So, Alec Baldwin is involved in a terrible accident in which someone is killed with what should have been a set prop firearm.

And large numbers of people are so blinded by politics, anger, gun worship, gun hatred, or garden-variety ignorance that they cannot contemplate that this was likely the way many accidents happen. There is a safety procedure, guideline, or requirement in place, and someone deliberately cuts corners or is unaware of something they should have been aware of.

And everyone is primed to jump to conclusions based on no facts and without doing even minimal research to figure out whether their hasty conclusion could possibly be right.

So far, what is known about this is jaw-dropping for me. There is supposed to be an expert on the set to handle the weapons. Yet there are three guns just sitting on a tray, and the assistant director picks one up and hands it to the actor? Good lord.
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From the very first headline I saw about this, I thought the reporting/headline verbiage was really unfair and inaccurate.

The AD called out "cold gun," which told everyone that it was fine. Yes, this was a terrible accident. But we do need to wait for some more facts. And they will emerge. Was Baldwin horsing around with the "cold gun?" If so, he contributed to the negligence. How on earth did a live bullet wind up in one of the guns? Was that called for in a scene? We'll learn more about that, I'm sure.

If you have heard about the IATSE job action, incidents like this are precisely why the job action is needed. Production companies cut corners to save money, putting technicians in ridiculously unsafe working conditions all the time. If you speak out you don’t work. There are rumblings (I don’t know if they have been verified) that members of the crew walked off the set because of unsafe conditions in the days leading up to the incident. That wouldn’t surprise me at all. The industry is not safe and hasn’t ever been safe.

This has happened at least twice before.

Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son, was killed by a bullet in a gun that was supposed have a blank in it. He was filming a movie scene at the time. I think the story was that the gun had real bullets from a previous scene, but the one in the chamber stayed there when the gun was reloaded with blanks.

In aviation and I'm sure in other industries, there is the concept of a sterile environment where nothing that shouldn't be there isn't there. There should have not been a live bullet anywhere in the area.

I just read that the weapons handler was young, inexperienced, and in an interview just days earlier said she was uncomfortable with her skills for the job and not sure she was up to it.

quote:

Halyna, 42, was originally from Ukraine and grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle. She also worked as an investigative reporter in Europe before moving to Los Angeles to do film, according to her website.

She graduated from the American Film Institute in 2015 and was selected as one of American Cinematographer's Rising Stars of 2019, according to the biography on her website.

Halyna's friends and mentors at the film school helped establish a scholarship fund "to honor her memory and support aspiring female cinematographers," according to her husband Matt.

"Anyone seeking to honor her memory, please direct your giving to this fund," he tweeted.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u...na-hutchins-n1282208

The fund:

https://www.afi.com/halyna-hut...nd/?form=FUNYUNXCHMH

quote:

Originally posted by dolmansaxlil:
If you have heard about the IATSE job action, incidents like this are precisely why the job action is needed.

The IATSE commentary on this is interesting. If true, there were a lot of problems on this set. The latest I read that there were no IATSE members on set when the shot was fired. Prop masters (the gun prop masters) are IATSE members.

I agree, we need to know a lot more. I'm discouraged by the commentary I'm reading, because this is first and foremost a tragedy, and least relevant are Alec Baldwin's political views.

There's also a lot of commentary, which I agree with, about why we even need prop guns loaded with blanks in the era of CGI, where you can literally add or remove a cigarette from someone's mouth, etc. Ditto with sound editing to add in the "realistic" sound of the gun firing.

Hopefully there will be an investigation that helps answer the questions, and there will be significant reforms as a result of it.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:

quote:

Originally posted by dolmansaxlil:
If you have heard about the IATSE job action, incidents like this are precisely why the job action is needed.

The IATSE commentary on this is interesting. If true, there were a lot of problems on this set. The latest I read that there were no IATSE members on set when the shot was fired. Prop masters (the gun prop masters) are IATSE members.

I agree, we need to know a lot more. I'm discouraged by the commentary I'm reading, because this is first and foremost a tragedy, and least relevant are Alec Baldwin's political views.

There's also a lot of commentary, which I agree with, about why we even need prop guns loaded with blanks in the era of CGI, where you can literally add or remove a cigarette from someone's mouth, etc. Ditto with sound editing to add in the "realistic" sound of the gun firing.

Hopefully there will be an investigation that helps answer the questions, and there will be significant reforms as a result of it.

It’s a money issue. CGI is more expensive than using a prop gun. And there are safe ways to handle prop guns…. Those safety protocols are just sometimes ignored. While saying “just use CGI” might fix this exact scenario, there are WAY more safety issues on set that need to be addressed - and many of them end in tragedy as well. It’s not about prop gun safety - it’s just about safety.

It's inconceivable to me that there would ever be a live round on a movie set. period.

I doubt it was a "live round." As I understand it, normal ammunition will not fit into a prop gun at all.

Now, maybe they cut corners and used real guns or something.

Or, maybe it happened like with Brandon Lee, where there was a remnant of a prior round that was expelled with the blank when it was fired.

That "three guns on a tray" bit, if true, is so alarming. I thought the protocol is that the person in charge of the guns is the only person who can handle them, and that person must hand it directly to the actor, who has to give it back directly to that person.

It sounds like a lot more deaths and injuries occur due to driving.

And the tragedy with Vic Morrow and the two little kids being killed by a helicopter rotor (which was struck by explosives during a scene) shows how safety seems to be an afterthought on some sets. You really have an actor and two kids running away from an actual helicopter while you have incendiary devices going off? Wow.

This is the most detailed account of what happened that I've read so far.

https://www.latimes.com/entert...-crew-walked-off-set

edit: And I read somewhere that there is something in the standard safety protocols for movie productions that says that there should never be any live ammunition on a set. Period. No exceptions.

Here's the protocol:

https://www.csatf.org/wp-conte...18/05/01FIREARMS.pdf

quote:

I doubt it was a "live round." As I understand it, normal ammunition will not fit into a prop gun at all.

How else do two people sustain serious injury from one discharge? Blanks can damage eyes or singe skin. This woman dies from extreme trauma to her chest. That's a bullet.

Unless Baldwin went blam, blam, blam, with a full magazine, one bullet went through her and hit him.

Speculation, of course. Perhaps the gun DID contain multiple bullets and he fired multiple times. The investigation will tell us. But I would be gobsmacked if a blank killed one person and seriously injured a second person.

The investigation needs to determine WHO put a live round in the gun, and WHY.

quote:

I doubt it was a "live round." As I understand it, normal ammunition will not fit into a prop gun at all.

How it works:

quote:

Some prop guns are non-firing facsimile weapons, but many are real guns, loaded with blank rounds instead of bullets.

https://www.reuters.com/world/...eath-set-2021-10-22/

Guess it depends on what kind of "prop gun" they were using....a real one, or a non-firing facsimile.

This (from the LA Times) seems to indicate that it was the former:

quote:

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,” a 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.

Why were ANY live bullets in these weapons. And weapons they are. Calling them "prop guns" is rather a euphemism.

What filming purpose is satisfied by having live rounds? If there is one, you would think that "live shoots" would be subject to extreme precautions. Leaving weapons with live rounds lying around the set is criminal.

The rules, many of which were apparently ignored on this production:

https://www.csatf.org/wp-conte...18/05/01FIREARMS.pdf