News Alec Baldwin Accidentally Shoots & Kills Cinematographer, Wounds Director with Prop Gun
- Thread starter Locutus of Bored
- Start date
What I read was, they were using primed "empty" cartridges, with a bullet but without gunpowder, to fill the cylinder for the close-ups. For some unknown reason one was fired at some point and the primer detonation pushed the bullet part-way down the barrel. Then they loaded blanks, not knowing about the bullet in the barrel, and the blank charge pushed the bullet out fast enough to be deadly.
You don't hear much these days about Matthew Broderick's "careless driving" that killed two people.
There's enough recoil to cycle the action on semi-autos. Early on blank rounds didn't have enough recoil to work some recoil action, like 1911's, but still used blowback for action. For instance, if you look closely at most 1911 colts in earlier movies, they're actually Spanish "Star Model B"'s which look a lot like 1911's but are straight blowback and work just fine with blank. In fact a lot of movies TV shows still use Star B's. If Hollywood was to have electronic prop guns that made the right amount of smoke, right amount of mechanical motions, flash and bang, for every single variety of firearm and get actors to pretend properly instead of just finger-gunning, I'm not saying its impossible, but it would be extremely expensive.
If they'd simply followed basic procedures and not been goofing off on set, no one would even be discussing the idea.
Counter point: no one is suggesting the film industry switch entirely to CGI cars, helicopters and planes because stunt drivers and actors have been seriously hurt and killed in the real things.
Yet.
Baldwin is not going to jail over this. Yes, he's probably going to be sued, which could result in some very serious consequences for him and his career, but he won't go to jail.
Experienced actors and armorers on twitter are saying that in a set with a proper checklist, this couldn't happen. Every safety procedure for using a gun relys on multiple points of failure. In order for something to break through so many failsafes, it would have to be an extremely poor quality production.
Why can't they make motorized gun props to mimic recoil? LED's for the muzzle flash?
You could probably have an internal counterweight to simulate recoil, but you'd only be able to make it look like a generic automatic. Any sort of revolver or specific plot relavent model of gun would be very difficult.
You'd also still need to CGI in the flash, LEDs can't replicate the look of burning gas.
All you gotta do is fake it enough on film so that you can fake it better in post.
Considering the huge amount of money spent on any commercial TV or film project, the additional cost of a few minutes of CGI is minimal.
I didn't mean to imply any relationship other than people forget about past actions.
If people are still willing to work on sets with blank shooting and, probably more important, insurers are willing to cover them, I don't see that strong a reason to change a part of an industry with such a safety record behind it after one freakish accident due to non-compliance with established standards and regulations.
As for firearms training for actors, why not? There was a time when actors were expected to have fencing experience, or dance experience, or riding experience, and if they didn't, they went to school for it. I don't think it would be much of a hardship for actors who want to work with firearms to complete some kind of safety course that teaches them how different actions and loading systems work, what can go wrong and what to look out for.
As for firearms training for actors, why not? There was a time when actors were expected to have fencing experience, or dance experience, or riding experience, and if they didn't, they went to school for it. I don't think it would be much of a hardship for actors who want to work with firearms to complete some kind of safety course that teaches them how different actions and loading systems work, what can go wrong and what to look out for.
Hell, they could even claim that as part of their standard acting research anyway, since a character who carries firearms has almost certainly been trained in some manner on how their firearms work.
What about the technician who missed the safety checks? Whoever that is seems the most responsible. Although there’s no excuse to point it at a person except in filming the scene that specifically calls for it.
I've been on film shoots involving gun props and a weapons master was hired to supervise and educate the staff and crew about weapons and should be treated as if they are real. A standard training is required because it is important to know the difference between a loaded fire arm to one that is not. From what I heard on the news, this is the first time I'd ever heard the inspection of props and fire arms were the responsibilities of the 1st AD??? Even on an indie shoot, I've never heard it was their responsibility. Something more important I was instructed in classes and from the weapons master is never aim a weapon, even a fake one, at another human being, and the people who are targeted should do whatever they can to stay away from that target from that weapon.
Producers are responsible for the actions transpired on their productions and it shouldn't be blamed at the AD who should be coordinating with the weapons master, the UPM in having a safe shooting environment. No one should be aiming guns or fake ones at people, and the DP and Director were irresponsible for even entertaining this, and yes Alec Baldwin should have full responsibility for what had happened. He shouldn't point fingers at anyone and shouldn't have crewmembers slander another professional's name out when it seemed there was a lot of negligence going on throughout the entire production.
Landis and others were charged with manslaughter after the accident. After a trial that seemed to go on forever, Landis and the others were acquitted.
This is not to say that I think there’ll be charges filed. Just wanted to point out that John Landis did face some “significant” consequences.
Well, this shows how bad my week was... I thought this was ADAM Baldwin. Please ignore my 2nd paragraph.
That's not the impression that I've gotten in reading about the Twilight Zone accident. While it's true that it didn't totally ruin Landis' career and he was able to regain some measure of success as a producer, the fallout from that accident wasn't trivial. The legal cases took the better part of a decade, many people who worked on the production crew felt that Landis had been careless in directing the safety aspects of the helicopter sequence (not least because two of the three killed actors were young children, who legally shouldn't have been there at all; Landis violated state laws), and even Steven Spielberg - who was co-director of the film - broke off his friendship with John over the affair, as he too felt that Landis had been unsafe.
The upside was that the tragedy also led to much stronger safety standards and rules governing the use of child actors on a potentially dangerous set.
Ironic that Vic Morrow's last words, before he died, were "I've got to be crazy to do this stunt. I should have gotten a stuntman."
Ironically, Adam Baldwin is way more experienced with real guns, and I'm absolutely certain he would have checked that supposedly "cold" gun before trying to fire it.As you know now, Adam is the Baldwin who isn’t A Baldwin.