A woman was fatally shot by a prop firearm on an Alec Baldwin movie set

[NJCher]

Source: NPR

SANTA FE, N.M. — The director of photography on a movie starring Alec Baldwin has been killed and the film's director injured, according to the sheriff's office of Santa Fe County, N.M. They were shot by a prop firearm that was discharged by Baldwin, who is also a producer on the film.

Halyna Hutchins, 42, the director of photography, was airlifted to the University of New Mexico hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The second victim, director Joel Souza, 48, was being cared for at Christus St. Vincent Medical Center.

The investigation is ongoing and authorities say no charges have been filed in this incident. Detectives are continuing to be interview witnesses.

Production has been halted on the Western movie "Rust," which is being directed by Joel Souza with Baldwin producing and acting.



Read more: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/21/1048246249/woman-killed-alec-baldwin-film-prop-firearm-new-mexico

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More at link, including photographs.

[jeffreyi]

1. Wow. Something went terribly wrong.

[NJCher]

2. story at link tells how

Baldwin was in tears, but the press could not speak to him (obviously).

Something like this is enough to ruin your life for a long, long time.

[Lokilooney]

3. It depends on the definition of "prop"

It could have been a real gun in which blanks were supposed to be loaded, kind of like when Brandon Lee was killed on the set of 'The Crow' which they referenced. That was really a freak accident, prop bullets that had the powder removed so that it looked like a real bullet was loaded into a revolver but they failed to take the primer out so when it was fired the bullet popped into the barrel where it remained. Later during the scene in which Lee was to be shot they used blanks but with a bullet in the chamber it came out with the force of an accrual live round.

[mackdaddy]

6. There was also an actor who put the pistol with blanks against his head and fired.

The explosive force was enough to kill him. Serious stuff always.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon-Erik_Hexum

[CentralMass]

4. Thst is terrible.

[PoliticAverse]

5. "of a prop gun with blanks." - a reminder that at close range blanks can kill.

https://ew.com/article/1994/10/14/jon-erik-hexums-fatal-joke/

https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=54186341&itype=CMSID

[LisaL]

36. This gun had a live round in it.

NT

[Javaman]

40. that means the property master didn't do their job.

prior to any use of a weapon on set, a good prop master always checks the chambers.

if there was a live round in there, that means, 1) they didn't check, 2) they didn't know what they were doing 3) it was someones personal weapon that still had a round in it.

there is less than zero reason to ever have a live round in a weapon on a set.

this was a complete fuck up by the prop dept from the get go.

[LisaL]

45. Seems unlikely it was somebody's personal weapon.

The movie was a western, with guns being of that time period.

[Javaman]

47. exactly.

that's why the property master fucked up.

just a moron that didn't do her job as armourer of the production.

she killed the cinematographer, not Baldwin.

it was her second time as lead armourer and she didn't check the weapons. more over, why there were live rounds and not only blanks on the set is still a mystery.

also, it appears on the second take or run through, that the weapon fired. The shot went through the Director into the cinematographer.

that means, that was no blank, that was very much a live round.

more over, before either take or run through was done, the AD yelled "cold gun" meaning nothing was loaded in the weapon. aka the property master/armourer didn't do their jobs by checking the chambers of the weapons.

she was a 24 year old armourer and she killed and wounded another person due to gross negligence, her life is over.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. How terrible!

Baldwin surely feels absolutely sick from what happened too.

[cadoman]

8. What reason would he have to point and shoot a prop firearm at the cinematographer and director?

Maybe a shot that required him to fire directly at a camera? Hope he wasn't horsing around.

[RockRaven]

10. Yeah, not knowing anything about this film or scene, the first question I had was why was the gun

pointed in the direction of a person even it it was a prop/blank/yadda yadda. If it is anyway possible given the camera shot in question, one should find a way to not have any gun barrel pointed at a person...

[Roy Rolling]

15. Been there, done that

A prop gun is never to be fired in the direction of an actor or crew member. The propmaster—or armorer in large films—handles the firearms. The directors always clear the sets, so why a DP—director of photography—was in the line of fire is a tragic mistake if it happened.

I worked nearly two decades on movie sets as a medic and know the drill.

This is beyond tragic, it’s easy to understand why Baldwin was inconsolable—he’s in shock from being a near-victim in a fatal accident that killed a friend and colleague within arm’s length.

I feel for all of them.

[forgotmylogin]

44. I certainly hope they weren't standing behind the camera having a prop gun fired at it.

My other speculation with this tragic incident is that possibly the gun jammed somehow and exploded, flinging shrapnel in an unexpected direction.

Years of theatrical work has drilled into my head that a prop gun is never aimed directly at another person.

If a gun has to be fired onstage, it's possible to use sight-lines so that it can appear it is aimed at a person - and even when the gun is supposed to shoot and "hit" that person, the actor is blocked to miss the "victim" by aiming upstage so it's not pointing at them directly (actors and tech people off-stage are also required to clear the wings in the direction of live fire, or they "take cover" out of range) to avoid sparks or anything getting thrown from the barrel at somebody. Even paper from a toy cap-gun can be ejected and hit someone in the eye.

If fight choreography is involved, or a gun needs to be pressed to someone's head or body for plot purposes, a rubber facsimile is used so it cannot be mistakenly discharged. If at all possible, blanks should never be actually fired by the actors during fight choreography - prop guns getting thrown or passed around should be non-functional (fakes made from rubber are great for this purpose since they will not break or jam, and anyone touching it can tell it's not real) and any gunshots created by a sound effect or a blank being fired off-stage up into the air by a qualified prop-person.

One of the more tense back-stage experiences I remember was a scene where an actor was supposed to fire a crossbow onstage and "hit" another actor who then fell down a staircase. For some stupid reason they really wanted to fire the crossbow for real. The way they decided to accomplish this was by the angles designed into the set. The victim stood in an alcove on the stair landing shielded by walls reinforced with metal plates so they were visible to the audience, but due to the angle involved could not be seen by the actor firing the crossbow - ostensibly "shielded" from being hit. The stage left wing had to be clear of people, and the actor fired up the staircase into an off-stage hay bale way above where anyone could potentially stand. The victim then held another half-bolt to his body and did the stair fall to sell it. We all survived this, but...

One performance the actor missed the hay bale and we could hear the bolt hit the concrete wall offstage and clatter around as it ricocheted. This stunt SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN EVEN ATTEMPTED - if they had hit that metal reinforced wall, the bolt could have broken and shattered - or worse be deflected into the audience. I was a college student at the time with no say, but I would never choose to accomplish a scene like this ever. It would work just fine to mime a crossbow bolt and do it with sound effects and an empty crossbow since nobody can actually see the bolt fly.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

22. Yes, I have had quite a bit firearms instruction

And rule number one is "Always assume that the firearm is loaded". Even if you have unloaded it yourself, assume you made a mistake, and there is a round in the chamber. Even if it is a prop, assume that it is loaded. Rule number two is "Never point a weapon at someone unless you intend to shoot that person".

[MissB]

9. Tragic for all

This seems to happen rarely but boy when it does…

I still remember John Erik hexum.

[Skittles]

16. oh I remember John-Erik

total beefcake, stunning blue eyes

[EndlessWire]

27. Yeah

I remember the gay boys at the office remarking that even his name must have been made up, it was so pretty. Of course, it was real. That was a terrible happening.

[LeftInTX]

17. John Erik put the gun directly to his temple..

He assumed blanks were harmless.
He was bored and was goofing around

Alec would know better.

[wnylib]

11. Very tragic and really bizzare,

considering the plot of the film, in which Baldwin was to play the part of a man aiding his grandson who was convicted for an accidental killing..

[Buckeye_Democrat]

13. Good grief, the irony of it.

[sakabatou]

12. I'n getting Brandon Lee flashbacks

[SmittyWerben]

14. Depending on the weapon used I can easily something being lodged in the barrel

of the gun being hurled like a slug upon firing. I believe there are protocols in place to check the barrels before firing but anything can happen.

[Amishman]

20. I think you're halfway right but with a western movie and multiple harmed, I think it exploded

This is my guess based on the information given

Probably dropped and had a tight wad of dirt or mud in the barrel.

When fired with a blank, the obstruction caused the gun to explode.

A western wouldn't have modern automatic firearms, so this is the only way I can think of an accident resulting in multiple people getting harmed.

[DenaliDemocrat]

24. Or material sprayed out like a shotgun

And hit multiple people.

[OhioTim]

18. Can't They Use A..

barrel that is welded shut and a blank with only a small amount of powder?

[mucifer]

19. Or just edit in the sound with nothing in the pistol

[riversedge]

21. So horrible for Baldwin, the victims and their families and friends.

[IronLionZion]

23. That's how Brandon Lee died while filming The Crow

They need different types of prop guns so this doesn't happen again. Damn it. CGI technology has improved tremendously that they can always add the smoke and flash later to make it look realistic.

[Jedi Guy]

26. Ah, but CGI is expensive. Blank rounds (and human life) are cheap.

A few frames of CGI can be ludicrously expensive from what I've read, and in a movie with lots of gunfire the cost could go up like a pinball score. Much more cost-efficient for the studios to rely instead on old technologies, regardless of the danger those technologies pose to cast and crew.

At least it's not like the old days before squibs, when they used live rounds...

[IronLionZion]

29. Damn you're right about live rounds

James Cagney and SAG collectively bargained against using live rounds

[Javaman]

25. having working in film for many years...

starting from PA and worked up to Cinematographer, I can say without a doubt this is the property masters fault.

anytime a weapon that involves a firing mechanism is used on the set, it's required by union rules (and I also believe some state laws) that it has to be verbally announced that "a live weapons is on the set, it contains blanks but it still is a loaded and is to be treated as dangerous weapons"

once it it used in the scene, a good prop dept will be all over the actor to take the weapons back, even between takes.

trusting an actor to be safe with a weapon is like throwing puppies in a a lion cage and thinking they will be fine.

(On edit: if interested in the history behind this: it's because they once used real weapons on sets back in the very early days of film and many many accidents happened)

[Jedi Guy]

28. Yep, they did use live rounds back in the day.

There was supposedly one incident involving James Cagney. He was filming a scene that involved machine-gun fire, and as the shooter opened fire, a bullet ricocheted off the edge of a window and went through the wall right where Cagney's head had been a few moments before. And he was a bigshot, so imagine what the extras had to deal with!

[Bucky]

31. ratcheer

[Bucky]

30. But even when there's blanks in prop guns, actors aren't supposed to shoot AT someone's direction

and the firing of blanks is still supposed to happen from a safe distance away.

I don't want to sound horrible here, but this may well be the fault of the director and the DP who instructed Baldwin to shoot where and when he did and chose to stand in that proximity. This must've been such a Rube Goldberg sequence of mistakes to lead up to this accident, perhaps they couldn't have imagined they'd get hurt. But in the millions of "into the camera" shots made in movies over the years, that sequence is bound to occur a time or three.

Whoever was in charge of that set didn't follow the right safety protocols. It's heartbreaking, as they were all just making entertainment for us. But you have to stick relentlessly to the protocols. The actor, the prop master, and the surviving director are gonna carry this with them. The family of the DP must be devastated.

[Javaman]

39. I agree with what you said, but at the end of the day, it's not the actors responsibility to control

the weapon, that's the property dept, not the actors job.

the director, cinematographer and the actor where all doing their jobs. also, they were trusting that the property master was doing his or hers. apparently not.

I have worked on films and music videos as a cinematographer and when they bring a live weapon on the set, I would always ask to see the chamber and the rounds. especially if they were going to point it at the camera.


it turns out the prop master was non union. you get what you pay for.

[Locrian]

43. yes agree...

unless of course the actor fires w/o being instructed to etc.
Which at this point I have no reason to believe he did but will need more info to be sure.

[Javaman]

46. it was a the second take.

apparently, the first time the gun didn't go off, the second time it did.

nothing happened in-between takes. no checking of the weapon at all

also, there have been reports of other misfires on this production, that alone should have triggered and investigation, but nothing happened.

[TexasBushwhacker]

33. They used a non-Union propmaster n/t

[Javaman]

37. well, and there you have it.

fucking moron. I hope he serves time.

[LisaL]

35. The gun had a life round in it.

So not even blanks.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2021/10/21/alec-baldwin-film-rust-woman-killed-after-prop-gun-incident-set/6128073001/

[Javaman]

38. fucking moron prop master.

just so much fucking stupidity.

[Bucky]

41. This is just one email, so I read this with a grain of salt, but...

If true it raised the same question I had following both the JonErik Hexum and the Brandon Lee tragedies. Why on earth would you have any live rounds on a movie set? It makes no sense. It reminds me of the "anvil tree" cartoon in Gary Larsen's Far Side. The humor there was, why would anyone even build such a thing? It's a hazard with no benefits, no upside.

The question is a tragedy here...
Why have any kind of bullet in a bullet casing on a movie set. There's just no legit reason to even have it there, certainly not among the prop guns. There's no hunting, no guarding, no movie effects to be made with live rounds. It's pointless to have there. It's like having poison in your fridge and you warn you kids... "Hey, Dylan, Tiffany, make sure you don't pour any poison into your orange juice!" That's good advice, but why even create that risk in the first place? The poison doesn't help get the kids ready for school, the anvil doesn't help the tire swing swing, and the live round doesn't help make a movie.

[tavernier]

32. $10 says Rump will have a comment

and it will be some kind of snarky and boastful BS.

[Polybius]

34. Shades of Brandon Lee

I will never forget that tragic day in 1993.

[ManiacJoe]

42. The prop master and armorer have a lot of explaining to do.