Alec Baldwin accidentally shoots woman dead on set

crunchman

This is suggesting that the gun contained a live round:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/prop-gun-alec-baldwin-live-round-b962034.html

Not confirmed, and may just be clickbait.

rlw

crunchman said:

This is suggesting that the gun contained a live round:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/prop-gun-alec-baldwin-live-round-b962034.html

Not confirmed, and may just be clickbait.

A live round as in one?  My earlier Oscar Wilde quote still stands as I really want to know how you shoot two people by accident.

VimFuego

rlw said:

crunchman said:

This is suggesting that the gun contained a live round:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/prop-gun-alec-baldwin-live-round-b962034.html

Not confirmed, and may just be clickbait.

A live round as in one?  My earlier Oscar Wilde quote still stands as I really want to know how you shoot two people by accident.

assuming there is some description of barrel restriction on a prop weapon, then what would happen when you fire a live round down it is the barrel will most likely explode. I have actually seen this happen (fortunately from about 20 yards, as the guys near it got messed up). It does happen in the military where a live round finds it's way into a box of blanks. Thing is, the military have a fair amount of live ammunition lying around (not literally, but they have a reason to have and store it). I can't imagine a single situation on a film shoot why you would have live ammo.

Kittyfrisk

^ A single bullet at close range would be capable of injuring two people.
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2409991208296/two-chicago-cops-suffer-minor-injuries-after-another-cop-accidentally-fired-his-gun-during-a-struggle-with-homicide-suspects-with-the-bullet-going-through-one-officer-s-arm-and-into-another-s-shoulder-police-say

hollywoodrox

You should never point a gun at anyone  is the number one rule 

VimFuego

hollywoodrox said:

You should never point a gun at anyone  is the number one rule 

well, I'm guessing if you're a firearms officer and you need to shoot an armed suspect, then pointing your gun at him would probably be a requirement. 

Mellish

Just heard that there was a live round in the gun. 

m_c

hollywoodrox said:

You should never point a gun at anyone unless you intend to shoot them is the number one rule 

You forgot a bit.

soma1975

I'm a Director of Photography. We constantly put ourselves in dangerous positions and take risks to get the shot. This went way past that. Her life was in the hands of the armourer. There should never ever be live rounds anywhere near a set. The stuff coming out about the production is incredibly damning. 

But the reporting has been atrocious. 'Alec Baldwin shoots woman'. Like she is anonymous and not part of the story. Frankly Baldwin's involvement was incidental. Whichever actor in that part was going to pull that trigger. The second half of the day's reporting has tried to compensate after a bit of a backlash but it absolutely winds me up. 

Halyna Hutchins was her name and she was a talent, and a mother and a victim. 

Philly_Q

soma1975 said:

But the reporting has been atrocious. 'Alec Baldwin shoots woman'. Like she is anonymous and not part of the story. Frankly Baldwin's involvement was incidental. Whichever actor in that part was going to pull that trigger. The second half of the day's reporting has tried to compensate after a bit of a backlash but it absolutely winds me up. 

Halyna Hutchins was her name and she was a talent, and a mother and a victim. 

Which is why on the previous page I posted the link to the article about her.

soma1975

Philly_Q said:

soma1975 said:

But the reporting has been atrocious. 'Alec Baldwin shoots woman'. Like she is anonymous and not part of the story. Frankly Baldwin's involvement was incidental. Whichever actor in that part was going to pull that trigger. The second half of the day's reporting has tried to compensate after a bit of a backlash but it absolutely winds me up. 

Halyna Hutchins was her name and she was a talent, and a mother and a victim. 

Which is why on the previous page I posted the link to the article about her.

You are not the mainstream media as far as I'm aware, but well done. It is about her and working practices. Not Baldwin, unless him being a Producer contributed to those working practices. 

Obviously it's a bit of a touchy subject for a lot of people who stand behind a camera.

duotone

fretmeister said:

I remember when the same thing happened to Brandon Lee on "The Crow" - terrible accident.

Baldwin has been quite open about depression and suicidal thoughts - I really hope he's being looked after.

That was the first thing I thought of when I heard about this earlier today.

Really sad news.

proggy

hollywoodrox said:

You should never point a gun at anyone  is the number one rule 

You wouldn't make a very good sniper.

munckee

Apparently Baldwin was told it was safe by an assistant producer and by the sounds of it the bullet went through Halyna Hutchins and then hit the other chap. 

drofluf

munckee said:

Apparently Baldwin was told it was safe by an assistant producer and by the sounds of it the bullet went through Halyna Hutchins and then hit the other chap. 

Yes, that’s what the BBC article says https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59018391

JezWynd

Emerging story is about the Production company cutting corners. The union film crew walked off set due to safety concerns centred around accidental firearms discharges. Production Co bought in local crew to replace them and six hours later the shooting occurred.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-rust-camera-crew-walked-off-set

Lewy

JezWynd said:

Emerging story is about the Production company cutting corners. The union film crew walked off set due to safety concerns centred around accidental firearms discharges. Production Co bought in local crew to replace them and six hours later the shooting occurred.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-rust-camera-crew-walked-off-set

BBC is reporting that they walked off set because they were promised hotels close to set and got put up 50 miles away.

I suspect there is little point following any of the reporting on this for about the next month….

JezWynd

Lewy said:

JezWynd said:

Emerging story is about the Production company cutting corners. The union film crew walked off set due to safety concerns centred around accidental firearms discharges. Production Co bought in local crew to replace them and six hours later the shooting occurred.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-rust-camera-crew-walked-off-set

BBC is reporting that they walked off set because they were promised hotels close to set and got put up 50 miles away.

I suspect there is little point following any of the reporting on this for about the next month….

True, though a common thread seems to be that the production company were penny pinchers, which may have affected the performance of the crew and resulted in less qualified personnel in key positions. That in no way necessarily reflects on Baldwin's role as a Producer; Producer credits are given for a variety of reasons and can cover different roles.

stickyfiddle

My understanding that “live” ammunition in film prop speak doesn’t necessarily mean an actual bullet, but very likely a blank round, which has gunpowder but with wadding (rather than a slug as an a typical round) to produce a little bit of flame for the camera. That wadding still gets forced out by the firing and can still do serious damage to anything within 10 feet or so. 

As for the “2 people, 1 shot” question, I’m assuming this was a gun pointed at the camera with the two people standing inline with it - the bullet would have gone through the first and into the second. 

From reading a lot on it, it seems a huge number of failures had to occur - the set armourer should have been the only person haha doing guns other than the actors, and they should have been empty and locked up at all times whenever film wasn’t rolling. And the props team and director’s unit all should have now this as well. It sounds like the entire shoot was a shitshow, hence the union guys all walking off set a couple of days earlier. Ironically that may have partially contributed to the chain of events that led to this accident but that doesn’t excuse any such failures. 

I agree it doesn’t necessarily reflect on Baldwin as a producer (that’s often a role given to actors for prestige and to pay them more via that mechanism rather than increasing their fee for acting) but apparently this was attached to his whole production company, so it’s really not a good look. That doesn’t implicate him personally but it’s going to haunt him for a long time either way.

ICBM

The Brandon Lee accident was complicated and in two parts.

First, a close-up of the front of a revolver was required, so 'dummy' bullets were made by removing the propellant charge from the cartridges, but they left in the percussion caps. One of these was fired, and either the energy from the percussion cap alone, or a tiny amount of residual propellant left in the cartridge, was enough to push the bullet out of the cartridge and into the barrel, where it stuck. This was not noticed.

Then, normal blank cartridges were used in the same gun, which do contain a fair amount of propellant as well as soft wadding. When one of these was fired, it produced enough energy to drive the bullet fully through the barrel almost as if it was a normal live round. The mistake which caused the accident was not checking the gun after what must have been obviously a dummy round with the bullet missing was taken out.

I would guess this one must be very similar, or a simple mistake in loading a live round instead of a dummy, since if it was a blank, the wadding would not be able to penetrate right through one person (in the chest area apparently) and seriously injure another, even though they can be quite dangerous at short range.

Whichever happened, it looks like a failure of the armoury crew to check that the gun was loaded with the right type of cartridge and/or clear of any other left-overs from other uses. Not Baldwin's fault at all, although I suspect he will live with this for the rest of his life.