Giuli Frendak, shared a photo of a security gate, adding, 'Security guard at the entrance to the set of Rust', a western movie in production in #SantaFe, told us the set is on lockdown right now. Couldn't share anything else. Waiting for more details from Santa Fe Sheriff on today's incident near Bonanza Creek.'

A new report from TMZ reveals details about the incident, which revealed Alec Baldwin was filming a scene that involved a gun being fired.

The gun was supposed to be loaded with blanks, but when the gun fired, 'either shrapnel or a bullet hit two people on the set,' one of whom needed to be airlifted to the hospital.

While it's unclear what was loaded into the gun, the two people who were hit were writer-director Joel Souza, who was reportedly hit in the clavicle, and the director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, who was rushed to the hospital via helicopter, according to TMZ.

Baldwin was not injured in the incident, with production shut down for the day after the incident.

Rust, which Souza also wrote the screenplay for, is set in 1880s Kansas, following a young boy who goes on the run with his grandfather after the accidental killing of a local rancher.

Baldwin stars alongside Travis Fimmel, Jensen Ackles and Frances Fisher.

My emphasis. I find this statement a bit worrying: any fatal accident in any workplace is significantly likely to have been caused, at least in part, by criminal negligence. I suspect what the sheriff's spokeshole actually meant was that there is no reason to believe that foul play was involved. But it doesn't need to be murder to be a criminal act.

[Frank Cox]

A real gun has no business being anywhere near a movie set, whether it's "loaded with blanks" or not.

The sound effects guy can add the bang-bang afterward.

[Marcel Birgelen]

A real gun has no business being anywhere near a movie set, whether it's "loaded with blanks" or not.

The sound effects guy can add the bang-bang afterward.

They're calling it a prop, so apparently it wasn't a real gun, but probably a prop gun with a weakened barrel, usually not able to fire deadly caliber bullets. That being said, those things can still be dangerous, as blanks still contain gunpowder and if there is some debris left in the barrel from e.g. a previous misfire for example, then that debris can become a deadly projectile.

I guess that's what happened here, since apparently at least two people were hit by something, which would be pretty unusual if the projectile would've been a single bullet, at least if just a single shot was fired.

Details are still sketchy so this is all just speculation.

[Randy Stankey]

...But it doesn't need to be murder to be a criminal act.

I absolutely agree! Somebody's ass is going to be grass!

I was in charge of a student production at Mercyhurst where a gun was used on set. It was just a starter's pistol but, even so, I made sure that the matter was taken as seriously as a heart attack. It was partly for safety but it was also to instill respect for procedure when handling firearms whether they be real guns or just a starter's pistol.

When I did that show, I had a rule: There are only three people allowed to handle the gun. The stage manager (me) the prop master and the actor who used the gun on stage. The gun was taken from a locked cabinet in my office and delivered directly into the prop master's hands just prior to the show. He was to be the only one who loaded it, just prior to the scene where it was to be fired and it was to be passed directly from the prop master's hands to the actor's hands at the start of the scene. When the scene was over, the process went in reverse, from the actor's hands to the prop master's hands, to mine then back to the locked cabinet in my office.

Ammunition (black powder blanks) was to be taken from the original, factory-labeled box, loaded by the prop master in the presence of a second person (me, the stage manager) and both people had to give the go-ahead when they agreed that the gun had been loaded with the intended ammo. Once loaded, that gun does not leave the prop master's sight until it is used on stage, unloaded and delivered back into my hands.

I know that this is a long, drawn out story that makes much ado over an ordinary starter's pistol but there's a point.

If some dork of a stage manager at a backwater, second rate college stage production can have a strict, zero tolerance policy on the use of firearms on the set, how the hell could such an accident occur during a major Hollywood studio production? It should be unthinkable! Those guys are supposed to be consummate professionals!

I just watched a few different news reports on this incident and one of them speculated that real, live ammunition somehow got loaded into the gun.

What the HELL was live ammunition doing anywhere within a MILE of that movie set? If that's true, SOMEBODY had better go down for it and go down HARD!

Another story and I promise that there's a point...

About six years ago, when I met my girlfriend we visited Vasquez Rocks in Aqua Dulce, CA. While we were out hiking around, seeing the sights and taking some pictures, I looked down and found a spent 5-in-1 blank in the dirt. It was in decent condition but there's no telling how long it had been there.

I took it home and showed it to my girlfriend's dad and that started off a whole round of stories about guns being used in movies. I, jokingly, asked him whether it was from one of his movies but he said it couldn't have been. We did a little speculation on what production it could have been used for but, since there have been so many movies and TV shows shot at Vasquez Rocks, it could have been anything. Since it was found in the desert, that shell could have been lying there for decades and still be in good condition.

If I told you who her father was, you would know, immediately, that he took the use of guns on-set as seriously as a heart attack.

The point is that the 5-in-1 was specially designed so that only one kind of ammunition was needed on a movie set, making a ZERO CHANCE for the wrong ammunition to be used, no matter what gun. No real, live ammo was to be anywhere to be found, not even by accident.

Long stories or not, there should never have been a chance for something like this incident to have happened and whoever was supposed to be in charge of firearms on the set of "Rust" should be proverbially drawn and quartered!

Somebody had better go down for this like a ton of bricks!

[Lyle Romer]

Doesn't this seem very similar to how Brandon Lee was killed? There doesn't appear to be anything criminal here unless somebody knowingly loaded a real bullet. Sometimes an accident is an accident. Despite taking all proper safety precautions, nothing is 100% preventable.

[Carsten Kurz]

Before we don't know wether there was a real bullet involved, it's all speculation. I don't know how likely it is that fragments of prop guns/ammunition cause such a deadly impact on two people. Some report I read talks about multiple projectiles, so maybe not just one shot was fired. It could be an unlucky technical accident, negligence, or criminal intent. We have to wait. But quite probably, the person who suffers most from it now, Baldwin, is not to blame. What a horrendous experience.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

In addition to toy and simulated guns, real guns loaded with blanks are considered Prop Guns. Blanks, if the gun is too close to the target, can cause serious injury and death. The following article explains it better than I could.

Yahoo News Article

Here’s How a Prop Gun Using Blanks Can Still Fire a Fatal Shot
Ross A. Lincoln
Fri, October 22, 2021, 1:22 AM

A horrific tragedy occurred Thursday on the New Mexico set of the upcoming western, “Rust,” when the film’s cinematographer, 42-year-old Halyna Hutchins, was killed, and director Joel Souza gravely injured in an accidental shooting. A prop gun, filled with blanks, malfunctioned when it was fired by star Alec Baldwin, an event that is still under investigation by local law enforcement.

As is often the case after such events, there’s a lot of confusion about what, exactly happened. If the gun was filled with blanks, how on earth could someone be killed? How can a “prop” gun be deadly. Was a crime committed?

We’ll attempt to answer those questions here. Of course, we must also stress that the details of the tragedy on the “Rust” set are far from complete and it will be days, if not weeks before, we know the full story.

First, it’s important to understand what the term “prop gun” means in this context. People tend to assume it refers to non-functional weapons of the sort used in theatrical performances, or toy guns that fire caps to produce smoke. And while it’s true that those are also prop guns, the term also applies to real guns that are used as props.

The reason a production would use a real gun is simple: Verisimilitude. As firearms instructor Dave Brown wrote for American Cinematographer magazine in 2019, real firearms add authenticity to close-up shots in particular. Anyone who’s ever held a gun can confirm that a real gun looks, weighs and handles different from an inert prop.

But, Brown noted, they also require experts on set to make sure they’re properly handled at all times. That’s because a gun is still a gun, regardless of what’s in it. And that brings us to how a gun loaded with blanks can kill someone.

The term “blank’ is a shorthand version of the full term, blank cartridge. Notice I said cartridge and not bullet. A cartridge is a unit of ammunition fed into the barrel of a gun comprised of several parts: The casing (sometimes called a shell); propellant material (gunpowder) inside the shell; a primer on the bottom of the cartridge; and at the tip of the cartridge, the actual projectile (bullet) itself. Here’s an example, courtesy of Hunter-Ed.com:

When you pull the trigger, the firing pin strikes the primer, igniting the gunpowder, causing an explosion of superhot gasses that propels the bullet out of the barrel. The shell casing is then expelled from the gun as a new cartridge is loaded into the chamber.

A blank is a cartridge that has all of that except for the projectile at the tip. Instead the tip is crimped or otherwise sealed with paper wadding or wax to hold in the gunpowder. Which means, theoretically, when you pull the trigger, you’ll get the bang, recoil, muzzle flash, and an ejected shell, without the deadly supersonic bullet ending whatever you pointed the gun at.

But, remember when we mentioned muzzle flash and superheated gas? That is still very much being expelled from the gun. And bullet or no bullet, that means anything near the end of that barrel is in danger. In fact there’s a surprisingly realistic example of this in 2019’s “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.” During the standoff at the end, Jesse fires a gun from inside his coat pocket, and it causes his coat to catch on fire:

Just that alone would do serious damage to someone if they were close enough to the barrel.

But there’s also the wadding used to hold the gunpowder in place instead of the bullet. That gets expelled when you pull the trigger. And while it’s just paper or wax, if you’re close enough to it, it can do serious damage, such as what happened in the death of actor Jon-Erik Hexum in 1984.

Hexum was on the set of the CBS TV show “Cover Up,” and he got bored during a long delay in filming. As a joke, he loaded his revolver with a blank round, spun the cylinder as if he was playing Russian roulette, and put the gun to his head. He pulled the trigger, unaware that this was extremely dangerous, and the blank’s wad impacted his head. It wasn’t strong enough to penetrate his body, but the impact fractured his skull and sent bone fragments into his brain. He died 6 days later.

Tragedy can also strike if the prop gun is improperly loaded, which is what happened to Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, in 1993. He was on the set of his film, “The Crow,” shooting a scene that made use of a prop gun that was mishandled. A cartridge with a projectile tip had unknowingly become stuck, and when a blank round was loaded and fired, it pushed the live round out, fatally wounding him. He died hours later, just 28 years old.

As for the question of criminal responsibility, that’s for law enforcement to investigate, and it will definitely be some time before we know anything about the “Rust” tragedy. But it must be noted that in the vast majority of cases, the person who pulled the trigger wasn’t at fault. They were handed a prop and assured it would function normally — and it didn’t.

Mistakes don’t have to happen because of incompetence or malice. Even tiny miscalculations can result in a potentially dangerous situation. Which is why it’s important that productions have competent experts overseeing all aspects of firearms use on film and TV sets.

[Bobby Henderson]

A real gun has no business being anywhere near a movie set, whether it's "loaded with blanks" or not.

Real guns are used all the time in movie productions. The ammunition is supposed to be what's "fake."

I think there was definitely some level of negligence as a factor in this tragedy. The ammunition used will be a big point of focus in the investigation.

Brandon Lee died on the set of The Crow over 25 years ago because some dumbass somehow allowed live .44 magnum ammunition onto a movie set. Various other points of failure at noticing details occurred. That chain of stupid choices all led up to Lee getting killed.

Blank ammunition used on movie sets is typically supposed to use crimped cartridges. Not all blank cartridges have that design. The idea behind a crimped cartridge is it can prevent particle elements inside from blasting directly out of the barrel at high speed. Could this issue have been a factor? The price and availability of ammo has been really bad lately. So it's possible someone cut some corners so the production could proceed.

Considering two people were shot (one fatally) in an instant, it seems more likely someone allowed live ammo onto the set and let it get into that gun. Normally a movie production that involves gunplay will have a legit propmaster and associated crew to look after weapons properly. My understanding is the propmaster on this production was someone who didn't usually do that sort of thing.

[Randy Stankey]

Blank ammunition used on movie sets is typically supposed to use crimped cartridges.

Considering two people were shot (one fatally) in an instant, it seems more likely someone allowed live ammo onto the set and let it get into that gun.

The 5-in-1 that I found isn't even crimped. The end of the cartridge is simply rounded over. There's just enough restriction to allow the powder to produce a report.

As I understand, there is even a version of the 5-in-1 that's made of plastic just so that, in case the cartridge fractures, it will only shoot shards of plastic instead of metal shrapnel.

The loads they use in the 5-in-1 are only supposed to have enough powder in them to produce a report, a puff of smoke and, maybe, a little muzzle flash.

Besides wondering how and why real ammo or improper blanks got onto a movie set, I've got a couple of questions.

Did the gun malfunction? Was there some kind of "unplanned, rapid disassembly event" that caused fragments to be shot out of the gun?
If so, why? A proper blank cartridge shouldn't have enough powder to cause that. Wasn't the gun checked to be sure it was in working order before handing it off to the actor(s)?

How could the Director and the Director of Photography both be shot in the same incident with one discharge?
Aren't the Director and the D.P. supposed to be standing behind the action? Was it a "head-on" shot? (The gun pointing toward the camera?)
Flying shrapnel might have been to blame. Otherwise it would have been a "pass through" incident or a ricochet if a real bullet was involved.

How was the shot supposed to be set up? Even when you are using blanks, you're never supposed to actually point a gun at another person.
Have you ever noticed that, in a shooting scene, camera angles are set up so that it only LOOKS like the gun is being pointed at a person. In reality, the shooter is aiming off to one side so that, if something goes wrong, the bullet or shrapnel won't hit the other person. This is something that my girlfriend's father told me.

And, YES! The movies he made had LOTS of gunfire in them! He knew from whence he spoke!

Right here... there are no less then four acts of negligence.

Not ensuring that the right ammo is used.
Not ensuring that the gun is in working order.
Improper staging and shot trajectories.
Cast, crew or bystanders located in a potential line of fire when they don't need to be.

I'm not even getting into training and procedure. How were the actors and crew instructed on the use of firearms? What rules were in place while firearms were being used? Who was in charge?

I know that I sound like I'm being rigid and narrow minded but it's because of my upbringing. I was raised around guns, my father was very rigid when it came to guns and he taught me to be rigid. If he ever caught me handing guns in an unsafe manner, I got slapped upside the head.

To paraphrase something I was taught by my father... No matter where you are, whether it's on a firing range, in your home or on a battle field, whenever one person hands a gun to another, BOTH people are trusting each other with their lives. One wrong move could cost somebody their life.

It's really, really apparent that phrase wasn't in everybody's mind during that movie shoot... "One wrong move could cost somebody their life!"

This time, it did!

That's what bugs me!

[Bobby Henderson]

Complacency is a common factor in many incidents where a firearm is negligently discharged. Someone assumes a gun is in a safe condition to point and pull the trigger, trusting that he or others involved made all the right decisions before handling the weapon. Movie sets often have many people doing different jobs all at once. The busy activity creates more variables for bad things to happen if a dangerous stunt is going to be performed. Handling guns is a seemingly very routine thing in many movies and TV shows. It leaves more opportunity for dangerous levels of complacency to fester.

How could the Director and the Director of Photography both be shot in the same incident with one discharge?
Aren't the Director and the D.P. supposed to be standing behind the action? Was it a "head-on" shot? (The gun pointing toward the camera?)
Flying shrapnel might have been to blame. Otherwise it would have been a "pass through" incident or a ricochet if a real bullet was involved.

How do we know it was just one shot? It would be a hell of a thing for one single "blank" handgun round to kill one person and injure another person nearby. Since the movie is a western I'm assuming a revolver was used. Even with a revolver it's possible to fire multiple shots rapidly. Put an actor in character performing out a really dramatic beat. If he's in the moment it would be really easy for him to fire two, three or more shots before realizing something horrible has happened.

I've seen a lot of behind-the-scenes footage of movie productions where a DP is working as a camera operator and the director is right on his back during the take. With that in mind it's easy to see how both were caught in the line of fire.

Guns should not be pointed and fired at cameras. Movie productions still do it. The shots aren't as overt as Joe Pesci at the end of Goodfellas, re-enacting the end of The Great Train Robbery. But productions still like to get those dramatic in-your-face shots. Aside from the very obvious safety concerns, even blank ammo expels a lot of burning gunpowder and tiny particulates at high speed. It's probably not a good idea to subject an extremely expensive cinema camera lens to that kind of crap. Even if gun powder chemicals aren't burning they can still damage lens coatings (something to think about when shooting fireworks photos).

[Leo Enticknap]

It could be an unlucky technical accident, negligence, or criminal intent. We have to wait.

Agreed entirely, and my comment in the opening post was not meant to imply that the investigation should take the form of a witch hunt. I was merely drawing attention to the initial Sheriff's Department statements, which seemed to emphasize the belief that no criminal act occurred. How can they know that before they've investigated?

If this were a warehouse shelving rack falling and killing someone, or a school bus crashing and killing a child, I don't think the police would respond with a statement like that within a couple of hours of the incident. I wonder if they were a bit star-struck, and/or if politics was involved. New Mexico and Georgia have been aggressively trying to lure film and TV production away from California, with tax breaks and other incentives. Netflix is building a mega-studio in Albuquerque. Arresting and indicting movie producers is likely not what the state wants all over the front pages. I suspect that there will be a lot of political pressure for this to be judged a freak and unpreventable accident.

[Bobby Henderson]

I pretty much agree with the philosophy held by many gun experts: there is no such thing as a "shooting accident." A gun is either fired intentionally or out of negligence.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20 vision in regards to an incident like the one on that movie set in New Mexico. I personally wouldn't point and fire a handgun unless I personally looked at the ammunition in the magazine or cylinder. But that's just me.

I'm not expecting any sort of "witch hunt" to occur. Nevertheless, it took either one or more acts of negligence or malice in order for that "accident" to have happened. If the investigation is done properly it will point to one or more culprits that made the tragedy possible. If there isn't any criminal prosecution I would at least expect a wrongful death lawsuit against the movie production.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

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....

[Leo Enticknap]

They did release The Crow, and I seem to remember that there was a French Revolution costume drama made back in the silent period, in which an actress was actually guillotined on set (the idea was to do two takes and merge them in post: one with a cardboard blade and the actress, and the other with a real blade and a tailor's dummy; but the blades were mixed up), also released. But this is going to be a litigious and insurance saga. Without wanting to come across as overly callous, a cinematographer is more easily replaceable than talent in front of the camera, and therefore the insurer may reject any claim arising from a decision to abandon the production entirely. Ms. Hutchins's life insurer will be one in a very long line of litigants against the production company, I would imagine.

No one is going to want to go see it.

I fear that there will be some ghouls who'll actively look it out. It would be a very tough sell for theaters, though. If it is completed, then straight to streaming with very little publicity would be my guess. It'll make less than it would have done in a conventional release, but will not lose as much as if the production were to be completely abandoned.

[Martin McCaffery]

The released the Twilight Zone movie after the helicopter death of Vic Morrow and a couple of kids. They'll stick and In Memorium title card at the end and move on.
Maybe, if they haven't gotten too deep in the shoot, they can cancel it. But if enough film is in the can the movie will get released.

And now this:

Alec Baldwin 'Rust' camera crew walked off the set in protest before the fatal shooting

Meg James 5 hrs ago

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Lethal prop gun fired by Alec Baldwin had misfired before


Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pays out $25,000 to Democrat for…
Hours before actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of "Rust" with a prop gun, a half-dozen camera crew workers walked off the set to protest working conditions.