Accident on the set of Rust.

[Dsimdude]

Not any knowledge of movie rearms.... but are there "prop" revolvers with functioning/rotating barrels that have "fake" (not blanks) bullets/casings permanently in the chamber for the realistic look when filming up the barrel of the gun, or for closeups? In other words, why do any film/tv productions nowadays need to use real firearms even if they "only" have blanks?

They don't (and I'm an actor who's been on stage and on movie sets for over 40 years). Which is why this was particularly tragic, because it should have been avoidable. Gun safety 101 says "always treat every weapon you're handed as if it's loaded!"

Baldwin, however, is a notorious anti-gun zealot. I doubt he was ever taught the proper way to handle a weapon, or ever attended a gun safety class.

 

[TazMan2000]

100% wrong. First of all, you don't hand the child a loaded gun. It's a child.

As an adult, if someone hands you a gun, check it. Period.

Yes, 'Joe' is also at fault. But you cannot hire someone to take the blame because you feel you're too famous for basic safety.



Actors are supposed to check their weapons. Always. Others should check it as well, but if you are the one pulling the trigger, you're criminally stupid if you don't look every single time you touch it.

Also you're not supposed to aim at people. You make it look like you are to the camera, but don't do it. Is a close up requires it, it should only be a fake gun, not even blanks, the prop team needs to check when they hand it to you, you need to check it, and NEVER let it leave your possession after you check until after the scene. If you have to put it down or hand it to someone else, check again when you get it back, and the guy getting it held against his head should watch you check it.

This is not Monday morning quarter back, this is what you do. Every time.

Anyone who doesn't or is too busy, is criminally negligent at best.

And yes, I've been in charge of guns on shows. Catch an actor pointing at a human, even in the scene, and he's fired. First offense. Unless he's too famous to be fired or care about your little rules that aren't for him. In which case: you quit.

If you've worked on show sets with weapons, then I surrender to your experience.

But the "giving a gun to a child" comment was an analogy and wasn't meant to be taken literally.
Who would be at fault, if a person totally new to weapons walks into a gun store, explains that he's a total noob and wants to get into the sport of target shooting? The clerk hands him a loaded firearm (either knowingly or unknowingly) for him to 'feel the weight'? The clerk assures him that it is unloaded. The customer being so inexperienced, pulls the trigger and the bullet goes through a wall and injures a worker in the back.
Ok, the above is a bit of a stretch, but it is an analogy.

All of these armchair quarterbacks, me included, are either blaming Baldwin or trying to exonerate him (perhaps on how we feel about him personally and not all about the facts). Do you blame the last snowflake or the avalanche?

TazMan2000

 

[Moviefreak]

I don’t like Baldwin, but I’m not blaming him. Sure, he should check out the gun, and maybe he did. If I was handed a gun, and I am VERY inexperienced handling guns, and I look it over, I might very well miss something. I would open it. I would look at the bullets to ensure they are blanks, I might even look in the end of the barrel to see if something obvious is wedged in there, but unless I take the barrel off, or get a light and something to push down the barrel to see if anything else is in there, I might miss something. And again, being so inexperienced, I wouldn’t even know what to look for inside. I would assume a quick glance in the barrel was sufficient. That is why I, the inexperienced actor, would hope and assume that they hired experts in their position. I would assume the proper person was inspecting and making up for my lack of experience.

 

[dascoyne]

Let us not argue about the degree of blame. Can we all at least agree that we are dealing with involuntary manslaughter on the part of the actor?

 

[Axlotl]

Let us not argue about the degree of blame. Can we all at least agree that we are dealing with involuntary manslaughter on the part of the actor?

And the propmaster, and the assistant director...

 

[Axlotl]

100% wrong. First of all, you don't hand the child a loaded gun. It's a child.

As an adult, if someone hands you a gun, check it. Period.

Yes, 'Joe' is also at fault. But you cannot hire someone to take the blame because you feel you're too famous for basic safety.



Actors are supposed to check their weapons. Always. Others should check it as well, but if you are the one pulling the trigger, you're criminally stupid if you don't look every single time you touch it.

Also you're not supposed to aim at people. You make it look like you are to the camera, but don't do it. Is a close up requires it, it should only be a fake gun, not even blanks, the prop team needs to check when they hand it to you, you need to check it, and NEVER let it leave your possession after you check until after the scene. If you have to put it down or hand it to someone else, check again when you get it back, and the guy getting it held against his head should watch you check it.

This is not Monday morning quarter back, this is what you do. Every time.

Anyone who doesn't or is too busy, is criminally negligent at best.

And yes, I've been in charge of guns on shows. Catch an actor pointing at a human, even in the scene, and he's fired. First offense. Unless he's too famous to be fired or care about your little rules that aren't for him. In which case: you quit.

1000% wrong.
If I hand someone a loaded weapon, I am responsible for the consequences.
It's absolute idiocy to assume everyone has the same knowledge and training in firearms that we do. The safe bet is to assume they don't and take safety measures for them. If you have gun training, you were taught this.

 

[TazMan2000]

Yup. Lots of blame to go around.

As a criminal matter, nobody will be held liable...probably. As a civil matter...oh boy!

TazMan2000

 

[Moviefreak]

Let us not argue about the degree of blame. Can we all at least agree that we are dealing with involuntary manslaughter on the part of the actor?

I don’t know. I am torn. If a airline pilot gets on a plane, that numerous mechanics and flight control tell him is ready and passed all safety checks, and he takes off only to find systems failing, they don’t blame him. They label it mechanical failure. This pilot was behind the controls of that plane, as was Alec behind the gun, but at what point does the person ahead of you in the chain bear more of the responsibility? I’m just spitballing here as I don’t really know the laws.

 

[dascoyne]

And the propmaster, and the assistant director...

...and ultimately the production company for the unsafe environment. And the producer happens to be the actor as well. It was his decision to push ahead with a last-minute "non-union" replacement crew.

 

[JoeG]

...and ultimately the production company for the unsafe environment. And the producer happens to be the actor as well. It was his decision to push ahead with a last-minute "non-union" replacement crew.

There were 11 other producers on this movie. Can you show me an article that quotes someone with actual knowledge of Baldwin being the one who made decisions about the crew? I haven't seen that written anywhere.

 

[dascoyne]

There were 11 other producers on this movie. Can you show me an article that quotes someone with actual knowledge of Baldwin being the one who made decisions about the crew? I haven't seen that written anywhere.

You are correct. I am guilty of editorializing a bit.

But he's first in the list of six producers on the list that I saw, and I presume he had a say as to moving the production along since he was there.

Of course it's entirely possible that he wasn't aware of the walk off or the replacements because it was concealed from him and that the gun was loaded with a flat-headed wadcutters that looked like blanks to his untrained eye. We are all editorializing to some degree.

 

[JediMichael]

We just need to let the investigators determine what all happened, and who all is responsible. Now if they are charged or not o er it....

 

[AJTaliesen]

If you've worked on show sets with weapons, then I surrender to your experience.

But the "giving a gun to a child" comment was an analogy and wasn't meant to be taken literally.
Who would be at fault, if a person totally new to weapons walks into a gun store, explains that he's a total noob and wants to get into the sport of target shooting? The clerk hands him a loaded firearm (either knowingly or unknowingly) for him to 'feel the weight'? The clerk assures him that it is unloaded. The customer being so inexperienced, pulls the trigger and the bullet goes through a wall and injures a worker in the back.
Ok, the above is a bit of a stretch, but it is an analogy.

They both are at fault. The clerk is certainly responsible for handing loaded weapon to customer, but the customer doesn't get excused for ignorance. Even the child from the earlier example needs to be told as early as possible to never trust a gun enough to fire it at a human.

That's my point here. More than one person had to screw up, but as the last link in the chain, you are always one of the ones accountable.

 

[blewis17]

As the fully accredited RPF theatrical props investigation team work this case, it will not become clear to them that this unfortunate death, was not a spur of the moment event.

But there will be seconds, minutes, hours and days where this could have been averted. The build up to every major incident is a catalogue of small, often apparently unconnected, disasters that ultimately conclude with the catastrophic main event.

The key, for our erstwhile investigators, is to dismiss all of the above and apportion blame, randomly, with vigour and to make a pre-emptive decision ahead of an official conclusion.

Because our team is not a cohesive unit using modern equipment with on-the-scene analysis, just individuals using old fashioned, blunt tools, bizarrely, one of them, at the end of this, will actually be correct.

In my field of medicine, we call this this Swiss Cheese model. A series of holes in multiple decisions along the way, that unfortunately line up to allow harm to pass through to the patient.

 

[cboath]

There were 11 other producers on this movie. Can you show me an article that quotes someone with actual knowledge of Baldwin being the one who made decisions about the crew? I haven't seen that written anywhere.

Yeah, 'producer' means nothing these days. I watched something a couple weeks ago and the opening credits hit 2/3 I his pause and rewound to count because it seemed ludicrous....Between producer and executive producer there were 17 (!!) people listed. 17!! Around 5 of them were actors in the show.

 

[Funky]

This might have been answered already (but I don’t think it has). If so, please forgive me as these posts have been coming fast and furious so I might have missed it.

Alec Baldwin fired the gun, yes?
One shot killed the cinematographer, yes?
One shot wounded the director, yes?

If my above questions are indeed true, Alec Baldwin concerns me.
WHY did he aim and fire at these two individuals??? If it were another actor in a scene that required him to shoot them, I can totally see this being an accident. But why is he aiming and firing at non-actors???
With that, why did he fire a SECOND time, hitting the director???

 

[Axlotl]

It was one shot. Passed through the cinematographer's shoulder and then hit the director. At least that's my understanding.

 

[Moviefreak]

This might have been answered already (but I don’t think it has). If so, please forgive me as these posts have been coming fast and furious so I might have missed it.

Alec Baldwin fired the gun, yes?
One shot killed the cinematographer, yes?
One shot wounded the director, yes?

If my above questions are indeed true, Alec Baldwin concerns me.
WHY did he aim and fire at these two individuals??? If it were another actor in a scene that required him to shoot them, I can totally see this being an accident. But why is he aiming and firing at non-actors???
With that, why did he fire a SECOND time, hitting the director???

Maybe it was like in Tombstone, where Kurt Russell aims at the camera to fire a shot? Maybe they asked him to aim at the lens.

 

[Malibu139]

Maybe it was like in Tombstone, where Kurt Russell aims at the camera to fire a shot? Maybe they asked him to aim at the lens.

Read an article this morning saying the cinematographer and director were setting the shot up and had not gone to the monitorsaway from the camera yet. During this time he was handed the gun and it read like he was practicing a draw. On the second draw it discharged

 

[Captain Dunsel]

I don’t get it…4 Seasons of gunplay like this, on The A-Team, and not one actor was ever injured (nor any character ever hit):