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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#826

Post by ponchi101 »

JazzNU wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:57 pm In case you haven't read about this. Best to read on the NPR site with the photos. Click the Tweet or the link below for the article. And who knew, but NPR pre-populates the audio here, so there's that option as well if you'd rather listen to the story.








https://www.npr.org/2021/10/10/10438214 ... nd-history
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#827

Post by dmforever »

dave g wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:28 pm
dmforever wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:52 am
ti-amie wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:03 am Prop Gun Misfire on Set of Alec Baldwin Film Leaves One Crew Member Dead, Another Hospitalized
Production halted on set of 'Rust' western in New Mexico following gun mishap.

By
Trilby Beresford, Ryan Parker
October 21, 2021 4:56pm

An apparent prop gun misfire on the set of Alec Baldwin’s Western movie Rust on Thursday left one crew member dead and another wounded, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department.

A 42-year-old female was transported via helicopter to the University of Mexico Hospital, where she died of her injuries, the sheriff’s department said. The second victim, also 42, was transported by ambulance to Christus St. Vincent’s hospital, where he was receiving emergency care. The victim was in critical condition, Juan Ríos, spokesman for the sheriff’s office told The Hollywood Reporter.

“There was an accident today on the New Mexico set of Rust involving the misfire of a prop gun with blanks,” a spokesperson from the production said in a statement obtained by THR.

“Production has been halted for the time being. The safety of our cast and crew remains our top priority,” the statement said.

Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the Bonanza Creek Ranch set at 1:50 p.m. MST after a 911 call indicated an individual had been shot on set.

Ríos said an investigation was underway. It was unclear who fired the prop firearm and what type of projectile was discharged.

According to a tweet from KOB4 evening anchor Tessa Mentus and local reports, a church set was blocked off while security locked down the location.

The Joel Souza film, which is shooting in Bonanza Creek Ranch, N.M., also stars Frances Fisher, Jensen Ackles and Travis Fimmel.

Baldwin stars in the film as infamous Western outlaw Harland Rust. When his estranged grandson is convicted of an accidental murder and sentenced to hang, Rust travels to Kansas to break him out of prison. The two fugitives must then outrun U.S. Marshal Wood Helm and bounty-hunter Fenton ‘Preacher’ Lang.

More to come.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... erm=165498
I don't mean to sound like an idiot, but how does a prop shoot a bullet????
The prop gun had a blank, which does not have a bullet. But firing the prop gun set off the gunpowder which creates enough force to do a lot of damage. A previous example: Heath Ledger. He was faking a suicide using a prop gun, not realizing that the amount of power in the gunpowder in the blank, managed to actually kill himself.
Thanks for the explanation. So my next question has to be, if this has already happened, why would any film or TV production use the same type of "prop" gun? I'm using parentheses because I think if a gun can still actually kill someone, its not a prop. Surely with CGI and all of the sound effects available in a much safer way.

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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#828

Post by MJ2004 »

It's worth adding, this didn't just happen on the set of an Alec Baldwin film. Alec Baldwin personally fired the gun.
This BBC article also explains what happened with Brandon Lee.

Alec Baldwin fatally shoots woman with prop gun on movie set

A woman has died and a man has been injured after actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on a New Mexico film set for the 19th Century western Rust.

Halyna Hutchins, 42, was shot while working on the set as director of photography. She was flown to hospital by helicopter but died of her injuries.

The man, 48-year-old director Joel Souza, was taken from the scene at Bonanza Creek Ranch by ambulance.

Police said they were investigating and that no charges had been filed.

A spokesman for Mr Baldwin, best known for his role as Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock and for his portrayal of Donald Trump on sketch show Saturday Night Live, said the incident involved the misfiring of a prop gun with blanks.

In a statement to AFP news agency, a Santa Fe sheriff spokesman said Mr Baldwin had spoken to detectives.

"He came in voluntarily and he left the building after he finished his interviews," the spokesman said.

Mr Baldwin is a co-producer of the film and plays its namesake, an outlaw whose 13-year-old grandson is convicted of manslaughter.

The eldest of four brothers, all actors, Mr Baldwin has starred in numerous TV and film roles since the 1980s.

Ms Hutchins was from Ukraine and grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle, according to her personal website. She studied journalism in Kyiv, and film in Los Angeles, and was named a "rising star" by the American Cinematographer magazine in 2019.

She was the director of photography for the 2020 action film Archenemy, directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer.

"I'm so sad about losing Halyna. And so infuriated that this could happen on a set," Mr Mortimer said in a tweet.

In a statement, the International Cinematographer's Guild said Ms Hutchins' death was "devastating news" and "a terrible loss".

"The details are unclear at this moment, but we are working to learn more, and we support a full investigation into this tragic event," said guild president John Lindley and executive director Rebecca Rhine.

Police said sheriff's deputies were dispatched to Bonanza Creek Ranch, a popular filming location, at around 13:50 local time (19:50 GMT) after receiving an emergency call about a shooting on the set of Rust.

Incidents such as Thursday's fatal shooting on the Rust film set are extremely rare, but not unheard of.

Real firearms are often used in filming, and are loaded with blanks - cartridges that create a flash and a bang without discharging a projectile.

In 1993, Brandon Lee - the 28-year-old son of the late martial-arts star Bruce Lee - died on set after being accidentally shot with a prop gun while filming a death scene for the film The Crow.

It was later determined that the gun used had earlier fired a round that caused a cartridge to become lodged in the barrel. When blank rounds were later fired, the cartridge was dislodged and released.

Responding to Thursday's news, Brandon Lee's sister Shannon tweeted: "Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on 'Rust'. No-one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period."
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#829

Post by ti-amie »

The propmaster is responsible to make sure all props, including firearms, are really props. If you read what happened to Brandon Lee, son of Bruce, you find that this is the exact same thing that happened to him.

Also, it seems the person responsible is non-uniion per IATSE.
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#830

Post by Deuce »

I saw what seemed to be an excellent explanation of what can go wrong with 'prop guns'. This was on CNN, and the explanation was given by Steve Wolf, who has worked on sets which had prop guns, and who investigated the Brandon Lee death. He explained what went wrong in Lee's death - that a real bullet had been placed in the gun, because sometimes a scene calls for someone loading a bullet into a gun... When a person went to remove that bullet from the gun, only the casing came out, leaving the bullet in the chamber. Then when a 'blank' was put into the same chamber, it collected the bullet that had been left in the chamber, and so the 'blank' became a regular and complete bullet

His explanation was accompanied by the visual of a gun, a 'blank', and a complete bullet.
I found it to be an excellent explanation. Unfortunately, I cannot find the video of it. It was on CNN, and they also had a 'legal expert' on at the same time.

If you see a video of this guy (below) talking, with the particular background shown in the photo below, that will very likely be the interview I saw. It's worth watching for anyone who wants to understand how things can go wrong with 'prop guns' (which are usually real, functional guns).
I couldn't find the video, but I did find this, which is a partial transcript of what he said. It's much better with the visual, though...

Steve Wolf, a theatrical firearms safety expert who has worked on a number of sets with simulated violence, weighed in on the Alec Baldwin prop gun shooting saying, "there is no excuse for something like this to happen" since "the "physics of how bullets enter people has been known for about 5,000 years."

"If a bullet comes out and injures someone, that's exactly what it is designed to do, so you have to figure out how you make sure that doesn't happen," he said.
Holding up what appeared to be a weapon and a bullet on CNN, Wolf listed reasonable steps on-set coordinators could take to prevent such incidents.

For example, he said coordinators should always look inside of the cylinder of the weapon to ensure "there is nothing in the gun that could come out."

Then, holding up what appeared to be a live piece of ammunition, Wolf said the blank should also be checked to ensure there is no bullet sitting on the end of the casing.

"If you put a blank in there, you make sure there is a blank, no bullet on the end of it," he said. "It is hollow. It is just gunpowder and a piece of paper that holds the powder in."

If it is just a blank, "all that will come out are hot expanding gases and flame and smoke and a noise," he added.
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#831

Post by JazzNU »

ti-amie wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:57 pm The propmaster is responsible to make sure all props, including firearms, are really props. If you read what happened to Brandon Lee, son of Bruce, you find that this is the exact same thing that happened to him.

Also, it seems the person responsible is non-uniion per IATSE.
Just a reminder that Brandon's death has always had more questions tied to it. Conspiracy theory, but as loud as they get, just like his dad's death.
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#832

Post by ti-amie »

Hours Before Fatal Shooting on Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust,’ a Half-Dozen Crew Members Quit to Protest Work Conditions

”We will be conducting an internal review of our procedures while production is shut down,“ a rep for Rust Productions says in response
Brian Welk | October 22, 2021 @ 1:24 PM

Hours before a shot on the set of the Alec Baldwin film “Rust” killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, a half-dozen camera crew workers walked off set to protest conditions on the film after days of strife over long hours, safety issues and staff housing.

In a series of scathing comments on Facebook, crew member Lane Luper described the working conditions on “Rust” as “absolute dog s—.”

“At the moment I’m fighting to get my crew, on this movie, hotel rooms when we go long or are too tired to drive the hour back from location to Albuquerque,” camera operator Lane Luper wrote. “They either say no or offer a garbage roadside motel that’s used as a homeless shelter. In fact the line producer on the flick complained the motel she booked charges her 10 bucks more per night than the homeless. They haven’t even paid the crew a proper check.”

Luper, a union member, was speaking on a thread in which Baldwin posted a video about a new IATSE contract.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, a half-dozen crew members walked off the set on Friday over working conditions. The report cited three individuals who said that several non-union crew members were brought in to replace them. Among the complaints were accusations that the crew was required to commute from far away rather than have a hotel paid for close by in Santa Fe and that crew members had not been paid.

The Times says that Hutchins was also among those to have raised concerns about safety conditions for her team. Prior to the accident that killed Hutchins however, an individual who spoke with the Times also said that there were two misfires on the prop gun on Saturday and one the previous week, and that one person told the Times there were a “serious lack of safety meetings on set.”

The shooting that killed Hutchins ultimately occurred about six hours after the union camera crew left, according to the Times.

“The safety of our cast and crew is the top priority of Rust Productions and everyone associated with the company,” a representative for Rust Productions told TheWrap in response to the article. “Though we were not made aware of any official complaints concerning weapon or prop safety on set, we will be conducting an internal review of our procedures while production is shut down. We will continue to cooperate with the Santa Fe authorities in their investigation and offer mental health services to the cast and crew during this tragic time.”

IATSE’s national branch had no additional comment beyond their earlier statement mourning the loss of Hutchins.

A tweet that contained a screengrab of a text message from an industry insider but was later deleted was also making the rounds of the web on Friday. It mentioned a lack of payment for three weeks, a lack of COVID safety and a lack of gun safety and that the entire camera crew had walked off the set for the lack of safety. (You can see a screengrab of the text below.)

Luper further complained about long hours on the set: “The show keeps arguing they don’t have to do anything because contract minimums don’t force them to,” he wrote. “In fact in the low budget agreement a hotel doesn’t need to be provided until 14 WORKED hours. And this shows doing hour lunches. So it requires a 15 hour elapsed day before they will volunteer a hotel. My BA tried to get them to agree to 13 hours elapsed and they agreed to 13 hours worked. So here’s where my crews at with this show and the unions involvement. 12.5 hour days worked, with an hour lunch, 2 hours of driving a day leaving exactly 8 hours of time not at work. Most folks on my show are getting 5 hours of sleep a night.”

According to law enforcement statements, Hutchins was shot around 1:50 p.m. Thursday local time and died of her injuries after she was airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. The shot also injured director Joel Souza, who was released from the hospital on Friday.

Production began earlier this month at Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, just south of Santa Fe, and production on the film is now suspended.

The investigation into the deadly incident is ongoing, the sheriff’s department said; no charges have been filed.

“According to investigators, it appears that the scene being filmed involved the use of a prop firearm when it was discharged,” the Santa Fe sheriff’s office said in a statement to media earlier on Thursday. “Detectives are investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged.”

Baldwin earlier on Friday said he’s cooperating with law enforcement and said his “heart was broken” over the loss of Hutchins.

“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours,” Baldwin said in a statement provided to TheWrap and in a pair of tweets Friday. “I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred and I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family. My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”

Image

https://www.thewrap.com/alec-baldwin-ru ... ro_5701398

The "deleted" tweets are at the above link.
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#833

Post by JazzNU »

Much more disturbing than what that suggests. There were accidental discharges before the death occurred as well. If you're interested in this story, I'd suggest following one of the trades or the LA Times, they will have the most in-depth and up to date information.
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#834

Post by ti-amie »

“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#835

Post by mmmm8 »

I know Alec Baldwin is not shy of controversies, but I feel awful for him (besides the victim's family, of course). What an awful thing to live with.
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#836

Post by ti-amie »



I hope his lawyers file for a mistrial.
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#837

Post by ti-amie »

These have beeen the best Twitter posts re the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of "Rust". The first thread is very long and he has disabled the ability of people to reply and therefore use the Thread Reader App to make one long post out of several. I've summarized it here and added his responses as details have been revealed about what happened. This will probably take more than one post.









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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#838

Post by ti-amie »

P2









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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#839

Post by ti-amie »

p 3

From the WaPo:

Hannah Gutierrez, the daughter of widely known Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, acted as the armorer on “Rust.” As such, she was in charge of managing firearms used on set and ensuring they were safely handled. The affidavit states that Gutierrez left three prop guns on a cart outside the building, from which Halls (the AD) grabbed one and handed it to Baldwin for the rehearsal. Halls was under the impression it did not contain any live rounds when he said “cold gun,” according to the document.

Halls and Gutierrez did not return The Washington Post’s requests for comment.

(...)

“No crew member should be handling a weapon of any kind other than the armorer, designated prop person or actor. Full stop,” Goldstein said. “The armorer must clear all firearms with the [first assistant director] when bringing them to set, and verify that they are unloaded. Then the armorer does the same with the actor, but the firearm does not leave the custody of the armorer or designated prop person.”

...chief electrician Serge Svetnoy...called attention to the mismanagement of firearms on set, claiming that the “person who was supposed to check the weapon on the site did not do this.” He expressed concern over Gutierrez’s lack of experience as a 24-year-old armorer and wrote that budget-concerned producers sometimes cut corners by riskily hiring people “who are not fully qualified for the complicated and dangerous job.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-ent ... h-warrant/
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Re: National, Regional and Local News

#840

Post by ti-amie »

Welcome to Miami







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