SAPOL waiting to see what investigations into Rust film shooting reveal

The gun shooting death of a US cinematographer has national and SA film industry reps calling for tougher firearm safeguards on sets.

SA Police will review laws on firearm use in film production, following Hollywood veteran Alec Baldwin’s fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in the US.

It comes as Screen Producers Australia, backed by South Australian experts, calls for consistency in state gun laws to ensure uniform safety standards for cast and crew members nationwide.

Acting Police Minister John Gardner said SA Police’s Firearms Branch would review laws once outcomes of investigations into the US incident were known.

“Processes and procedures are in place for a SAPOL representative to raise outcomes of the (Hutchins) investigation with the National Firearms Weapons Policy Working Group,” Mr Gardner said.

Hutchins was fatally wounded by an antique gun loaded with a live bullet fired by Hollywood veteran actor Alec Baldwin on the film set of Rust in New Mexico. Theatrical armourer Gutierrez-Reid was named as the person who loaded the gun used by Baldwin.

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed on the set of Rust. Picture: Instagram

A distraught Alec Baldwin lingers in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's offices on Camino Justicia after being questioned on Oct. 20, 2021 about a shooting when a gun misfired earlier in the day on a local movie set. Picture: Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican

No live ammunition is the film industry protocol set out in Australia’s voluntary National Guidelines for Screen Safety released in August by Screen Producers Australia and the Australian Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA).

MEAA entertainment, crew and sport director Kellie Wood said the Hutchins fatality had prompted a review of the guidelines “to ensure they are fit for purpose”.

Ms Wood said that while industry guidelines were important and necessary, the practical experience was they “do not always protect everyone on set”.

“While most producers take safety seriously and follow the rules, some don’t,” she said. “They cut corners and work people into the ground so they can cram as much activity into a day as possible.”

Screen Producers Australia CEO Matthew Deaner said the peak body supported a review of theatrical armourer regulations in every state “with a view to developing nationally-consistent standards”.

Mr Deaner said each state had different standards for theatrical armourers – experts responsible for firearm use and storage in film production.

“The minimum requirements in some states (are) you just need a gun licence and to sign a statutory declaration that you are a ‘fit and proper’ person,” he said.

Mr Deaner’s organisation has recommended national standards regulating higher levels of firearms training across the sector, possibly through graded licences based on experience that also recognised training and/or experience in modifying weapons and constructing blank ammunition.

Piers Hunt, Adelaide Armourer and Co-Director of Explosive Effects, pictured with firearms used in various South Australian film productions in recent years.

In SA, the Firearms Registrar can apply unique and customised conditions for theatrical firearms use to boost safety on particular sets under the Firearms Act 2015 and Firearms Regulations 2017.

SA film safety and firearms experts Piers Hunt and Jennifer Bichard said voluntary screen safety guidelines – such as firearms only being supplied by experienced, credentialed and licensed armourers – must be more tightly regulated and nationally consistent.

Mr Hunt, from Adelaide-based Explosive Effects, said firearms used on set were real, functioning guns, and that blank rounds were just “as dangerous as a live round” if used incorrectly and without checks and balances.

“If you have the right training, measures and processes in place, then it is very, very safe,” said Mr Hunt, a former police tactical group officer.

Adelaide-based film set safety supervisor Jennifer Bichard at the SA Film Corporation’s Adelaide Studios. She says live rounds should never, ever make their way onto a film set in any circumstances and wants blank rounds banned too. She says today’s post-production technology makes blanks obsolete in most scenes. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Mrs Bichard, an Adelaide-based set safety supervisor and registered nurse, said national regulations must not only include regulation of armourers but ensure set safety more broadly through the provision of a “second set of eyes and experience” via set safety officers and supervisors when firearms were involved.

“We would love to have all firearm regulation the same across all the states – it would make set life easier, more regulated and safer,” said Mrs Bichard. “Film sets are dangerous places to work and any way to eliminate risk should be welcomed,” she said.

The pair share more than 50 years of industry experience on film sets including Mortal Kombat (2021), Storm Boy (2019) and Hotel Mumbai (2018). Federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher declined to comment.