More information is coming out about Alec Baldwin’s movie, “Rust” a low budget picture set for a 21-day shoot. I can tell you from first hand experience that 21 days to shoot a feature is a brutal schedule. I worked as a production assistant in 1980 on such an opus, “Graduation Day” starring Christopher George and which featured a bit part by a day player who went on to great fame and fortune, Vanna White. Such is the way of Hollywood.
I was still in the business two years later, when in the summer of 1982 actor Vic Morrow and two children got killed on the set of Steven Spielberg’s “Twilight Zone.” On the last day of shooting a scene was filmed where the three actors were running from a helicopter in Vietnam. Special effects explosions caused the helicopter pilot to lose control and he crashed into the three. Morrow and one of the kids was decapitated by the helicopter blades and the second child was crushed by a helicopter skid.
An emotional ten-month trial ensued. It was the first time a director, John Landis, faced criminal charges for events which occurred during a movie shoot. The defense argued that the crash was an accident that could not have been predicted, and the prosecution claimed that Landis and his crew had been reckless and violated laws regarding child actors, including regulations about their working conditions and hours. A jury acquitted the defendants in 1987 and civil suits brought by the families of the decedents were settled out of court.
Alec Baldwin and others can predictably look forward to a lengthy court battle(s) as well. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that there were union problems on the set and that union camera operators and assistants protested working conditions and walked off the picture. Additionally, the fatal shot that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was not the first misfire of a gun that had taken place in the 12 days of filming. It was the fourth.
Hours before actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of “Rust” with a prop gun, a half-dozen camera crew workers walked off the set to protest working conditions.
The camera operators and their assistants were frustrated by the conditions surrounding the low-budget film, including complaints about long hours, long commutes and waiting for their paychecks, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment.
Safety protocols standard in the industry, including gun inspections, were not strictly followed on the “Rust” set near Santa Fe, the sources said. They said at least one of the camera operators complained last weekend to a production manager about gun 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 — 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. […]
The person in charge of overseeing the gun props, known as the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, could not be reached for comment. The 24-year-old is the daughter of veteran armorer Thell Reed and had recently completed her first film as the head armorer for the movie “The Old Way,” with Clint Howard and Nicolas Cage.
This is on top of labor trouble brewing. Again, I can tell you first hand, people who work on movie sets are real troupers and people who work on low budget films are especially so. They’re there because they want to work, because they love film. The fact that there were crew members who were so unhappy with conditions that they walked is notable. That does not happen everyday. Or maybe I should say, it did not happen when I was a young person working in low budget Hollywood.
But after filming began, the crews were told they instead would be required to make the 50-mile drive from Albuquerque each day, rather than stay overnight in nearby Santa Fe. That rankled crew members who worried that they might have an accident after spending 12 to 13 hours on the set.
Hutchins had been advocating for safer conditions for her team and was tearful when the camera crew left, said one crew member who was on the set.
“She said, ‘I feel like I’m losing my best friends,’” recalled one of the workers.
As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, two of the knowledgeable people said.
One of the producers ordered the union members to leave the set and threatened to call security to remove them if they didn’t leave voluntarily.
“Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue shooting,” the knowledgeable person said.
The shooting occurred about six hours after the union camera crew left.
Commuting two hours a day adds a lot of stress to a workday. These people were right to be concerned about accidents or lack of productivity. Not paying for a local hotel is pennywise pound foolish.
Cocaine was very popular on early-80’s film sets because it can keep you awake and after you’ve had even one week of working 14 hour days, six days a week, you begin to realize what a boon that is. Sleep becomes a precious commodity, one in too short a supply. One of the guys I worked with on “Graduation Day” broke out into song one day, “All you need is sleep — sleep is all you need, sleep is all you need” and we cheered the man. He nailed it.
Alec Baldwin has a real situation on his hands with Rust. The more news that comes out the more damaging it is.
I’ve been following this story with no small amount of anger and disgust. Having learned how to handle firearms at an early age and having safety drilled into me I know that if proper procedures are followed this type of thing won’t happen. If I were an actor on a set and didn’t know jack about firearms I’d damn well learn – and not just how to “pose” with them to look authentic in the final product. I’d learn about the workings of each and every firearm in every scene I was in and not just the one’s I’d be using. I’d sit in on the safety briefs before a scene was to be filmed, and stand RIGHT FUCKING THERE as the prop person prepared the guns to be used.
And if I saw the least little thing that wasn’t up to proper safety procedure I’d refuse to take part in the shoot until it was corrected. Perhaps it could cost an actor their career for being “difficult” but if they documented things (good ole smartphones) they could at least wrangle a good enough settlement to ensure a comfortable life.
Here’s the thing. WHO is the producer/funder of this picture? Or who is part of the group? That information seems like something no one wants to mention. If the Director was (as is reported) complaining about conditions and safety yet being told to carry on (with the implied “or else” – or maybe not implied at all but flat out stated as a threat) that’s huge. The fact that no one seems to be saying who gave Hutchins her marching orders to keep filming and deal with whatever crew members were sent to her is troubling. Someone’s ass is being covered. Baldwin himself? I know some of these big name stars get their hearts set on doing some production and wind up producing and or funding it, or putting together the group that does.
However I think wagons are being circled. SOMEONE told Hutchins she HAD to keep shooting and that she’d damn well do so regardless of whether it was the crew members she’d picked or crew provided by her bosses. (That would of course do things on the cheap) Now she is dead and her assistant is wounded.
One shouldn’t EVER fuck around with firearms unless you damned well know what you are doing. And NEVER trust someone else when it comes to whether a firearm is loaded or not. You check for yourself. Complacency is deadly. It was this time and given all the production problems and that they’d already had accidental discharges on that set there is NO excuse for this having happened. An actor as experienced as Baldwin (and he’s worked with firearms in films) should have known better than to trust props people (especially non-union ones) who had already fucked up that very day!
Read the entire L.A. Times article which I linked to. The producers are a group that I don’t recognize, but they produce low budget films. I believe Baldwin is a co-producer. It is beyond belief to me that these gun mishaps kept happening. HOW can somebody not supervise guns on the most basic level, to know whether the thing is loaded or not? I used to shoot a .357 magnum Smith & Wesson for sport and I followed rules by the book. I cleaned the gun, never ever left it loaded for even one minute when it was out of my hands. And this armorer person on the set is paid to supervise all of the guns. That’s the position. How even one eff up could have happened, let alone four is beyond my imagination. I don’t think the young armorer is going to be able to get another job and justifiably so. There’s no excuse for this level of negligence, unless somebody was deliberately sabotaging this movie — and you know how I feel about CT.
Correct me if I’m wrong but often times indie films are “indies” because studios won’t put up the money to get them done. There can be other reasons I suppose such as a major studio wanting to choose their own director, rewrite the script etc. but in the end indie films tend to frequently operate on shoestring budgets. That means cutting corners in various ways and safety is one of those things producers, being removed from the very real possible consequences see the extra precautions as uneccessary. That’s what leads to tragedies like when Vic Morrow and the others were killed, and of course this tragic shooting. Union workers will exercise their power via their union to cover their own butts by ensuring proper procedures are followed. Non-union workers not so much. Those producers who shoved aside established safety protocols and even replaced union workers with non-union ones to save money are going to pay dearly down the road. That extra ten or twenty thousand that having well qualified union staff seeing to safety on that set (by replacing them with cheaper non-union and inexperienced people) is going to cost tens of millions when all the lawsuits are done. Nothing more than tip money to someone like Baldwin and I suspect his co-producers. And, as I said someone with his experience knows damn well how things work on a set where safety is being properly tended to and he had to know corners were being cut. More importantly he should have known damn well that since corners were being cut he shouldn’t have been taking anyone else’s word that a weapon that had been handed to him was “cold.” Those few seconds it would have taken to open it up to check will haunt him for the rest of his life, and also cost him a small fortune.
Personally when I pick up a gun I check to see if it’s loaded. Came from a long line of gun owners. There’s a saying. Treat any gun as if it’s loaded. Check for yourself.
You’re absolutely right about that. The problem here is Baldwin was given wrong information. I don’t blame him I blame the chain of command and something there messed up unbelievably.
Why was Baldwin aiming anywhere close to a live person? That’s another first-things-you-learn
I heard something that it could have been one of those shots where the camera is directly in the line of fire. Another good argument for using sound effects for guns firing, explosions, etc.
Regardless, imagine being in Baldwin’s shoes, knowing he was responsible for the death of one and injury of another. Heartbreaking.
It’s a terrible thing for Baldwin. He trusted the guy who handed him the gun and told him it was “cold” to be right. If I was Baldwin I would never ever trust anybody telling me a gun was cold again. I would check it out.
I understand Baldwin was the third person to handle that one. The first two should both have checked it.
First rule: never point a gun at anyone loaded or empty.