Prop gun experts weigh in on Alec Baldwin accidentally shooting Halyna Hutchins, how fake gun killed cinematographer
An armourer who allegedly laid out the gun Alec Baldwin killed a cinematographer with worried she “wasn’t ready” to take the job.
A movie armourer who allegedly laid out the loaded gun Alec Baldwin accidentally killed the cinematographer with had just completed her first film and worried “she wasn’t ready”.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed reportedly admitted this in a podcast interview before working on the movie Rust where Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed on Thursday.
A search warrant said Gutierrez-Reed laid out three prop guns on a cart outside the filming location.
Unaware that it was loaded with live rounds, the first assistant director Dave Halls then allegedly grabbed the gun.
Before handing it to Baldwin he shouted “cold gun” which was the phrase to signal the weapon was safe to fire, the warrant said.
Seconds later, filming a scene inside an Old West-style church, Baldwin apparently aimed toward the camera and pulled the trigger, accidentally shooting dead Hutchins as she filmed him.
Director Joel Souza, who was standing behind her, was wounded.
Gutierrez-Reed, 24, said in a podcast interview last month podcast she said she had recently completed her first film as head armourer on The Old Way, starring Nicolas Cage.
She admitted: “I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready, but doing it, it went really smoothly.”
Cinematographer’s husband's breaks silnce on wife’s tragic death
The heartbroken husband of Halyna Hutchins has revealed his “enormous loss” after his “inspiring” wife shot dead on a movie set.
Matt Hutchins posted a picture of Halyna and her eight-year-old son Andros with an emotional tribute saying “our loss is enormous”.
Halyna inspired us all with her passion and vision, and her legacy is too meaningful to encapsulate in words. Our loss is enormous, and we ask that the media please respect my family’s privacy as we process our grief. We thank everyone for sharing images and stories of her life. pic.twitter.com/LgEp4XVkja
— Matt Hutchins (@mhutchins) October 23, 2021
Thank you to Halyna's friends and mentors at AFI for establishing a scholarship to honor her memory and support aspiring female cinematographers. Anyone seeking to honor her memory, please direct your giving to this fund. https://t.co/I5ci67uleU
— Matt Hutchins (@mhutchins) October 23, 2021
“Halyna inspired us all with her passion and vision, and her legacy is too meaningful to encapsulate in words,” he wrote.
Her distraught family were yesterday demanding answers about her death as they frantically tried to beat red tape to fly to the US.
Friends said dad Antoly and mum Olga were “beside themselves with grief” after being told of the tragedy by her husband, Matthew.
“The family is grieving but at the same time they are asking and they will want answers. If someone made a mistake then they will have to pay,” the friend said. “They just don’t understand how something dreadful like this could have happened when safety measures are supposed to be in place.
“They are also frantically trying to secure documents to get to the United States. Her mother does not have the correct paperwork,” they said.
Film studio bosses are also worried of a major lawsuit from the family.
Crew ‘walked off’ over unsafe working conditions before tragedy
There has been an outpouring of dismay and anger from all levels of the industry that something like this happened.
Director James Gunn tweeted that his greatest fear is that “someone will be fatally hurt on one of my sets.”
He also said that “There is no way what happened on Rust could have happened if every single person followed the rules.”
Actor Alex Winter similarly tweeted, “Crew should never be unsafe on set, and when they are, there is always a clearly definable reason why.”
Echoing their concerns, it has since come out that before the fatal accident, a number of camera crew workers had walked off the set of Rust to protest working conditions amid safety concerns over the prop firearms, which had already misfired before Baldwin handled the weapon.
According to the LA Times, camera operators and assistants had complained about long hours, long commutes and trouble collecting their paychecks while working on the low-budget film.
Sources quoted by the publication said at least one of the camera operators had complained to production managers about gun safety on set.
Three crew members present at the Bonanza Creek Ranch set the day Halyna was killed also said they were particularly concerned about two accidental prop gun discharges earlier in the week.
According to the crew members, Baldwin’s stunt double had accidentally fired two rounds on Saturday after being told that the gun was “cold”.
One of the crew members who witnessed that episode told the Los Angeles Times, “There should have been an investigation into what happened.
“There were no safety meetings. There was no assurance that it wouldn’t happen again. All they wanted to do was rush, rush, rush.”
Another 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,” he wrote, according to a copy of the message reviewed by The Times.
Firearm experts say it’s “abundantly clear” safety protocols on the set of Rust were not followed after actor Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with a prop gun.
The film’s director Joel Souza was also hit and injured but has since been released from the hospital.
Police reports from the incident have revealed Baldwin was handed what was described as a safe “cold gun”, but the weapon contained live rounds when it was fired.
Reuters reports the shot hit Hutchins in the chest, and Souza, who was behind her, in the shoulder, according to a county sheriff’s affidavit filed in Santa Fe magistrates court.
According to Detective Joel Cano, the assistant director who handed Baldwin the weapon did not know it contained live rounds.
Police are still investigating Thursday’s fatal accident on the New Mexico set, but many are left wondering how a prop firearm could leave someone dead, and what type of safety protocols were in place to prevent this from happening.
Fox News spoke to experts in the props and weapons field about the incident and how it became fatal.
‘It’s unbelievable’
This accident is “an unprecedented procedural failure in the history of firearms safety. It’s unbelievable,” film and prop historian Michael Corrie told Fox News.
“The person responsible for loading and ensuring that the firearm is ready for the scene is called an armourer [or weapons master], and you’re supposed to have an armourer and an assistant armourer.
“Then there are several steps that you’re supposed to go through to ensure that a weapon is loaded correctly with the correct type of blanks,” Corrie explained.
“Because there’s more than one type of blank, there’s lower power and then mid-power and then high-power blanks, and they create different visual effects.”
“Before the actor is even given the weapon, it’s supposed to go through several stages of safety before it’s handed to the actor. And the actor has to entrust that the armourer and everyone else involved have done their job correctly before handing the weapon to the actor,” he continued.
What is the role of an armourer?
Armourer is a fairly new position in the history of film production, going back only to the 1980s. Before that, the prop master handled everything. Recently, it’s become more common to enlist specialists.
The weapons master or armourer is required to be on set whenever a weapon is being used.
The Actors’ Equity Association’s guidelines state, “Before each use, make sure the gun has been test-fired off stage and then ask to test-fire it yourself. Watch the prop master check the cylinders and barrel to be sure no foreign object or dummy bullet has become lodged inside.”
Further, “All loading of firearms must be done by the property master, armourer or experienced persons working under their direct supervision.”
A prop firearm could apply to anything from a rubber toy to a real firearm that can fire a projectile. However, if it’s used for firing (even just blanks) it’s considered a real gun.
A blank is a type of gun cartridge that contains gunpowder but no bullet. Still, it can seriously hurt or kill someone who is close by, according to the Actors’ Equity Association.
It’s still unclear what was shot out of the gun used by Baldwin on the set. The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office is investigating what “type of projectile was discharged.”
‘Extremely serious’ treatment of firearms on set
Sean Matson, a retired Navy SEAL who has worked with the actors on the CBS drama SEAL Team in weapons handling, told Fox News, “The chain of custody is extremely serious [in regard to weapons on set].”
“You’ve got to teach people barrel discipline. I mean, things that you teach a basic person who is going to be using a firearm,” Matson continued.
“So any time someone hands me a weapon, even if they tell me it’s unloaded, the first thing I do is I check to make sure it’s unloaded. I’ll pull out the magazine and get a visual check, day or night, to make sure that it is actually clear. And I know 100 per cent, without a shadow of a doubt, I know the condition of that weapon. It’s that critical.”
Matson said on the procedural TV show there are retired SEALS on set to “assist and make sure that there‘s realism in the movement where their weapons are being pointed … just that extra level of scrutiny or checks in there is what helps.”
Stephen Gutowski, founder of The Reload, a firearms reporter and a gun-safety instructor, told Fox News, “Safety protocols on set were not followed. That’s abundantly clear at this point. And I think that’s the main takeaway of this whole situation is that guns — even prop guns — aren’t toys. And if you’re going to use them, especially in a professional capacity, like on a movie set, you need to be trained in how to use them, and you need to follow the safety rules that all types.”
What type of gun was used?
Rust, of which Alec Baldwin is also a producer, is set in the 1880s, and Gutowski reasoned the production could be using a single-action revolver appropriate for the time period.
“They make replicas, and they still produce real, single-action revolvers today that are similar to those used in the period that this movie is supposed to take place in,” he said.
“It depends on what kind of gun they were using. But even if they were using a blank firing gun, you know, a prop gun designed to work with blanks. Specifically, there is a possibility that someone could have loaded a live round into that gun, and it could still propel that bullet projectile down and out the barrel towards somebody, even if it’s not designed to do that necessarily.”
It remains unclear why Hutchins and Souza were in the line of fire, but it is fairly common to have a gun pointed at the camera and, by extension, the cinematographer, to get a certain angle.
“We’ve all seen the very famous shots in films where you get that dramatic effect of a gun being pointed at you, the audience, and of course, it’s being pointed towards the camera,” Steven Hall told The Associated Press.
Hall is a veteran second unit director and cinematographer who has worked on films like Fury and Thor: The Dark World.
“To minimise that, one would put a remote camera in that place, or at least if someone does have to operate the camera, I’m normally protected by safety goggles, a safety visor and often a PERSPEX screen that withstands pretty much anything. Obviously, it wouldn’t withstand a real shot from a gun, but it would certainly withstand a blank.”
How can a prop gun kill?
The Rust incident evoked similar on-set tragedies, including the 1993 accidental death of actor Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow.
Lee died after he was hit with a bullet which had been lodged in the barrel of a gun, which was fired along with the blank cartridge. Lee was the son of legendary martial arts star Bruce Lee.
In 2017, Gold Coast actor and stuntman Johann Ofner, 28, was shot dead while filming a music video for Australian hip hop group Bliss N Esso. He was killed when a shotgun loaded with blank cartridges was fired at his chest.
In August, a coronial inquest into Ofner’s death was told firing tests were not carried out on the gun in question.
Stunt co-ordinator of the video, Judd Wild, said he did not know if any projectile had been loaded into the weapon and other stunt actors were asked to aim the weapons away from others.
The continuing inquest into Mr Ofner’s death will examine the adequacy of training and safety briefings provided to staff on the production set as well as the regulations surrounding the use of firearms by the entertainment, film and production industry.
In 1984, actor Jon Erik-Hexum died during the production of TV series Cover-Up when he fired a gun loaded with a blank into his temple.
The bullet didn’t penetrate his skull but caused a blunt force head injury. He was rushed into surgery but was declared brain dead less than a week later, and his life support was turned off.
In an article for The Conversation, filmmakers Christopher Gist and Sarah Mayberry explained how Hexum’s death occurred.
“Instead of using a bullet, blanks use wads of paper, plastic, felt or cotton – this wadding ensures you get a certain level of flame out of the gun,” they wrote.
The force of the wadding was enough to fatally injure him.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Fox News and is reproduced here with permission.
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