That’s one of the major questions. The armorer claims the weapons and ammo provided are to blame. Other accounts claim the armorer went target shooting with real ammo and mixed the real rounds into the dummies. Ammunition supplier "created a perfect storm" for Alec Baldwin's deadly "Rust" shooting, lawsuit says - CBS News Still a lot of open questions.
They can look the same if they're loaded in a firearm and you don't look closely. Meaning, if the rounds are loaded in a revolver and you only look at the open cylinder, you might not be able to tell the difference if they haven't been colored. All you would see is the rear end of the round with the primer installed. Held in hand, there is no mistaking a blank from a live round. It's obvious.
Yes, while this is true, I don't think the average Joe on the street has enough experience with real ammo, and blanks, to feel the difference....It can be significant when you know the difference, but it is not always apparent by feel. Most blank ammo has the word "blank" stamped on it somewhere, usually on the case like this, or having a blank paper disc covering the end of the round. Or it is crimped, without a bullet, like this. The problem with all blanks is they emit a percussive blast, even if quite a bit less than a live round, because they use powder to make the bang. This percussive blast is dangerous, and even deadly, at close enough ranges. If the blank is using a paper disc, like many shotgun blanks, that tiny disc does fly out with enough force to injure at close range. While that "close" range is very close, it still carries real danger and should not be fooled around with. People hurt themselves fairly often when they get to fooling around with blanks thinking nothing will happen because they are blanks. The more and more we learn about the Baldwin incident the more it is apparent all involved safety protocols were not followed, and responsible parties failed at numerous stages to arrive at the horrible result. At this stage of techniques, and technology, I really don't know why a real gun, and real ammo should ever be on a movie set. Most of the time the gunshot is dubbed in anyway because a real shot, as heard on film, does not have the same sound as most directors want a gun to sound like. If they need a percussion and puff of smoke to make it look real, that is easy to accomplish with imitation guns and ammo.
Anyone remember that Brady Bunch / Jessie James episode? They insured no one would be hurt when Jesse started shooting the family on the train. The Youtube clip is age restricted, so can't show it here.
That’s fine. There is no way to engineer real looking fake guns that can produce smoke or whatever? I can’t buy that. They don’t open up the actors skull for brain surgery on set for OR scenes. I just cannot believe actual props can’t be made, weight and all. Sound effects are added anyway.
Sure they can. It’s a question of expense as shooting a blank is much cheaper than CGI. There’s also the question of realism of recoil, etc. But yes, ideally this is an area where technical advances could make things a whole lot safer.
Here's what Michael Shannon, who has made his share of movies/etc using firearms, had to say about how things are supposed to be done on a movie set and what wasn't done on this one: Actor Michael Shannon says the ‘Rust’ fiasco is about more than gun safety — ‘this is what comes of making a movie on the cheap’ as an aside: Gene Hackman is 93 today
The search warrant application affidavit I read implies from witness statements that the single action Colt 45 revolver involved was loaded with 4 dummy rounds and one live round. It also indicates three people handled the revolver. The armorer, the assistant director and the actor. The assistant director clearly wasn’t familiar with firearms nomenclature. He calls the gate a “hatch” and the cylinder a “drum”. I wouldn’t be comfortable trusting that a single action revolver was loaded with dummies without actually taking the rounds out of the cylinder. Or having someone do it for me in my presence if protocol precludes me from doing so as an actor. And in the case of a 1873 period single action revolver it is common practice to load only five rounds of the six chambers and have the hammer resting on an empty chamber. That keeps the hammer from accidentally being struck and discharging a live round. It remains to be seen if testimony in a trial is consistent with the statements the detective swore to on the search warrant affidavit. It will be interesting if it gets that far.
Hexum had a gun with a blank in it, but he held the gun so close to his head when he pulled the trigger that the force of the gunpowder blew a hole in his skull which caused massive bleeding, from which he did not recover.
CGI is cheap in movies nowadays, and it's convincing enough that nobody's gonna notice anymore when non-shooting prop guns are used in movies. I've read that even film purist Quentin Tarantino uses prop guns and CGI on his movies now. That trend will only increase after this. I believe there's been a big push by people in the industry to ban working firearms on sets altogether. dan c
Sounds like a great idea. Makes perfect sense. If the performers cannot handle real firearms safely, they should not be around them.
No surprise there. It is astounding to me how many Hollywood movies and shows heavily feature firearms, while demonstrating profound ignorance as to how they function or how they're properly used. Even when the character is supposed to be a firearms expert, we see finger's on the trigger when they should not be. We see them holding a sidearm as though it were a cup of tea. We see one actor sweeping another (pointing the muzzle in an unsafe direction). We see actions in scenes that make no sense, like twisting the turret on a rifle scope while looking through the eyepiece...while his finger is on the trigger of course! The writers are even worse, with dialog that makes zero sense. And don't get me started on the follies. How many times do we see the armed character "cock" or even de-cock a semi-automatic pistol? They just love that sound, but one cannot cock a Glock! More ignorance displayed every time a character racks a slide on a pistol or a pump shotgun when those firearms are loaded...and yet no round is expelled. It just makes them look ridiculous, IMO. Is it the Director that has bad guys fly 15 feet backwards after being shot with a .38? Hmm...magic bullets there pal? Better yet, a revolver that typically holds six rounds firing dozens of times without reloading. Hmm..a magic cylinder to go with those bullets??? If firearms were only occasionally featured in films or were downplayed, I'd cut 'em some slack and suspend disbelieve. But Hollywood is HYPER-FOCUSED on guns in film. You'd think those involved would have a modicum of understanding, but that is just not my experience on film or apparently, on the set.
Some of it is the same lack of knowledge that touches any subject Hollywood touches (hacking for instance is usually hilarious off in movies). But not everything is meant to be realistic, which I feel get missed a lot in this forum. Some of your critique is like watching a musical and complaining that people don’t spontaneously burst into song. For example, John Woo wasn’t making documentaries, but he created some of the most visceral gun focused action scenes ever committed to film. That wasn’t an accident or being misinformed. He just thought it looked cool and he was right. John Wick and others are fruit from this tree. More recently something like Indian film RRR drives the concept of intentional unrealistic action home with action sequences involving real people that are completely unbound by the rules of physics. That’s just a cinematic technique.
It's really hard to mess up the system.....if using a real gun, lock it up and only it, load it with blanks, double triple check by multiple people, the only way to screw it up is to take it out when you're not shooting and,,,,,,,have target practice with it? pretty crazy and sad this happened
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Actor Alec Baldwin and a weapons specialist have been formally charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a New Mexico movie set, according to court documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday. Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies filed the charging documents naming Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who supervised weapons on the set of the Western “Rust,” and outlined evidence that they deviated repeatedly from known safety standards. Manslaughter charge for Alec Baldwin in 'Rust' set shooting
Heard on CBS radio today that the DA has photo evidence from the set of Baldwin's finger on the trigger and forensic proof that he pulled the trigger contrary to his statements. The reporter also said that Baldwin had missed weapons training that was mandated and/or was on the phone during training and instruction. The thinking now is that a plea deal will be struck before this goes to court. Maximum sentence would be 5 years. He's not going to expose himself to that kind of risk.
Baldwin's character was supposed to eventually fire the weapon for the scene, which makes me think with all of the disfunction and carelessness on the set that this tragedy was inevitable. It just happened during a rehearsal instead of a real take. How would Baldwin checking the firearm before shooting the actual take change the fact that it was loaded with real ammo? Up to now, it seemed impossibly stupid that real ammo would get anywhere near a prop gun that would be fired directly at the crew. Also, an actor's job is to act, not moonlight as an armorer. I think the main thing they might have Baldwin on is that he was one of the producers on the movie, but even that's kind of misleading these days since a "producer" credit can mean anything and is often given to multiple people who are doing very little if any hands-on producing. Ultimately, like mentioned earlier, working firearms on movie sets will soon become as obsolete as Mitchell cameras and Kodak Plus X (though I wish more filmmakers would use the latter again). dan c
"Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who supervised weapons on the set..." A 24 year old. Must have been a cheap hire.