B) Don’t touch a real gun capable of firing real bullets unless you know how to (or have someone to instruct you on how to) do so safely with that firearm.
C) All guns are always loaded.
D) Never point your muzzle at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
E) Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot
F) Know what is in the foreground and background of your shot.
G) Don’t be the producer of the show letting all this unsafe shit happen
H) Don’t say “I’m just an actor, I can’t be expected to learn” as a piss poor excuse. I taught an 18yo kid (new employee) the safety rules last week and he got it, you telling me some kid is just smarter than any actor other than Keanu Reeves? No, Baldwin didn’t want to learn, and this is what happens. Guns aren’t toys and shouldn’t be treated as such even between shots on a set.
But most importantly, don’t hire scabs. The union armorer staff walked off the set of Rust due to repeated safety violations. Instead of fixing the issues, management hired unqualified scabs and continued.
I had heard that but went looking for a source and was never able to find one, so I didn’t include it, would you happen to have one? (I hope you do, I’m not trying to be a dick I want to save it to my bookmarks.)
With today’s video technology, I don’t see a reason to use real guns that can fire real bullets at all on movie sets. A realistic looking replica should be enough. Anything else can be added in post (like sounds or flashes) or acted (like recoil). It could have a mechanism to shoot empty shells out the side or otherwise behave like a real gun for everything other than being able to fire bullets or blanks (which can also be dangerous, though perhaps a blank shooting gun could be designed to mitigate those dangers).
I agree. And those blank firing guns already exist and would be mostly fine, the dangers are already pretty low especially for semi-autos which require a barrel plug to cycle with blanks, revolvers however do not. The dangers with blanks are often overstated because of a misunderstanding of what happened to Brandon Lee, IRL they could potentially hurt you if the little bits of brass from the crimp hit your eye, which would totally suck but you’d live, or if the barrel is too close the pressure could kill you (but like, we’re talking execution style to the temple here, 3ft+ of distance mitigates the pressure dangers). They’d still be a little dangerous but nowhere near live rounds lol.
(What happened to brandon lee is a bullet got stuck inside the barrel and nobody noticed, and then a blank pushed it out when fired. That’s a whole 'nother thing, and the armorer in that case fucked up a completely different way making props which anyone with a lee press and a flat punch could have done safely, that one was squarely on him.)
Yeah, I was thinking of Brandon Lee, but also In Burgess, though that one was a part of the movie rather than a filming accident. It’s a great movie and that scene is my favourite in the movie.
Tap for spoiler
A couple set up the MC with a seduce, bring him back to her room where the other guy steps out with a gun to rob him scheme. Only the MC takes the gun from the guy, who is scared for a second until he remembers it was only loaded with blanks and charges the MC, thinking blanks == harmless, but then gets a blank pretty much point blank to the face and gets blinded.
That scene taught me that even blanks shouldn’t be fucked with like toys.
Funny story, I have that on dvd somehow, but have never watched it lol.
Yeah a point blank blank (lol) can definitely cause serious problems, but a few feet back and it’s “safer” (though really you should still have eye protection, and it’s still not something I’d do without a multimillion dollar movie contract, of course. Don’t try that at home lol) but they’re safe enough for movies assuming no live rounds on set and no “brandon lee accidents”, but yeah still not “toys,” it’s like working with power tools, you can hurt yourself or others being dumb so don’t.
What I described is a problem with B. On a set, there are also problems with D, and E.
Even with brief safety lessons, I would not want/require every actor to ever touch a gun to know the insane revolver process described above in which you must pull the trigger to safely unload a gun and make it safe - and to check that the blank rounds are actually blank. If a “gun nut” didn’t know that process, there are liable to be countless other processes an actor won’t know.
Additionally, guns are used on set for dramatic effect. Actors WILL point guns at other actors for the sake of a shot, and WILL have their finger on the trigger to make their character seem real mean. So D and E, while good lessons, must be suspended on TV sets.
All the rest of the lessons are for the arms master of a set to handle. They are the ones that should be ensuring weapons anywhere near a set are loaded with blanks only when needed, and all otherwise follows full safety precautions. Hence why my opinion on blame for that incident was on Baldwin as the producer responsible for negligently hiring a shitty arms handler, not on Baldwin as the person holding the gun that went off.
If they can’t handle learning safety with a real gun, they don’t get no real gun, simple as. They aren’t toys. It doesn’t matter how widely known the operation of X specific gun is, if you’re holding that gun, you need to know how to operate that gun safely, he doesn’t need to know everything about everything, just the one he is operating. Anything less is just unsafe and could lead to things like camera people being shot in between takes.
And with camera magic usually you can point them off to the side a little and still make it look like it’s pointed at the other person, or for this shot (which was actually just him fucking around in between takes), they could have left the camera running, had the op walk away, and then had him walk up and shoot an empty camera seat which through the magic of editing could be cut down to the shot you need since film isn’t even film anymore (digital these days.) Or y’know just not use a real gun capable of firing live rounds.
They’re also lessons for Producer Alec Baldwin, who, whether he is just a stupid actor who can’t be expected to learn something which it sounds like took you a five minute youtube video to learn (you must be a genius if you can handle it but Alec Baldwin Producer cannot), or not, someone died because he was playing with guns, and people only excuse it because he’s famous. You wouldn’t say “well why would he be expected to know about guns, he’s a plumber not an armorer” if your plumber uncle was playing with guns and shot his friend, but Alec “Millionaire Producer” Baldwin is cool because “he’s too dumb to learn anything.”
Like it or not he is at least partially culpable, and he’s going to have to live with that for the rest of his life. He can make all the excuses he wants but deep down he has to know.
As I mentioned, I held a gun long ago handed to me by a marine doing a demo on a decommissioned carrier. He did not give me any kind of extensive training in the safety of the 92FS or any cautions about edge case safety concerns. I didn’t check the chamber, or know how to. In holding it horizontally within a metal ship, it’s not impossible that a misfire from the direction I held it could have ricocheted off walls and hurt someone. While I knew not to touch the trigger, he didn’t instruct me as such.
The Marine did, however, know that no live ammo was being brought onto the boat, and that he’d personally checked that the weapon was unloaded before handing it to me - just so I could see how much it weighed.
Was that tiny incident irresponsible on MY part? I would argue no. There are responsibilities carried by gun users and owners, and only some of those pass on depending on the environment the gun’s handler sets.
This is why you
A) Don’t have live ammo on set at all,
B) Don’t touch a real gun capable of firing real bullets unless you know how to (or have someone to instruct you on how to) do so safely with that firearm.
C) All guns are always loaded.
D) Never point your muzzle at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
E) Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot
F) Know what is in the foreground and background of your shot.
G) Don’t be the producer of the show letting all this unsafe shit happen
H) Don’t say “I’m just an actor, I can’t be expected to learn” as a piss poor excuse. I taught an 18yo kid (new employee) the safety rules last week and he got it, you telling me some kid is just smarter than any actor other than Keanu Reeves? No, Baldwin didn’t want to learn, and this is what happens. Guns aren’t toys and shouldn’t be treated as such even between shots on a set.
But most importantly, don’t hire scabs. The union armorer staff walked off the set of Rust due to repeated safety violations. Instead of fixing the issues, management hired unqualified scabs and continued.
I had heard that but went looking for a source and was never able to find one, so I didn’t include it, would you happen to have one? (I hope you do, I’m not trying to be a dick I want to save it to my bookmarks.)
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-rust-camera-crew-walked-off-set
The camera crew walked out over gun safety. I’m not seeing anything about the armorer yet, so I may have misremembered.
Still something, thanks!
With today’s video technology, I don’t see a reason to use real guns that can fire real bullets at all on movie sets. A realistic looking replica should be enough. Anything else can be added in post (like sounds or flashes) or acted (like recoil). It could have a mechanism to shoot empty shells out the side or otherwise behave like a real gun for everything other than being able to fire bullets or blanks (which can also be dangerous, though perhaps a blank shooting gun could be designed to mitigate those dangers).
I agree. And those blank firing guns already exist and would be mostly fine, the dangers are already pretty low especially for semi-autos which require a barrel plug to cycle with blanks, revolvers however do not. The dangers with blanks are often overstated because of a misunderstanding of what happened to Brandon Lee, IRL they could potentially hurt you if the little bits of brass from the crimp hit your eye, which would totally suck but you’d live, or if the barrel is too close the pressure could kill you (but like, we’re talking execution style to the temple here, 3ft+ of distance mitigates the pressure dangers). They’d still be a little dangerous but nowhere near live rounds lol.
(What happened to brandon lee is a bullet got stuck inside the barrel and nobody noticed, and then a blank pushed it out when fired. That’s a whole 'nother thing, and the armorer in that case fucked up a completely different way making props which anyone with a lee press and a flat punch could have done safely, that one was squarely on him.)
Yeah, I was thinking of Brandon Lee, but also In Burgess, though that one was a part of the movie rather than a filming accident. It’s a great movie and that scene is my favourite in the movie.
Tap for spoiler
A couple set up the MC with a seduce, bring him back to her room where the other guy steps out with a gun to rob him scheme. Only the MC takes the gun from the guy, who is scared for a second until he remembers it was only loaded with blanks and charges the MC, thinking blanks == harmless, but then gets a blank pretty much point blank to the face and gets blinded.
That scene taught me that even blanks shouldn’t be fucked with like toys.
Funny story, I have that on dvd somehow, but have never watched it lol.
Yeah a point blank blank (lol) can definitely cause serious problems, but a few feet back and it’s “safer” (though really you should still have eye protection, and it’s still not something I’d do without a multimillion dollar movie contract, of course. Don’t try that at home lol) but they’re safe enough for movies assuming no live rounds on set and no “brandon lee accidents”, but yeah still not “toys,” it’s like working with power tools, you can hurt yourself or others being dumb so don’t.
On a movie set. A should have been obvious as in any professional setting (except the ones that use guns obviously).
If the crew wanted to go plinking at cans they should have just gone to the friendly neighbourhood gun range.
What I described is a problem with B. On a set, there are also problems with D, and E.
Even with brief safety lessons, I would not want/require every actor to ever touch a gun to know the insane revolver process described above in which you must pull the trigger to safely unload a gun and make it safe - and to check that the blank rounds are actually blank. If a “gun nut” didn’t know that process, there are liable to be countless other processes an actor won’t know.
Additionally, guns are used on set for dramatic effect. Actors WILL point guns at other actors for the sake of a shot, and WILL have their finger on the trigger to make their character seem real mean. So D and E, while good lessons, must be suspended on TV sets.
All the rest of the lessons are for the arms master of a set to handle. They are the ones that should be ensuring weapons anywhere near a set are loaded with blanks only when needed, and all otherwise follows full safety precautions. Hence why my opinion on blame for that incident was on Baldwin as the producer responsible for negligently hiring a shitty arms handler, not on Baldwin as the person holding the gun that went off.
If they can’t handle learning safety with a real gun, they don’t get no real gun, simple as. They aren’t toys. It doesn’t matter how widely known the operation of X specific gun is, if you’re holding that gun, you need to know how to operate that gun safely, he doesn’t need to know everything about everything, just the one he is operating. Anything less is just unsafe and could lead to things like camera people being shot in between takes.
And with camera magic usually you can point them off to the side a little and still make it look like it’s pointed at the other person, or for this shot (which was actually just him fucking around in between takes), they could have left the camera running, had the op walk away, and then had him walk up and shoot an empty camera seat which through the magic of editing could be cut down to the shot you need since film isn’t even film anymore (digital these days.) Or y’know just not use a real gun capable of firing live rounds.
They’re also lessons for Producer Alec Baldwin, who, whether he is just a stupid actor who can’t be expected to learn something which it sounds like took you a five minute youtube video to learn (you must be a genius if you can handle it but Alec Baldwin Producer cannot), or not, someone died because he was playing with guns, and people only excuse it because he’s famous. You wouldn’t say “well why would he be expected to know about guns, he’s a plumber not an armorer” if your plumber uncle was playing with guns and shot his friend, but Alec “Millionaire Producer” Baldwin is cool because “he’s too dumb to learn anything.”
Like it or not he is at least partially culpable, and he’s going to have to live with that for the rest of his life. He can make all the excuses he wants but deep down he has to know.
Let me test this standpoint a bit.
As I mentioned, I held a gun long ago handed to me by a marine doing a demo on a decommissioned carrier. He did not give me any kind of extensive training in the safety of the 92FS or any cautions about edge case safety concerns. I didn’t check the chamber, or know how to. In holding it horizontally within a metal ship, it’s not impossible that a misfire from the direction I held it could have ricocheted off walls and hurt someone. While I knew not to touch the trigger, he didn’t instruct me as such.
The Marine did, however, know that no live ammo was being brought onto the boat, and that he’d personally checked that the weapon was unloaded before handing it to me - just so I could see how much it weighed.
Was that tiny incident irresponsible on MY part? I would argue no. There are responsibilities carried by gun users and owners, and only some of those pass on depending on the environment the gun’s handler sets.