Merged: Alec Baldwin fatally shoots crewmember on set of movie with prop gun

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Ranb

Ever hear the "I didn't know it was loaded" excuse for various firearm related accidents?

No.

[Delphic Oracle]

Originally Posted by xjx388

And Alec Baldwin, who was the one actually pulling the trigger. Anyone who is going to handle a gun should be trained in gun safety. I don’t think Alec can 100% pass this responsibility off onto other parties.

If you don’t know how to check a gun to see whether or not it’s dangerous to point at someone else, then you have no business actually pointing it at someone else.

An actor is trying to maintain a persona, their motivations, how to deliver a performance that imparts understanding of their state of mind, etc.

The gun is supposed to be prepared and inspected for them so they don't get distracted from what they are being paid for...to act!

Why do I have a mark on the floor indicating where and at what orientation they should stand to be in the right place in the camera frame? How hard can "stand right here" be?

Why have a caterer? Doesn't Alec Baldwin know how to cook food for himself?

Why does a rock guitarist have someone else tune their guitar and bring it to them between songs?

Because we need them to stay "in the zone" artistically speaking and not get distracted by procedural necessities.

In all kinds of media/event production, most jobs are basically "taking things off the plate" of the visible figures who are holding the audience's attention.

Quote:

And why does anyone think pointing a gun at someone else gets a pass because it was a movie shoot? I call BS. Alec Baldwin is just as responsible as anyone else, being the one who pulled the trigger. Giving him a pass is dangerous.

It "gets a pass" because there are procedures.

Pointing a verified empty gun at people involves no risk.

Pointing a gun with blanks at people with a ballistic shield in place is a very minimal risk.

I've read they did have a plexiglass screen, but it was not bulletproof. I have no idea if Baldwin could have been aware of this. Technically that would offer some protection from blanks at a fair distance, but I don't believe non-ballistic barriers are part of the protocol (another corner-cutting). Those are usually only for protecting equipment from things like water, fake blood, dust and fog being blown around and other not potentially lethal considerations.

Again, there should literally never be a real, actual bullet on set at all.

Someone used a term meant for describing a gun with no "live" (normal or blank round) ammo of any kind in the gun as it was handed to him. This fit perfectly with what would be expected for "rehearsal" (blocking). One would only expect "hot gun" after the cameras were rolling, slated, and the next words expected would be "action." He saw a barrier between himself and others, as expected in this situation.

Everything passed the "smell test" from his perspective.

[Bob001]

Crew member says Baldwin was generally careful about guns. Others say there was a lot wrong on this set. This was appaently a scene rehearsal; gun shouldn't have been loaded with anything.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cr...out&li=BBnb7Kz

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Ranb

Ever hear the "I didn't know it was loaded" excuse for various firearm related accidents? This is what I'm hearing when an actor thinks they are not responsible for each piece of lead they pretend to, or actually, put down range.

They aren't it is the armorers job. Actors simply are not trained for it and it isn't. Look into the Props to History ticktock channel that addresses how this is handled.

Shooting movies is a very unique situation and has different safety procedures.

You are asking for more continuity errors when the actor holding position checks the firearm and of course needs to be trained to identify the proper blank cartridge's when they switch out the non firing prop gun for the loaded prop gun.

The nature of filming has different methodologies for safety than other firearms handling.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by xjx388

And Alec Baldwin, who was the one actually pulling the trigger. Anyone who is going to handle a gun should be trained in gun safety. I don’t think Alec can 100% pass this responsibility off onto other parties.

If you don’t know how to check a gun to see whether or not it’s dangerous to point at someone else, then you have no business actually pointing it at someone else.

And why does anyone think pointing a gun at someone else gets a pass because it was a movie shoot? I call BS. Alec Baldwin is just as responsible as anyone else, being the one who pulled the trigger. Giving him a pass is dangerous.

Got it you should outlaw movie shots of the camera looking down the barrel of a gun and it firing. Just be clear on what you find reprehensible. You need to boycott any movie that has such a shot in it.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Bob001

Crew member says Baldwin was generally careful about guns. Others say there was a lot wrong on this set. This was appaently a scene rehearsal; gun shouldn't have been loaded with anything.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cr...out&li=BBnb7Kz

Those are not actually inconsistent, Baldwin criticized and walked off the set in protest of the crew being asked to put in 17 hour days and not having local hotel accommodations.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by ponderingturtle

They aren't it is the armorers job. Actors simply are not trained for it and it isn't. Look into the Props to History ticktock channel that addresses how this is handled.

Shooting movies is a very unique situation and has different safety procedures.

You are asking for more continuity errors when the actor holding position checks the firearm and of course needs to be trained to identify the proper blank cartridge's when they switch out the non firing prop gun for the loaded prop gun.

The nature of filming has different methodologies for safety than other firearms handling.

If a person is going to handle a real gun then they most definitely should be trained or it. Their profession has no relevance and is no excuse for lack of training.

Originally Posted by ponderingturtle

Got it you should outlaw movie shots of the camera looking down the barrel of a gun and it firing. Just be clear on what you find reprehensible. You need to boycott any movie that has such a shot in it.

Such shots can be routinely made with remotely operated cameras. There is absolutely no reason for a camera operator, director, or any other person to be in the path of a potential projectile.

[JoeMorgue]

You're fixating on the scenario where an actor is handed a hot gun and catches the mistake instead of the most more likely scenario of dangerous situations arising from actors second guessing armorers.

Again 3 incidents (well two and a maybe) in 40 years. The alternative timeline where every actor gets to go "No I'm the gun expert" I imagine has a lot more than 3.

Not sure what we are trying to fix here.

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

You're fixating on the scenario where an actor is handed a hot gun and catches the mistake instead of the most more likely scenario of dangerous situations arising from actors second guessing armorers.

Again 3 incidents (well two and a maybe) in 40 years. The alternative timeline where every actor gets to go "No I'm the gun expert" I imagine has a lot more than 3.

I dunno. There are many complexities to prop guns and blanks and whatever where deference to a qualified expert is necessary like you say, but "totally unloaded gun" seems like something basic enough to check that everyone handling it should personally verify. Either the cylinders are empty or they aren't and it takes less than 10 seconds to be sure.

This is the kind of thing that is covered in rudimentary gun safety classes. With a 30 minute safety seminar you can be taught to always verify that a weapon you are handed is unloaded.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Steve

If a person is going to handle a real gun then they most definitely should be trained or it. Their profession has no relevance and is no excuse for lack of training.

And they do to varying degrees for varying shoots. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Baldwin would be perfectly capable, but in this case he needs to be focused on his performance and that is why they outsource the set up of the gun to a professional.

Quote:

Such shots can be routinely made with remotely operated cameras. There is absolutely no reason for a camera operator, director, or any other person to be in the path of a potential projectile.

And maybe from now on they will, it will depend a lot on how the round got onto set.

I see we need lots of changes in the military also, I mean a tank gunner can not trust his loader to load and should do it himself. Pilots need to personally load all the ammo into their craft and so forth.

You know safety regulations are written in blood right?

[Mike!]

I'm going to have a hard time not holding Baldwin primarily responsible for this in the end. He's been working in film for almost 40 years, made lots of movies, I'd say a good double digit percentage of them with a gun in his hand. This was a revolver, it's extremely simple to take a moment to look and see if it is loaded or not, just to be sure. It's not like a semiautomatic where taking the clip out still likely leaves one still in the chamber. I have to believe he's been given enumerable lessons in gun safety through his acting career. No matter what he was told, he should have checked it himself one more time before "practicing" with it. That simple. No excuses. None. It's on him. Now, no doubt, there are others who are also culpable, but in the end, the gun was in Baldwin's hand, and he pulled the trigger. "I didn't know it was loaded." doesn't work for normal folk, and it shouldn't work for him ether.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Mike!

I'm going to have a hard time not holding Baldwin primarily responsible for this in the end. He's been working in film for almost 40 years, made lots of movies, I'd say a good double digit percentage of them with a gun in his hand. This was a revolver, it's extremely simple to take a moment to look and see if it is loaded or not, just to be sure. It's not like a semiautomatic where taking the clip out still likely leaves one still in the chamber. I have to believe he's been given enumerable lessons in gun safety through his acting career. No matter what he was told, he should have checked it himself one more time before "practicing" with it. That simple. No excuses. None. It's on him. Now, no doubt, there are others who are also culpable, but in the end, the gun was in Baldwin's hand, and he pulled the trigger. "I didn't know it was loaded." doesn't work for normal folk, and it shouldn't work for him ether.

Keep in mind it was supposed to be loaded, just not with a live round.

[Warp12]

From FOX:

Quote:

Alec Baldwin was given prop gun by crew member who had a previous safety complaint against him

The "Rust" crew member who reportedly gave Alec Baldwin a prop gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was previously the subject of a safety complaint.

Crew member Maggie Goll said in a statement to The Associated Press that she filed an internal complaint with the executive producers of Hulu’s "Into the Dark" series in 2019 over concerns about assistant director Dave Halls' behavior on set.

Goll said in an email Sunday that Halls disregarded safety protocols for weapons and pyrotechnics and tried to continue filming after a crew member had "slipped into a diabetic fugue state."

[SuburbanTurkey]

As a universal safety principle, seems to me no firearm prop or otherwise should ever be pointed at another person. How hard is it to set up scenes and angles such that firearms are always pointed slightly off axis from another person?

Thinking of the Brandon Lee killing, even if a scene requires one actor shooting a prop gun at another, setting up the angles such that the camera doesn't capture that the gun is slightly off target seems simple enough and adds a huge safety benefit.

There's really no excuse for this kind of accident on a movie set. There should be multiple layers of redundant safety to make a single point of failure not a cause of accident. Perhaps these movie studios aren't trustworthy enough to do this safely.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

As a universal safety principle, seems to me no firearm prop or otherwise should ever be pointed at another person. How hard is it to set up scenes and angles such that firearms are always pointed slightly off axis from another person?

Thinking of the Brandon Lee killing, even if a scene requires one actor shooting a prop gun at another, setting up the angles such that the camera doesn't capture that the gun is slightly off target seems simple enough and adds a huge safety benefit.

I don't see that as being a reliable method of safety. For one, you are counting on a human to properly aim the weapon in what may be an intense action scene.

Better to engineer out the problem, imo. That is always the first choice. If the prop gun is incapable of firing, that would seem to be the best option.

Anytime you are relying strictly upon procedure, there is a potential for error.

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by Warp12

I don't see that as being a reliable method of safety. For one, you are counting on a human to properly aim the weapon in what may be an intense action scene.

Better to engineer out the problem, imo. That is always the first choice. If the prop gun is incapable of firing, that would seem to be the best option.

Sure. but that would involve hiring highly specialized and expensive armorers rather than these scab budget guys.

A lot of blame is rightly being targeted towards the technical failures leading up to this workplace death, but it's important to remember that management is largely responsible for who gets hired and how rigorously safety standards are enforced. Being safe often means delays and added expense, and this is a obvious place to start cutting corners for unscrupulous managerial types.

An off the shelf pistol loaded with blanks is obviously much more dangerous, and also much cheaper than a bespoke non-firing prop gun that is intrinsically safer.

Whoever hired these idiots has has a lot of responsibility in this disaster. We shouldn't let management delegate away their responsibility for running a safe workplace.

[Warp12]

Quote:

According to a search warrant executed by the Santa Fe County Sheriff's office, obtained by Fox News, the actor and crew were setting up a shot that required Baldwin to cross-draw a revolver and point the weapon at the camera. However, thanks to a shadow that was coming into the church structure from light outside, the camera had to be adjusted to a different angle. Baldwin was working with the director and the cinematographer demonstrating how he was going to draw his revolver from its holster and where his arm would be for the new shot. While demonstrating, the firearm went off.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...hutchins-death

Sounds like he pulled the trigger when maybe he didn't need to? Not that it should have been a loaded weapon, anyway. But...

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

As a universal safety principle, seems to me no firearm prop or otherwise should ever be pointed at another person. How hard is it to set up scenes and angles such that firearms are always pointed slightly off axis from another person?

Thinking of the Brandon Lee killing, even if a scene requires one actor shooting a prop gun at another, setting up the angles such that the camera doesn't capture that the gun is slightly off target seems simple enough and adds a huge safety benefit.

There's really no excuse for this kind of accident on a movie set. There should be multiple layers of redundant safety to make a single point of failure not a cause of accident. Perhaps these movie studios aren't trustworthy enough to do this safely.

But this was pointed at the camera and the director of photography and the director of the film were behind it. Yes as a rule for when actors are to be seen firing blanks at other actors they should not be pointing the gun directly at them when firing but of course that is an ideal world and not all gun fights in film are static so even if they try to do that they will likely sweep past other actors and might accidentally shoot toward them instead of next to them.

[Mike!]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

Sure. but that would involve hiring highly specialized and expensive armorers rather than these scab budget guys.

A lot of blame is rightly being targeted towards the technical failures leading up to this workplace death, but it's important to remember that management is largely responsible for who gets hired and how rigorously safety standards are enforced. Being safe often means delays and added expense, and this is a obvious place to start cutting corners for unscrupulous managerial types.

An off the shelf pistol loaded with blanks is obviously much more dangerous, and also much cheaper than a bespoke non-firing prop gun that is intrinsically safer.

Whoever hired these idiots has has a lot of responsibility in this disaster.

Somebody like the person writing the checks? Isn't that the Producer?

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

Sure. but that would involve hiring highly specialized and expensive armorers rather than these scab budget guys.

A lot of blame is rightly being targeted towards the technical failures leading up to this workplace death, but it's important to remember that management is largely responsible for who gets hired and how rigorously safety standards are enforced. Being safe often means delays and added expense, and this is a obvious place to start cutting corners for unscrupulous managerial types.

An off the shelf pistol loaded with blanks is obviously much more dangerous, and also much cheaper than a bespoke non-firing prop gun that is intrinsically safer.

Whoever hired these idiots has has a lot of responsibility in this disaster. We shouldn't let management delegate away their responsibility for running a safe workplace.

Um they could well have been using non fireable replicas in scenes that did not involve the guns being shot, as they likely have several of the main guns it makes sense that only some of them be fireable.

Non firing replicas of wild west guns are pretty inexpensive and available but you still need ones to shoot blanks when that is what is called for.

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by Mike!

Somebody like the person writing the checks? Isn't that the Producer?

Probably. Some producers are in charge of management, some are just passive investors. Somewhere along the line the studio or the producers or the director or whoever is in charge of the set. I'm not too familiar with how movies are made to know exactly who that is.

Baldwin is reportedly a producer and an actor in the movie. How responsible he was for the managerial decisions leading up to this safety incident remains to be seen, but I think there's more of a chance that he's culpable than if he were just the actor.

[crescent]

Lots of people in this thread blaming Baldwin for the standard practices of an entire industry.

The actor is responsible if they don't check the gun? Great - then change the entire industry in which that's currently not the actor's job because there is a person on set who does that for them as their primary job on-set.


(EAT: Blaming Baldwin in his role as producer may have some validity as that could give him some control over hiring practices and other business decisions. But blaming him because as an actor he didn't check the gun is just blaming him for following standard industry practice.)

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by ponderingturtle

Um they could well have been using non fireable replicas in scenes that did not involve the guns being shot, as they likely have several of the main guns it makes sense that only some of them be fireable.

Non firing replicas of wild west guns are pretty inexpensive and available but you still need ones to shoot blanks when that is what is called for.

If you really wanted to be safe, custom cylinders could be made that don't fit commercially available live ammo. I'm just spitballing, but revolvers especially would be pretty easy to make that could not fire a real bullet. This would be expensive compared to just feeding blanks into a real gun, requiring both a custom gun and custom sized blank ammo, but would obviously be much safer.

It's almost always possible to do things safely, it's just a matter of whether or not they're willing to pay what it costs to do so.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

If you really wanted to be safe, custom cylinders could be made that don't fit commercially available live ammo. I'm just spitballing, but revolvers especially would be pretty easy to make that could not fire a real bullet. This would be expensive compared to just feeding blanks into a real gun, requiring both a custom gun and custom sized blank ammo, but would obviously be much safer.

Yes revolvers and other manual guns would be much easier to make so they can only fire blanks, though automatics need to be able to cycle. That is why the berretta was much more popular in film than the glock, it cycled more reliably with blank ammo.

Not sure how practical it is to engineer versions of firearms that only fire special differently sized blank cartridges. There is a degree of safety vs cost that will come into play in anything comes into play here.

Quote:

It's almost always possible to do things safely, it's just a matter of whether or not they're willing to pay what it costs to do so.

And the way that the movie industry has been doing it safely is using armorers who's job it is to make sure they are safe.

We need to see exactly what happened to know what could be done better. I want to know how a live round even got onto set.

[JoeMorgue]

Again I'd argue 3(ish) incidents in 40 years IS doing it safely.

There's probably a hundred gun ranges in the United States with worse track records than that.

The numbers don't change just because one incident is recent and in the news.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

If you really wanted to be safe, custom cylinders could be made that don't fit commercially available live ammo. I'm just spitballing, but revolvers especially would be pretty easy to make that could not fire a real bullet. This would be expensive compared to just feeding blanks into a real gun, requiring both a custom gun and custom sized blank ammo, but would obviously be much safer.

It's almost always possible to do things safely, it's just a matter of whether or not they're willing to pay what it costs to do so.

It would be cheaper - apparently if you are using firearms with the potential to fire something you have someone whose job is to look after them and check them over. Move to having a solid piece of plastic that resembles a gun but is not a gun and could never fire and you don't need that person.

Will it be as "realistic" as having a gun, probably not but we are talking about an entire industry built on being not realistic!

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Darat

It would be cheaper - apparently if you are using firearms with the potential to fire something you have someone whose job is to look after them and check them over. Move to having a solid piece of plastic that resembles a gun but is not a gun and could never fire and you don't need that person.

Will it be as "realistic" as having a gun, probably not but we are talking about an entire industry built on being not realistic!

And just have the actors shout bang instead of firing blanks.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

Again I'd argue 3(ish) incidents in 40 years IS doing it safely.

There's probably a hundred gun ranges in the United States with worse track records than that.

The numbers don't change just because one incident is recent and in the news.

I agree, despite the almost ubiquitous nature of guns in USA productions there seems to be very few incidents, especially of the fatal kind, which would seem to me to indicate that the safety procedures are well thought out and do their job.

As ever in any real-world situation you can never guarantee 100% safety 100% of the time.

[Warp12]

I would imagine that some of the additional costs incurred with a safer prop might be offset by reduced insurance costs? If worse comes to worst, you can always reduce the catering budget.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by ponderingturtle

And just have the actors shout bang instead of firing blanks.

Only if they are provided with ear protection!

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Warp12

I would imagine that some of the additional costs incurred with a safer prop might be offset by reduced insurance costs? If worse comes to worst, you can always reduce the catering budget.

Why would there need be any increase in cost?

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Darat

Why would there need be any increase in cost?

Maybe there doesn't "need" to be. But, I wouldn't consider it unexpected if there were. This would be a specialized product, engineered for that specific application. I can easily see additional associated costs.

[JoeMorgue]

And as I noted earlier I can, just off the top of my head, think of way more than 3 stuntmen, stunt drivers, and stunt pilots who have died and we still use stunts and stunt driving and stunt flying.

If Goddamn John Landis is still an active Executive Producer I'm not ready to wheel out the gallows for Baldwin.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Darat

Why would there need be any increase in cost?

Well using specially made guns vs buying guns would be more expensive. And I don't think the rate of these kind of accidents is high enough to cause any difference in their insurance rates.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

And as I noted earlier I can, just off the top of my head, think of way more than 3 stuntmen, stunt drivers, and stunt pilots who have died and we still use stunts and stunt driving and stunt flying.

While this is true, it seems to me that many high-risk practical effects are often replaced with CGI, these days.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Warp12

Maybe there doesn't "need" to be. But, I wouldn't consider it unexpected if there were. This would be a specialized product, engineered for that specific application. I can easily see additional associated costs.

Even if you wanted a "to the eye" replica I am sure a 3D printed replica will cost a lot less than a real gun.
And most of these




look like a gun to me and the most expensive is only £13.99, how much is a handgun?

[crescent]

Originally Posted by Darat

It would be cheaper - apparently if you are using firearms with the potential to fire something you have someone whose job is to look after them and check them over. Move to having a solid piece of plastic that resembles a gun but is not a gun and could never fire and you don't need that person.

Will it be as "realistic" as having a gun, probably not but we are talking about an entire industry built on being not realistic!

Originally Posted by Warp12

Maybe there doesn't "need" to be. But, I wouldn't consider it unexpected if there were. This would be a specialized product, engineered for that specific application. I can easily see additional associated costs.

The choice of gun can be a driving factor how people perceive a movie - for some, the wrong gun a scene just pulls them right our of the suspension of disbelief. Not hard to find people going on endlessly about some character in a period movie using a gun that was not produced until a decade after the movie was made, or a soldier in a movie using a rifle that was not typically issued to whatever military unit that soldier is supposed to be in. It really blows gaskets in some people.

So for fully-nonfunctional/non-possibly-functional replica prop guns, they would need a whole lot of them, made to look accurate. Some big-budget movies do that - Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers did that, making rubber replicas of many of the guns used by the soldiers portrayed, but a smaller budget movie can't quite do that.

Add to that some level of interactivity with the gun - loading it, cocking the hammer, spinning a revolver cylinder, racking the slide on a semi-auto, cracking open the way some shotguns and revolvers do, any of that kind of stuff. The kind of stuff we've all seen in a million movies.

At that point, you are getting to the point where it gets much, much easier to just use a real gun. Possibly a replica of an older gun, but a full function replica that can shoot real bullets. Possibly a gun that's been modified so it can't fire, but which started its life as a real gun.

I mean, even Han Solo carried a real gun. His "blaster" was a Mauser modified with a bunch of junk added on to make it look futuristic. But the core was a real gun, built to shoot bullets.

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by Darat

Even if you wanted a "to the eye" replica I am sure a 3D printed replica will cost a lot less than a real gun.
And most of these

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...6be6417b57.jpg


look like a gun to me and the most expensive is only £13.99, how much is a handgun?

The expense comes when you want the ability to fire blanks. Nonfiring replicas are cheap, like you say, and seem inherently safe.

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by crescent

The choice of gun can be a driving factor how people perceive a movie - for some, the wrong gun a scene just pulls them right our of the suspension of disbelief.

Well those people can just get over it.

"Oh my God that's a Beretta 92FS not a Beretta M9 LOL Movie ruined forever" can go in the corner with the "OMG that person's grip on the Katana is .00000000002 centimeters too high I know while you were partying I studied the blade" and the "Akcusually that's a Panzer Type 345, the actual tank they should have used is a Panzer Type 344 which is identical except for the lugnuts go on counter-clockwise" types.

[Captain_Swoop]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

Sure. but that would involve hiring highly specialized and expensive armorers rather than these scab budget guys.

A lot of blame is rightly being targeted towards the technical failures leading up to this workplace death, but it's important to remember that management is largely responsible for who gets hired and how rigorously safety standards are enforced. Being safe often means delays and added expense, and this is a obvious place to start cutting corners for unscrupulous managerial types.

An off the shelf pistol loaded with blanks is obviously much more dangerous, and also much cheaper than a bespoke non-firing prop gun that is intrinsically safer.

Whoever hired these idiots has has a lot of responsibility in this disaster. We shouldn't let management delegate away their responsibility for running a safe workplace.

Airsoft pistols are cheap and accurate reproductions.