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Alec Baldwin

According to the Daily Mail ..

“Unionised workers had walked off the set hours before the fatal shooting, after they complained about long hours, shoddy conditions and another safety incident days earlier involving 'two misfires' of a prop weapon. A source said an as-yet unnamed prop master who oversaw the gun had 'just been brought in' to replace the workers who had left. ”
Trust the Mail to blame the unions!
 
Surely it would yet be up to the actor to check.Many would t know how. There are teams around actors whose job it is to check and double check these issues according to strict guidelines I presume. That’s what they are paid to do.you couldn’t expect an actor to check a semi automatic etc. Unless they were experts in firearms and carried appropriate safety certs or qualifications. You would not blame Vic Morrow for not checking the helicopter etc.on that infamous Twighlight Zone shot? There are people and protocols who look after such matters. And there’s always cost cutting on films but it’s unusual for Thais to happen around safety issues.
Ridiculous. If I was on a set I'd like my safety to be in the hands of someone trained and responsible. Not Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson
 
Just occurred to me that maybe there WERE live rounds about the place, if, say, they had to film someone firing at something and that something shattering in a spectacular manner. Also, why were there 3 guns on the table? And another also, the fact that the assistant editor said "cold gun" (strange expression!) to Baldwin as he handed it to him suggests that there were also "hot" guns around in the studio, for whatever purpose. If these hypotheses are correct, then it would have been an accident just waiting to happen.
 
I'd have thought the 'shattering in a spectacular manner' thing was achieved by wiring the object in question with a small explosive device. But I am not a film-maker.
 
Nor am I, so don't know. But probably quicker and cheaper to shoot at a bottle rather than wiring up a charge, detonator, hidden wires, etc., for each "take." But I don't know.
 
A gun that can fire blanks is a real gun and can also fire live rounds. In this day and age there is no reason why the camera operator really had to be in the way, just that nobody has bothered to make suitable remote control cinema cameras.
Not necessarily. I could design and make a gun that fired blanks but had no means of spitting out a bullet.
 
Just occurred to me that maybe there WERE live rounds about the place, if, say, they had to film someone firing at something and that something shattering in a spectacular manner. Also, why were there 3 guns on the table? And another also, the fact that the assistant editor said "cold gun" (strange expression!) to Baldwin as he handed it to him suggests that there were also "hot" guns around in the studio, for whatever purpose. If these hypotheses are correct, then it would have been an accident just waiting to happen.
Alec Baldwin apparently said "I can't believe he handed me a hot gun" so presumably the hot/cold gun is common terminology in film circles and they manage them accordin gly.

Also, re the assertion that it's the actor's responsibility, of course not. That's why they have armour ers, pyrotechnics experts, and stunt drivers to deal with the hazardous stuff while leaving the actors to get on with their jobs. No different from me running a food factory, if there's an electric al problem I don't fix it, I press the E stop or open a guard and ring for an electrician.
 
Surely it would not be up to the actor to check.Many would t know how. There are teams around actors whose job it is to check and double check these issues according to strict guidelines I presume. That’s what they are paid to do.you couldn’t expect an actor to check a semi automatic etc. Unless they were experts in firearms and carried appropriate safety certs or qualifications. You would not blame Vic Morrow for not checking the helicopter etc.on that infamous Twighlight Zone shot? There are people and protocols who look after such matters. And there’s always cost cutting on films but it’s unusual for Thais to happen around safety issues.

Vic Morrow. Wow, that brought back some memories of that horrible accident. He played one of my early childhood TV heroes, Sergeant "Chip" Saunders of the World War II drama, "Combat!" (1962-1967).

220px-Vic-Morrow-Combat-1965.jpg
 
But those are places where you'd legitimately expect there to be live ammunition.

Good grief…. Ok. Shown it’s empty, then shown blank round/s being loaded. It’s not difficult. But I suppose we need to elevate actors above physics.
 
Alec Baldwin apparently said "I can't believe he handed me a hot gun" so presumably the hot/cold gun is common terminology in film circles and they manage them accordin gly.

Also, re the assertion that it's the actor's responsibility, of course not. That's why they have armour ers, pyrotechnics experts, and stunt drivers to deal with the hazardous stuff while leaving the actors to get on with their jobs. No different from me running a food factory, if there's an electric al problem I don't fix it, I press the E stop or open a guard and ring for an electrician.

So are you saying that you agree that there must have been live ammunition about the place, if there was the possibility of a "hot gun"?
 
So are you saying that you agree that there must have been live ammunition about the place, if there was the possibility of a "hot gun"?
Not necessarily. I'm saying that the industry uses the terms "hot gun" and "cold gun" and I imagine that there are procedures around that, regardless of whether any live ammunition is in use at the time. Same as when I'm in a meat cutting plant we have rules about carrying knives from one place to the next regardless of whether anyone else is about. People working in civil engineering wear boots, high viz and hard hats on site at all times. Yes, even when the site is just a field with nothing in it apart from two people and a theodolite.
 
I cannot see why you would want live ammunition on set at all. When you start thinking about safety, the shooting bottles story fails as ricochets are always possible. Firing ranges have to go to some lengths to be safe for the shooters
 
I cannot see why you would want live ammunition on set at all. When you start thinking about safety, the shooting bottles story fails as ricochets are always possible. Firing ranges have to go to some lengths to be safe for the shooters
I think that I heard that in the case of Brandon Lee, a similar incident in 1993, the remains of a blank cartridge were lodged in the barrel of the gun after a previous firing and when the next blank was fired there was enough of this debris to form a projectile that killed him.
 
Someone f**ked up and wasn't doing their job with competence, whether that's stunt coordinator or armourer I wouldn't really know.
I would have thought given Baldwins experience and the roles he has played that he would have some at least rudimentary firearms training.
 
Good grief…. Ok. Shown it’s empty, then shown blank round/s being loaded. It’s not difficult. But I suppose we need to elevate actors above physics.

thiking about it a bit more, I need to factor in that this is the USA, and the chance of there being live ammo about the place is much higher.
 


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