Alec Baldwin kills crew member on set with "prop gun"

[Totem Polar]

New Mexico frequently feels like a small town. Early on in this, I discovered some of my friends have surprisingly direct connections to this production.

Through two completely different sources, I've heard a pretty compelling rumor. I've been reluctant to post about it because it's 100% rumor and I've in no way verified it, and here on P-F I prefer to speak from positions of direct knowledge or verifiable facts and this is emphatically neither.

But I've heard that LEO's inspecting ammo found boxes of flush-loaded wadcutters (as pictured in Post #13 of this thread) that were both labeled and marked as blank rounds.

Again, this is 100% hearsay, but the connections through which I heard it are real, so this isn't 4th/5th hand hearsay. Personally my gut is telling me 60/40 on it being truth/BS. But it certainly tracks with all of the other known facts at this time.

Man. I dunno. If (if) the report is true—and I hear your caveat, brother—that is either so brutally incompetent as to damn near defy imagination, or deliberate. Either scenario boggles the mind. That said, if the media is rushing en masse to throw Hannah G-R under the bus, that alone makes me want to consider the second option. I mean, Baldwin’s record as a tier-1 dick is pretty established. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that some dark-ass mofo buried somewhere on the crew was disgruntled enough to lay in a sabotage.

Or, Hannah really is that dumb.

Or, the rumor isn’t true.

My gut is leaning towards doors 1 or 2. In no small part to your circumspection and track record of not talking out your ass, mind.

Despite the overwhelming tragedy of the situation, I have to admit to eating some dark popcorn while watching this one unfold.

[peterb]

I'll bet you check the gas gauge to see if it is loaded or not.

The safety advisory linked previously : https://www.csatf.org/wp-content/upl...01FIREARMS.pdf

does not include having the actor check the weapon. It states that the weapon should be loaded immediately prior to the scene and that all actors in the vicinity should be allowed to see the loading.

Given that dummy rounds are used for close-ups, the question might be not “is it loaded?” but “what is it loaded with?” Checking that would require unloading the gun, which is definitely not the actor’s job.

[peterb]

I would argue that Baldwin being executive producer is responsible for what takes place on the set. "Come on Man" target practice or plinking tin cans can't exactly be done on the downlow. I would be saying WTF is that I'm hearing? Some A-hole brought live ammunition to my movie set? I'm ending that right the "F" Now! Same goes for the Armorer! That girl had better never be employed again in position of responsibility in any way connected to firearms real or fake.

There’s a lot of speculation that Baldwin the actor won’t be charged, but Baldwin the producer is in for a long ride through the courts.

[Joe in PNG]

Actually, as I was reading the thing from the Armorers and Weapons Masters guild--the actor shouldn't open the action to check it. After all, it's another opportunity for a mix-up to occur, and the firearm should already have been checked by someone trained to do so.

Also, the safety procedure has to work no matter who the dancing monkey is handling the potentially deadly item. The safest way to guarantee this is to trust the dancing monkey as little as possible.

So, the published rules hold that it is not the job or responsibility of the dancing monkey to ensure the gun is unloaded, or any related safety stuff. Because the likelihood is that the dancing monkey won't know what a loaded or unloaded gun* looks like.

It sounds weird to us, but the procedure they have works, and has worked for decades. The reason this happened was that they weren't following the established rules and procedures.



*Hell, too many Cleeti don't know the difference as it is, and that includes the ones who have had some sort of official safety training.

[JohnO]

Actually, as I was reading the thing from the Armorers and Weapons Masters guild--the actor shouldn't open the action to check it. After all, it's another opportunity for a mix-up to occur, and the firearm should already have been checked by someone trained to do so.

I'm not a revolver guy but I've shot a few single action revolvers. Correct me if I'm wrong but one does not "open the action" on a SA revolver. You open the gate which allows you to view the individual chambers as you rotate the cylinder with the hammer at halfcock. I really can't see how opening a gate and looking offers a possibility of a mix-up to occur.

[Joe in PNG]

I'm not a revolver guy but I've shot a few single action revolvers. Correct me if I'm wrong but one does not "open the action" on a SA revolver. You open the gate which allows you to view the individual chambers as you rotate the cylinder with the hammer at halfcock. I really can't see how opening a gate and looking offers a possibility of a mix-up to occur.

My understanding is that filming is very seldom done with an empty gun.

So, the dancing monkey decides to check it himself, and there's thingys in the whatsit- because he can't tell the difference between a blank, a dummy round, or a live round. So, as the very expensive clock runs, dancing monkey tries to do the thing to make the thing do the thing to check the round, flagging everyone in the vicinity, then manages to drop the gun into the dirt. Which means a very expensive wait as the person who actually knows what they are doing goes through the standard procedure of checking that the gun is actually safe.

Remember- the safety procedures have to be geared for the absolute stupidest people on earth. So, one is you don't let the dancing monkeys fiddle with the prop guns, and you have the same rule no matter if it is an automatic, revolver, muzzle loader, break action, bolt action- the less the dancing monkey fiddles with the gun, the better off everyone on set is.

[OlongJohnson]

However, when I rent a car, I don't check the tire pressure.

It's at least worth cycling through the dash info displays to see if it reports actual tire pressures. I've frequently found tires on rental cars inflated to the maximum pressure listed on the sidewall.

[Salamander]

My movie experience is limited to one fairly substantial production, so small sample size and all that. But I'll share this since it shows, I think, that not every production is run by a bunch of nitwits.

My role was obtaining permits, because part of the filming was in a remote wild and scenic river the requirements were a lot greater than typical and involved a long list of federal, state, and county agencies. It meant that I spent a lot of time with the location scouts, then with the director and producers, and finally monitoring a lot of the actual filming. I had some authority to veto or move locations to stay in compliance and the two times I needed to do that no one argued.

There were two scenes involving firearms. I was present for the rehearsals for both of them. There was no pistol present on set for the first set of rehearsals (the actual filming was another day, and used a modern semi-auto), the stunt double literally pointed her finger and went "bang" and for filming they were planning to use micro-pyrotecnics to simulate rounds hitting a nearby tree. I got to spend quite a bit of time with the stunt double over a span of several weeks and wouldn't call her an expert shooter but she had some training and a basic level of competence. Safety was taken seriously; the stunt boss had me do a walk through with him where we identified everything from slip/trip/fall hazards from uneven footing to noting all the poison oak locations to avoid.

It was similar for the second scene, which involved a few shots "fired" from a boat. I was present for the walk-through, same stunt double, again no pistol present for rehearsals and in this case they were still working out the details of the scene. The firearms component ended up being reduced from the original script. I went back and watched that clip last night, and the pistol is never actually shown firing, maybe because the big name talent ended up filming that scene herself. Her arm extends out of frame, and it sounds like the gunshots were dubbed in later. There were good reasons to avoid anything going bang for real in that location, including a nearby public campground and various potential environmental issues that could have complicated permitting.

For both scenes (and a lot of others) law enforcement was present, mostly National Park Service or State Park rangers, occasionally County Sheriff. CHP did traffic control on the nearby highway to avoid accident risk as people pulled on or off the shoulder, another good example of a safe mindset.

There were a lot of other risks associated with filming in white water in rainy season, those were handled well also. The only events that got anyones pulse up were when a different stunt double, one with strong in-water skills, went in earlier than planned and the spotters were there to pull her out immediately... and one case where a crew member hot dogged the rescue jet boat for no reason, in Chinook habitat. When we told him to knock it off he lipped off at the producer, who promptly put him on a bus back to LA.

So, risks were thought through, then minimized and contingency plans put in place. That resulted in a safe production. To be honest I expected massive egos, and it really wasn't like that at all. 250 people on set, and only one guy with an attitude and he got fired.

I won't speculate on the Rust situation because I wasn't there. If it turns out there was a lack of professionalism, I'll just say that the tone is usually set by top management, and most of those folks have yet to be named in the media as far as I can tell. The downside for them is more likely to be financial, a shutdown means it can take weeks or months to get the talent and crew all back in one place again, most of them have other contractual obligations.

[HeavyDuty]

It's at least worth cycling through the dash info displays to see if it reports actual tire pressures. I've frequently found tires on rental cars inflated to the maximum pressure listed on the sidewall.

I had a rough riding rental in the mountains of CO, and discovered someone had taken them up to 60 PSI.

[Jim Watson]

But I've heard that LEO's inspecting ammo found boxes of flush-loaded wadcutters (as pictured in Post #13 of this thread) that were both labeled and marked as blank rounds.

We don't know what caliber The Gun was, but the only readily available flush wadcutter is .38 Special.
Sure, I have hand loaded .44 wadcutters but that is getting a bit far out.
Most western movie guns are SAAs in one of the calibers served by 5 in 1 blanks but .38s are available.

Telling a live round of any sort from a blank just by opening a SAA loading gate is problematical.
The blanks might be in Starline blank brass, head stamped either "Blank" or "5 in 1." but you would really have to be looking for something spooky to start reading headstamps. Colored plastic blanks would be easy to spot, if you knew there was such a thing.