I’d suspect rattlesnakes and coyotes to be more probable reasons for keeping a working firearm and live ammo on set.
At my first post-college job, we had a shotgun in the office because there was a problem with rattlesnakes in the parking lot. And I understand that aggressive coyotes are a problem in the area where they were filming.
But it sounds like this was a mishap with blanks, rather than an instance of real ammunition being loaded into a prop.
I think that article is outstanding in its explanation.
The truth is that Alec Baldwin probably wanted this to happen, so he made it happen.
Alec Baldwin is a low life, no better than the man he continually mocks:
Let us not forget how he called his daughter Ireland, who was 11 years old at the time, a “rude, thoughtless little pig.”
Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee’s son, died the same way, no?
ninja’ed
I didn’t know acting was so dangerous.
Twilight Zone: The Movie
I was taught to assume every gun is loaded with whatever ammunition it’s designed for, whether it’s a squirt, Nerf, or real gun, and to only point it somewhere it’d be okay for it to discharge.
Brandon Lee was killed by a live round, not a blank. The gun was loaded with blanks but there was a live round “lodged” in the gun.
The current story is that the cinematographer was killed by a blank.
So, similarities and differences.
Sure, but an actor in a movie may well need to point the gun at actual people (either other actors or the camera operator) in order to get the desired visual.
So they or the prop-master need to exercise even greater caution, by several orders of magnitude, to ensure that there is not a live round in the gun, and that care is taken in where blanks are fired as well.
ETA, I suppose in this day & age maybe that is a bad MO. Maybe they should only have a remotely operated camera and use CGI to superimpose the people the actor is firing at in post-production just to err on the side of caution.
If they can choreograph fight scenes you’d think they could film from angles where the gun doesn’t line up.
According to his wikipedia entry, B Lee was killed by a previously lodged bullet from the barrel of a pistol that was propelled by a subsequently used “blank” cartridge. Not exactly a live round.
There was someone else that I recall that was shot on set by a previously used (expended) cartridge shell that was lodged in a gun’s barrel that was expelled by a subsequently used blank cartridge. I forget who that was.
Some pretty damning stuff here on safety on the set
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, one of crew members who witnessed the episode told the Los Angeles Times.
“There should have been an investigation into what happened,” said the crew member. “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 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
:yikes:
Oh, that doesn’t work.
From the article (emphasis mine):
I read something over the weekend that implied Baldwin could be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Not for discharging the weapon, but in his capacity as executive producer for not creating a focus on safety.
I guess I don’t know the specifics of exactly what happened to make it criminal, however, certainly sounds like a massive civil suit. It’s interesting though, with someone like Baldwin who loves to throw stones at others, I can’t help but wonder what he would’ve said if this happened with another Executive Producer with reports of all of the rushing and weapons mis-firings that happened on set.
Just a minor nit - Alec Baldwin was serving as a Producer on the Rust project. A producer is in charge of day-to-day production and would be responsible for safety on the set. The executive producer typically deals with financing of a project. .
This is an interesting angle and I appreciate the context on the role of producer vs executive producer and which applied to Baldwin.
Sounds like the cinematographer’s family is going to get a pile of money for all of the screw-ups. It will be interesting to see if the negligence rises to the level of criminal behavior.
A reckless disregard for human life is, I believe, the standard for involuntary manslaughter. It seems possible, though IANAL.