Alec Baldwin: Hollywood's King of Menace

I get the "real guns feel/look more real" (since they ARE real, duh) but couldn't they use "real" guns with the firing mechanics removed or something so they still weigh/feel/look real and then add CGI ?
Maybe there's something with "real" recoil ? I have no idea what blanks feel like on that aspect...

Movies/TV have been using slightly off-looking fake money for decades and it has somehow not been a problem for anyone

Prop guns are used ten thousands of time on film sets around the world each year; it’s perfectly reasonable to be shooting a film thinking the use of a prop gun will lead to no accidents. A lot of things on a film set are as dangerous as a prop gun.

Not so coincidentally, the film technicians union voted to go on strike recently and all I’m hearing is that sets are ever increasingly dangerous with producers willing to cut corners to save money.

it’s perfectly reasonable to be shooting a film thinking the use of a prop gun will lead to no accidents

i think the actual answer is that this isn't going to be allowed anymore after the union has their say

sorry kinder, i wasn't trying to be rude with my reply i just wasn't sure you had seen it given the way it was posted

Not being facetious - this seems like it's acceptable risk?

― kinder, Friday, October 22, 2021 11:46 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

There is only a risk involved if people don’t do their jobs properly. On that very same film set, there’s a decent chance a 65 kg tungsten light was hung above film technicians in order for the director and dop to have their artistic desires fufilled. Film sets simply are dangerous spaces with risks involved. Heck, filmming during a pandemic is a massive risk unto itself.

Do CGI when you can, of course, but the only way you’ll have a risk free film set is by hiring properly trained professionals working decent hours and to give them the time to properly do their jobs.

When movies need guns, you're supposed to hire a firearms expert to be on set supervising said weapons (these people are frequently retired cops, ex-military etc.). But corners do get cut.

I was an extra in a tv advert once as a favour to a friend and I ended up being promoted to a non speaking acting role mainly, I think, because my costume looked so good - Anyway I had to carry a rifle - the only one that ended up being used as a prop rather than set dressing- and the arms supervisor or whatever you’d call him would take the gun off me and painstakingly inspect it after every take. It drove me crazy since we were shooting all day in rain (fake rain but real water). At the time I thought he was an arse who was trying to give himself more prestige in the process by being so ruthlessly pedantic. Now I realise why he was doing that... in the end you didn’t really see me or my costume or really see the gun but it comes on tv from time to time and I shout “that’s me!” Before anyone registers my fleeting presence.

Yeah I was thinking about the big lights since in most murder movies located on a film set or in a theater that's usually the "weapon" !
And then of course, all movie sets including cars or other vehicles are also very dangerous, I guess.

Per this story:

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/10/alec-baldwin-fires-gun-kills-cinematographer-wounds-director-on-rust-set-1234673555/

IATSE Local 44, which covers prop masters, sent an email to its members early Friday morning that said the gun used in the scene contained “a live round” and the production’s propmaster was not a member of Local 44.

Chatting to a friend of mine who's an ex-pig with firearms training who also has questions. Still think this is likely a horrible health and safety failure but still

a live round?? uh

xpost

i believe they mean it had one and was not supposed to

I’m hearing the union camera crew walked because they were upset about gun safety on the film up to that point.

This accident occurred the very next day. #rust #iasolidarity #iatse https://t.co/eMHy5xPXJG

— Darwin Brandis (@dtbbythesea) October 22, 2021

Saw this on twitter just now. Downthread claims his source is one of the people who left the set.

this is bad

it's about what I expected

not a 'random accident', more a 'safety was being treated as optional' scenario

If you’re doing a play which climaxes with a 15-minute “mexican standoff” in which the participants keep changing who they’re standing off against, without moving their feet/stage position (and then a direct held-to-temple killing), wouldn’t it make more sense to use fake guns that you can point at people (and hold against their temples) anyway? The realism gained from using real guns has to be drastically undermined by swinging them from pointing at nobody to pointing at nobody somewhere else, without ever even crossing any of the other three actors that you’re facing

xp oh shit

normally yes, this show was in a tiny black box so fakey guns would have looked worse up close (or I guess that's the reason we made that decision). some of the guns that were given to characters that didn't fire weaopns or do anything but show them for a few seconds were indeed props in the sense that they could not fire anything.

many xps Harbl I wasn't intending to be arsey either, it was a good article!

we also used real guns in a live production of Annie Get Your Gun in high school, and there was several days of training done, but a) the guns were pieces of garbage and b) Annie and Frank weren't good at using them, so they jammed all the time.

this is of course during the "Pull! Hit!" scenes, where they're shooting at clay pigeons, so one would assume good actors, if the gun didn't go off, would simply pretend it did, and the actor that confirms "Hit!" or "Miss!" would do so accordingly, but instead, they kept trying to fire, and a few times the one actor went to the other and said "gimme your gun", while the audience was lead to believe that gravity stopped working and the clay pigeon was still somehow airborne, 2 minutes later.

In conclusion, all of this would have been avoided if we simply hadn't done the terrible and racist show Annie Get Your Gun.

I directed a play with a prop gun (never fired in the show but used extensively), and it was a real gun whose chambers had been filled in, in some way, so it couldn’t fire or take a cartridge.

the clay pigeon was still somehow airborne, 2 minutes later.

ha ha

re Dogs, “STOP POINTING THAT GUN AT THE CEILING SEVERAL METRES AWAY FROM MY DAD!!!”

lol

Public intellectual JD Vance chimes in:

Today in the Ohio GOP Senate Primary. pic.twitter.com/x8HQIiTiLg

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 22, 2021

if only there was a good guy with a prop gun

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-rust-camera-crew-walked-off-set?fbclid=IwAR2BUqsbGwYxgovgAwBYSmmPrnUjYlejkvdLVTuCqo-P69dxsUqqhOjz8L8

More details

Ugh

actually felt pretty bad for Alec at first but yeah this does not look good

(As publicists start crafting a narrative, remember that of course firing the prop gun wasn't the error, being the producer on a movie and hiring a nonunion propmaster and not having safety meetings after 2 misfires from the same gun on set was the error and she should be alive.)

— Bess Kalb (@bessbell) October 22, 2021

he was very fucking quick releasing the "tragic accident" statement. More like a politician or a corporate spokesperson doing damage limitation than a human being.

its weird how many celebrities have actually killed people

it's tragic, but it wasn't an accident, and Alec is in fuckin' trouble

then again, Jonathan Landis never saw a cell so....who knows if he'll ever be held accountable other than settlements he issues

When I got shot at during a robbery at work the company gave me and my co-workers a £100 each on the strict condition we didn't start thinking about putting any "silly claims" that might affect their liability insurance or something. We were joking in the pub later: could have got a grand if we got shot!

I have a buddy who works at a factory and they have very specific dollar amounts they pay out depending on what parts of your body get maimed...one dude lost 2 fingers and was bummed he didn't lose his index since that was like six grand more

I'm really hoping this doesn't turn into a "I looooove 30 Rock, poor Alec" thing amongst my friends.

I mean A) he *is* a dick IRL but b) this is the big guy fucking the little guy to a tee.

well, KILLING the little guy

Relieved Joel Souza is alive.

i don't know what it's like everywhere else on social media but on the movies subreddit (home of the dumbest and most impressionable posters alive) baldwin is the main character of this story..... the two big threads on this are just packed with posts about how traumatized he must feel, how he's "a victim too", just openly fantasizing about his state of mind and his actions going forward. the PR works.

barf.

That's gross, though I'd argue he kind of is the main character?

I mean gtfo with the hand-wringing over his "feels" when someone is dead, but as the guy who not only pulled the trigger but was also the one responsible for the failed safety measures and requirements on set, he is pretty much the central character here - though decidedly not in the manner his PR team and those folks are trying to spin it. Sometimes the main character is the villain.

Rightfully the narrative is going to have to spiral around him, if for nothing else to get some fucking accountability.

I saw tweets last night scolding media outlets for the usual headlines that use passive voice or otherwise minimize human agency in a shooting death ("did the gun fire itself???"). At the time, I thought it was actually one of the few times when the person firing the gun mattered less than the people who failed to prevent the accident from happening. But yeah, seeing now that Baldwin seems to have been closely involved as a producer, he seems more responsible than most.

That's gross, though I'd argue he kind of is the main character?

I mean gtfo with the hand-wringing over his "feels" when someone is dead, but as the guy who not only pulled the trigger but was also the one responsible for the failed safety measures and requirements on set, he is pretty much the central character here - though decidedly not in the manner his PR team and those folks are trying to spin it. Sometimes the main character is the villain.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, October 22, 2021 6:22 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

sure, the narrative is going to default to be about him but he isn't being treated as the villain is my point - he is garnering more sympathy than the actual woman who died

aaand just came across this
https://i.postimg.cc/nr3fXkKY/image.png

Who are ye all posting about then