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Lawyers for ‘Rust’ armourer move to get case dismissed after Baldwin trial collapses
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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I know a guy who teaches stage combat for live theater and have seen him on more than one occasion talk directors out of using prop firearms that fire blanks (think something akin to a starters pistol). These guns have filled barrels, etc. so there’s no way they could ever fire an actual projectile.
One of the huge problems with these sorts of guns is that they’re very prone to misfiring. For whatever reason the manufacturing quality of both starter guns and the blanks they use just isn’t as good as real firearms. The last thing you want in live theater (which I’ve seen more than once) is for an actor to pull the trigger and hear a click instead of a bang.
Granted they could just re-shoot a movie scene if this happens, but that costs time & money, which they absolutely hate wasting.
Your idea of using smaller caliber bores, etc. likely wouldn’t prevent this sort of thing because either the quality would again suffer due to the lack of demand, or some idiot would still produce real ammo for it, or at least a projectile firing blank.
Movies like Rust use revolvers because that’s what cowboys would have used. They want the guns to look real, which means the cylinder should look like it has real bullets in them and not blanks, especially in close-up shots where you can clearly see a gun. That’s ultimately what killed Brandon Lee on his movie set. The special effects team botched rigging the bullets so they wouldn’t fire. They removed the powder but didn’t remove the primer cap, and at close range that was still enough to cause trauma when Lee was shot.
I also know a guy with 40+ years in the movie special effects industry who actually writes OSHA safety regulations for the industry. They’re “written in blood” due to events like Brandon Lees death, and when followed properly everybody is safe. He wasn’t involved in any way with the Rust production, but he was extremely pissed when he started hearing what’s been reported. He said it sounds like pretty much everybody involved from the producer on down ignored those regulations, and he had no problem with folks like Baldwin facing charges as a result.
I work film and am outraged at the dismissal. What a lot of people neglected to grasp is because they were focused on whether or not Baldwin pulled the trigger is that the trigger wasn't completely relevant to the crime.
Even if Baldwin wasn't the one holding the gun, even if was in the hands of a completely different actor, he should have been charged as part of the Producers for failing to provide a safe work environment. When these sort of things happen we should be asking who was in charge of providing a safe environment, were they made aware of the dangers and why didn't they stop them. If you are fronting the money, have creative control and hiring and firing power and are cced on safety issues your crew brings up as concerns it's your duty to make sure your crew is safe... And there were so many red flags on Rust you could have seen them from fucking space. People were leaving the show because they didn't feel safe. Saying a seasoned actor / Producer would have been unaware while not just being on set but directly interfacing with the process is complete ludacris.
We talk about Brandon Lee but we should be talking about Sarah Jones. When she was killed by unsafe choices made by Production three out of four Producers on the project, everyone who could not claim complete perfect ignorance of the choices made, were charged criminally.
This is a sad day for American film labor. Appearantly bosses have no direct liability to keep us safe anymore.
It's the same thing with fire performance. Since it's so fucking dangerous, you have to be licensed and insured for it in my city. I personally have an elevated producer license which allows me to supervise, but the flip side is that if something goes wrong, even if I'm not performing, my ass is on the line. I've heard of producers being questioned for being at a show as an audience member when something went wrong.
I personally believe that anyone directly involved with production should be charged. It doesn't matter who pulled the trigger.
Right!? Your average person does not understand the basics of how performance arts in general interface with the law. The perceptions of Producers is really messed up.
In film it is exacerbated a little because some people are primed to look at actors producing as an honorary role and not a practical one. Sometimes the bar does get lowered a bit to accomodate a big name by delegating a lot of the less fun bits but they are still effectively an employer and they can swing their weight around .
There's also a bit of a perception of above the line crew members by the rest of us where Producers and Directors are basically allowed to break a lot of the rules. Due diligence means we inform them of the risk but they are free to ignore it if they really want to do something that damages equipment or wastes time they are the ones paying for it so if they want to be dumb that's their privilege.
When it comes to human safety though there are a few people authorized to veto things. Crew and cast are allowed to refuse unsafe work (which is risky because we don't need to be fired, we can just not be hired on for the next job), the 1stAD who acts as the executive representative of the production liability on the set can say veto directors and producers and the Production Manager is the authority who operates on behalf of the Producers to protect their dumb butts from liability. But Producers ultimately have final say and often no consequences.
It's really interesting to me that fire dancing gets the same perception even without all the mess in the middle.