Right. We know what they need to prove. Anything else comes out later.
Yes, that’s basic gun safety, but does a failure to do so constitute manslaughter? It’s not like he was driving without a license; it’s like he was told that the car didn’t have any gas in it.
3 Likes
Which is the norm these days, but it requires a budget for cg muzzle flashes. Something becoming common where the set is DGA/SAG/IATSE approved. Being a non union set, Rust had a legion of underqualified, inexperienced and unprofessional people working it*
But your personal experience with a firearm has zero bearing with what goes on in a movie set. Actors do not under any circumstances act as safety officers. They are not qualified to tell the difference between dummy, live or blank rounds. SAG rules forbid them doing from doing technical work on set. When in front of a camera, their movements are under the director’s control to ensure continuity between scenes/takes.
*Still not an excuse for using live firing guns on a set. Even El Mariachi, shot on $15K with basically amateurs used blank firing guns and painted waterguns.
4 Likes
Note: Canadian. I’m an American–the percentage of us that have handled and even fired guns is a lot higher.
I do agree that movie portrayals of weapons the average person will never see has no need to look all that realistic as few will know the problems. Recoil, however, a lot of Americans will have experience with.
I’m saying everything else perfectly well can be simulated and when you need recoil the viewer won’t be seeing the target anyway, they can be shooting into a backstop. Non-functional stuff for all other scenes.
1 Like
I would posit that the amount of recoil in a movie firearm has is not relevant to how story telling works and how we are to digest a movie.
Everything about film’s presentation is a lie. There is no motion, it’s a series of static pictures. There is no depth, it’s a flat screen. The dialog doesn’t come from the performer’s mouth, it’s from a series of speakers. A jump cut from one location to another is completely alien to how we perceive and experience the real world. No profession is portrayed accurately, not even the film-making process in films about film-making. It’s theater. We can be fooled by the verisimilitude, but always remember it’s theatre.
A carpenter going play, seeing the set, and complaining the corners aren’t right angles, there is no roof, and they are missing an entire fourth wall is not being clever nor are they enhancing their enjoyment of the performance. It’s not even a matter of “turning off your brain” it’s a matter of “turning on the part of your brain that has learned how to recognize the forms media”
5 Likes
IANAL, so I don’t really know what Baldwin should be charged with and if he’s guilty of it. But I do think he has some responsibility. As does the industry, who seem too focused on “realism” instead of safety.
ETA (since I keep on being told to combine my replies…):
They don’t have to be safety officers. Well, maybe they should at least from a “I’d rather not kill someone today” safety sense. They don’t need to do the technical work to prove the bullets they handle aren’t real. Which I thin we agree don’t need to be on set.
All they need to do is confirm the weapon is safe, and failing to do so, treat the weapon as loaded and lethal. Something you can, and should, teach a 7-year old.
I’ll agree I know nothing of working on movie sets. But these people are not puppets. Baldwin wasn’t marionetted into position unable to glance at the dangerous parts to confirm they aren’t. Or confirm it’s the non-functioning prop in an idea world. He was told it was a safe device and didn’t observe the first rule or firearm safety.
I think Baldwin is responsible in same way, but it’s above my pay grade to make that determination. And I should note I have nothing against Mr. Baldwin, Alex or otherwise. I’ve enjoyed his work and still will. He did ignore my Words with Friends request around that time when he made news ripples by being a dickhead on a plane. But I don’t hold it against him. Much.
On that we agree. I just think that this is a civil matter rather than a criminal matter.
2 Likes
What percentage of the movie-going public do you think have more than a cursory personal experience with more than two two types of weapons (handguns, rifles, shotguns, machine guns). The ones that can tell the recoil is realistic.
It just seems a bit… gun-fetish-y? to subject actors, crew, others, to the danger of lethal weapons on set in order to satisfy the long tail of weapon experts.
1 Like
Brilliantly put. I wish I could put together words like you just did. And I regret that I’ve only one like to give.
1 Like
But if someone asks you to handle a functional firearm and the armorer isn’t on set, the answer is “no”. Especially if you’re a billed actor who isn’t about to get fired off the project for being hard to work with (but everyone on set should have that level of comfort, if it’s an actually safe set to work on).
Or, to put it another way, the chain of responsibility only works if everyone respects that chain.
You know the firearm is functional. You know that functional firearms can be dangerous, even when loaded with blanks. Handling it without the proper checks in place is knowingly creating a hazard.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
