Alec Baldwin Kills Cinematographer

[Joe Guy]

Not many details yet but this is just weird...

[TPFKA@W]

Not one but 2 people shot. How the hell?

[liberty]

This is interesting. There's got to be more to this story: Two people accidentally shot and hit by one bullet or two people hit by two separate bullets accidentally fired?

I was never sure Baldwin was all that stable.

[BoSoxGal]

I can’t understand why, with the capabilities of CGI and advanced sound editing, films and TV are still using prop guns loaded with blanks that history has proven can malfunction and kill. Brandon Lee. Jon-Erik Hexum.

Until any facts emerge to the contrary, I’ll assume it was an accident which is why there have been no charges forthcoming against Alec Baldwin. I’m no huge fan of his, but I sure feel empathy for him today - what a horrific thing to endure.

As to how both could get shot - during filming of shots the director and cinematographer often stand very close, both watching through the viewfinder of camera. If the shot involved a scene with a perspective where Alec’s character was shooting toward the camera/another character, assuming careful aiming isn’t coming into play because nobody believes live ammo is at play, I can imagine a scenario where cinematographer takes a lethal neck shot that passes into the director's clavicle behind her (the reports I’ve read indicate that’s where the director was shot). A flesh wound to the neck could easily be lethal given all the arteries/veins in the area.

[Burning Petard]

BSG, I strongly believe I have more knowledge of firearms and their use than you do.

I strongly agree with everything you have posted. Then again, Alec Baldwin has demonstrated he is an asshole in so many ways.

snailgate

[BoSoxGal]

BSG, I strongly believe I have more knowledge of firearms and their use than you do.

I strongly agree with everything you have posted. Then again, Alec Baldwin has demonstrated he is an asshole in so many ways.

snailgate

I’m glad you agree with me because I’m pretty sure I’m right - albeit I have speculated as to the circumstances of the accidental shooting.

However I’m not sure that your supposition is at all correct. I was raised by a lifetime member of the NRA and trained in firearm safety when my age was still in single digits. Every month my household received American Rifleman, Guns & Ammo, Guns Digest, Field & Stream and a number of other sporting guns enthusiast publications whose titles I can’t recall. Many weekends involved trips to the firing range or desert to shoot some of my dad’s many guns, and during football season there was always firearms cleaning happening whilst we sat in front of the TV. In freshman year high school I was in Army JROTC and earned an expert badge in my marksmanship course. On spring break we went to Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona and in addition to staying in WWII era barracks, riding on Vietnam era helicopters in the mountains, and learning to belay down pretty steep cliffs - we also fired, dismantled, cleaned and reassembled M16s.

So yeah, I doubt there are any men or women on this board who are more familiar with firearms than I am. Equally maybe, but likely not more.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I assume this is on film. I agree that Baldwin has form in his assholeness but surely it is an accident. I thought all guns on sets were required to be prop guns, but even blanks, as BSG points out, can be and have been lethal.

[TPFKA@W]

Now I am reading that the prop had live ammo. I just knew this was going to be a thing.

[Scooter]

So someone, knowing that gun would be used on set, loaded it with real bullets. Somebody committed murder, and it wasn't Baldwin.

[TPFKA@W]

Someone watched too much Murder She Wrote and the ilk.

[liberty]

If one is going to be negligent or commit a crime, it's always best to be rich, famous, and popular. Whenever a movie is made, there's a lot of money at risk, and in play, that money gives important characters a lot of power and ego. And ego is dangerous. Maybe the state police should take over the investigation.

[Scooter]

Someone watched too much Murder She Wrote and the ilk.

I'm not suggesting that whoever put the ammo in the gun was targeting a specific person. But they must have known that the gun would be fired where it was likely that someone could be hit with the bullets. The New Mexico murder statute says:

A. Murder in the first degree is the killing of one human being by another without lawful justification or excuse, by any of the means with which death may be caused:

(1) by any kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing;

(2) in the commission of or attempt to commit any felony; or

(3) by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, indicating a depraved mind regardless of human life.

Whoever commits murder in the first degree is guilty of a capital felony.

B. Unless he is acting upon sufficient provocation, upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion, a person who kills another human being without lawful justification or excuse commits murder in the second degree if in performing the acts which cause the death he knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to that individual or another.

Murder in the second degree is a lesser included offense of the crime of murder in the first degree.

Whoever commits murder in the second degree is guilty of a second degree felony resulting in the death of a human being.

At the very least, putting real bullets in a prop gun "create[d] a strong probability of death or great bodily harm". It could arguably "indicat[e] a depraved mind regardless of human life". Murder, either way.

[Crackpot]

The simple truth is in almost all cases practical effects are more realistic and cheaper than CGI. There are many unconscious physical reactions to setting off a tiny explosion that can’t be accounted but at the same time will “uncanny valley” all realism out of a scene.

That being said as someone who work(s/ed) in a building that uses similar small explosives I have to wonder if there are even minimal effective safety precautions.

[Long Run]

Someone watched too much Murder She Wrote and the ilk.

I was going to say that this has been the plot of many a weekly who dunnit series.

[TPFKA@W]

Someone watched too much Murder She Wrote and the ilk.

I'm not suggesting that whoever put the ammo in the gun was targeting a specific person. But they must have known that the gun would be fired where it was likely that someone could be hit with the bullets. The New Mexico murder statute says:

A. Murder in the first degree is the killing of one human being by another without lawful justification or excuse, by any of the means with which death may be caused:

(1) by any kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing;

(2) in the commission of or attempt to commit any felony; or

(3) by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, indicating a depraved mind regardless of human life.

Whoever commits murder in the first degree is guilty of a capital felony.

B. Unless he is acting upon sufficient provocation, upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion, a person who kills another human being without lawful justification or excuse commits murder in the second degree if in performing the acts which cause the death he knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to that individual or another.

Murder in the second degree is a lesser included offense of the crime of murder in the first degree.

Whoever commits murder in the second degree is guilty of a second degree felony resulting in the death of a human being.

At the very least, putting real bullets in a prop gun "create[d] a strong probability of death or great bodily harm". It could arguably "indicat[e] a depraved mind regardless of human life". Murder, either way.

I wasn't referring to you in the slightest when making the comment. I was referring to whoever did the deed.

[Scooter]

Ah, ok. I was picturing someone more akin to Beavis and/or Butthead, imagining how funny it would be when everyone realized that the prop gun had fired a real bullet.

[Big RR]

A number of years ago we had a similar thing at a local western theme park; someone put live ammo in with the blanks used for the shootout. I don't think anyone was killed, but someone was seriously injured and, as I recall, it was something thought to be a joke (ala Scooter's mention of Beavis and Butthead). As I recall, the guilty person got some significant jail time.

It's really a matter of not having a procedure where only one person has access to the guns, which remain in his/her custody (and/or under lock and key) until the shooting time; I would think most movie sets and theme parks do this, but if they don't the chance for mischief is enhanced, and the results can be catastrophic.

[Econoline]

I can’t understand why, with the capabilities of CGI and advanced sound editing, films and TV are still using prop guns loaded with blanks that history has proven can malfunction and kill. Brandon Lee. Jon-Erik Hexum.

I heard an interview on BBC this morning with another cinematographer (I forget his name) who had previously worked with Halyna Hutchins on a previous film. He pretty much agreed with you that nowadays there should never be a gun capable of firing anything on a movie set anymore; he said he was certain that any film he himself has worked on recently had not used anything capable of firing a projectile when a gun or a gunshot was needed for any reason. But he also said that in the what, 2 or 3 decades since the last previous accidental shooting on a movie location safety standards had been considerably improved. Any firearm capable of firing blanks is kept in a locked safe in the prop room, and only one individual (with the actual job tile of "Armorer") is allowed to handle it and must hand it directly (no intermediary allowed) to the actor who needs to use it, and it is returned to its locked location immediately after finishing any scene which requires its use. And yes, of course, NO live ammo is ever allowed on set under any circumstances. (And apparently these rules are written into the IATSE union contract.)

So yes, it sure looks like

someone, knowing that gun would be used on set, loaded it with real bullets. Somebody committed murder, and it wasn't Baldwin.

[Joe Guy]

It's coming out now there were Union labor problems and people walking off set because of unsafe working conditions.

But I have a legal question. If a real gun is being used for a shooting scene, doesn't the person shooting it have some responsibility in checking the weapon before firing it? I don't care how much I trust some movie crew member who is handing me a pistol, if it's a real gun and I'm going to fire it, I'm checking it first.

I also don't understand why a real pistol is needed nowadays. Why wouldn't they use a non-functioning replica?

[Scooter]

My understanding is that blanks are not always easily distinguishable from live ammo by the untrained eye.