Firearm use hasn’t changed. Firearm safety procedures on set have changed considerably.
Skills used 30 years ago and not practiced regularly will be forgotten.
I get that, but it’s pretty hard to forget the bloody things kill and you shouldn’t point them at people.
Who said anything about the general use of firearms? We are talking about the roles of the armorer and assistant director. Whether or not Baldwin has a working knowledge of being a recreational shooter is irrelevant. He’s not there to shoot real guns. He’s there to act. The original quote you replied to was whether Baldwin should know if the armorer or AD is doing their jobs correctly. Do you know if the armorer is using proper procedures on a movie set because your father taught you how to shoot in 1960?
Handling a firearm is handling a firearm. Doesn’t matter where you are.
Except they don’t when proper procedures are followed. Anyone who watches movies or TV shows understands guns are sometimes pointed at people. Sometimes pretend shot at people. And somehow there isn’t a Hollywood bloodbath on every production.
Yup. This particular outfit looks every day more and more like, well, a “cowboy” operation as opposed to anything we’d expect from pros. Though that is probably in the nature of a lot of indie productions, still, guns are guns. You want to use one for fun? Use your own. Not the company’s.
Without fully knowing the “leadership structure” of the production, I don’t know if Baldwin was the ultimate “boss” or not, if he was, he bears some managerial responsibility for people that were hired and did bad jobs. But it seems like a clearer picture is emerging that the typical setup is that the armorer has direct control / responsibility for the guns and gun safety, but that the Assistant Director (or maybe one of them, not sure if a film has multiple ADs) is responsible for the ultimate safety of the set, meaning the armorer is basically a subordinate and specialized technical staff member whose responsibility for gun safety is encompassed in the ADs broader responsibility for set safety.
You hire technical specialists for a number of reasons, partly because division of responsibilities is necessary to get things done. As a quick and obvious example–look at how Naval forces have historically handled the scenario of a flag officer (Admiral) being on a flagship, but that flagship still has a captain. Who runs the ship? The captain does. A flag officer is there managing fleet operations, he has neither the time nor inclination to run the ship he is on. That doesn’t mean he can’t, it means there is a division of responsibility and it is not a good use of his time. Additionally, a ship can’t have two masters, or chaos ensues.
I’ve noticed in my life that while most organizations aren’t run like the military, the rule against having two people in charge is usually followed in most organizations (but not all), because in most situations it’s a good rule. You might have people with overlapping responsibilities and etc, but most organizations when push comes to shove, can point to a specific single person who is in charge of specific units / areas / etc.
So on an individual level, whatever Baldwin’s role with the film–it wasn’t as armorer or AD. He should not be expected to do those jobs, in fact, if famous actors/producers regularly tried to do those jobs “because they’re the boss”, sets would likely be much more dangerous, because those are jobs that should be handled by people dedicated to doing them, not by an actor/producer who is doing 10 other things with the movie.
A technical specialist IMO bears serious blame when a fault in their craft kills someone, more direct blame than their manager who may have just hired them. IIRC in the engineering world if there’s a fuck up that kills people, it’s the PE that signed off on the project who has personal blame and can face professional (and sometimes even criminal) sanction. Their boss at such and such company, if they weren’t a PE and weren’t the one who signed off on the work in their professional capacity, might have some trouble they’re in with the company and etc, but they don’t face the same level of direct culpability as the PE. Now film making isn’t nearly as regulated, but I think the comparison stands.
Nicely said.
To make another comparison, in college sports a head coach can be penalized by the NCAA for “lack of institutional control” if its found that rules violations occurred under his or her watch even if he or she was not personally aware of them. The purpose is to avoid the “I didn’t know nothing” defense – the expected standard for a head coach is that he or she will take an active, ongoing and prominent role in ensuring a culture of compliance with NCAA rules. Coaches must institute strong compliance protocols for following NCAA rules, establish procedures for verifying that such protocols are being executed, and quickly investigate, disclose and correct any violation.
Everything being reported here is a “lack of institutional control” x 1,000.
This is not a great idea. People will then handle ‘green tip’ weapons carelessly, assuming they are safe. You should never make assumptions about the state of any weapon capable of firing real bullets. The green tip would be a false sense of security.
There is one critical aspect to gun safety that can’t be skipped, and if it isn’t skipped the gun is perfectly safe: Before you EVER point a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot, you must personally verify that the gun is empty, including checking the barrel for blockages. I would say ‘never point a gun at anyone you don’t intend to shoot’ which is standard safety practice for gun owners, but movie sets are a little different.
Also, those guns should *never have been left unattended. Aside from the chance of being loaded, someone could screw with a gun in a way that makes it unsafe to even shoot blanks from. Or someone could drop it in the dirt and material could get into the barrel and not be noticed.
A real gun needs to be positively controlled at all times. Here in Canada, leaving those guns unattended and unlocked would be a felony. Storing ammo with them would also be against the law.
The rules in place appear to be totally adequate, it’s just that they were ignored in this case. Passing more laws won’t do anything to stop careless people - the only thing that does is constant training and professionalism.
What might be useful would be an ‘industry ombudsman’ who has a tip line people can call to report unsafe behaviour, and with the clout to do something about it. Snap set inspections and demands to show proof of training could also be done, as ISO does for businesses,
This seems like an obvious role for the insurers who insure movies and actors. They are going to lose their shirts when actors are injured or killed, or productions are shut down. Something like UL labs for on-set weapons safety. A reported violation then runs the risk of having insurance pulled. Directors who have a history of safety violations should not be insurable.
The best thing that could come out of this tragedy is a new respect for gun safety from all concerned - not more regulations.
That was a good post, Sam.
I don’t think it is very clear what happened. I see no reason that the facts won’t be made clear soon enough. I trust the police will do a thorough investigation. I am not a big fan of the actor but feel bad for him, though most of my sympathy is reserved for the victim and her family.
Does anything need to change on movie sets as a result of what happened? What might this be? If the problem was that usual procedures were not followed or were inadequate for whatever reason?
Why do any actual firearms have to be used in films, at all? Simulating real stuff with props is kind of lesson number one for pretty much everybody in the industry.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, some films (such as the John Wick films) don’t use live firearms at all anymore, but insert the muzzle flashes, etc. via CGI, though this can lack some of the secondary effects that are achieved by using blanks, such as realistic recoil. As this WaPo article notes:
A few interesting excerpts from the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper, which accessed the affadavit, and some (bolfed) questions:
Deputies responding to the 911 call learned the gun had been handed to Gutierrez, the armorer, following the shooting. According to the affidavit, Gutierrez had taken the spent casing out of the gun.
Why would she remove the spent casing? (Genuine question.)
Hutchins was struck in the chest, and Souza was wounded in the shoulder, the affidavit says
The LA Times had reported that Hutchins was struck in the shoulder. This makes more sense–as much as a senseless tragedy can make sense.
According to the website of the Santa Fe chapter of IATSE, Local 480, an armorer must be on set when any weapons or firearms are used.
“Armourers liaise with the Director of Photography to determine which camera angles will minimize any risk of injury,” the website said. “During rehearsals armorers coach the Actors in the correct use of the firearms, explaining possible dangers.”
Is the requirement that the armorer being on the set a law or a union regulation?
And regarding CGI vs. actually firing weapons (with blanks):
Firearms safety coordinator Dave Brown wrote for American Cinematographer in 2019 that real firearms on set “are one of the tools of filmmaking.”
“CGI may be used for close-range gunshots that could not be safely achieved otherwise, but yes, even with all the advancements in visual effects and computer-generated imagery, we still fire guns with blanks,” he wrote. “Blanks help contribute to the authenticity of a scene in ways that cannot be achieved in any other manner.”
What does firing a blank do that CGI can’t? Brown doesn’t elaborate.
You can’t CGI recoil (and you can’t act it either, recoil pushes your arm up and back, any acting would be pulling your arm up and back and would look like a kid playing cowboys “peow peow!”).
We already rely on rules to operate the guns safely. Sometimes it doesn’t work.
The only possible way a “green tip” gun could be useful would be if a green tip gun wasn’t physically capable of being loaded with or firing anything. Even then, what if a live gun had been painted green or just looked a bit green? The only safe way to handle guns, whether they work or not, is to treat them as live until you’ve ascertained they are not, and then still treat them as live.
I think you’ve misread the other posts. “Director of Photography” is the correct term (or “Cinematographer”, but not “Director of Cinematography”).
The problem, I believe, is that actors may not understand that firearms need to be verified “safe” before shooting. So, by all means, that should also be taught and required. I just think it should be in addition to, not instead of, the other rules, as a third layer of protection. All are quick and easy to comply with.
-
Only blanks may be loaded into a green-tip gun.
-
Only green-tip guns are permitted on set.
-
All guns must be verified and declared “cold” by the actor before shooting (in addition to the AD).
I think the odds of a lethal discharge under those circumstances would be close to zero, particularly if they realize law enforcement will be called if any rule is broken (and someone, perhaps a disgruntled extra, will surely make the call).
It said that “The projectile whizzed by the camera operator but penetrated Hutchins near her shoulder” (bolding mine). Which could be her chest.
Sorry lots of waffle but as the subject of the safety rules was there and I was thinking about my earlier question on what was a ‘hot gun’ or a ‘cold gun’ and what people were expecting and the seeing confusion of guns on a cart I figured I’d waffle on about how this sort of thing can be ( or should be) handled in other industries.
For a lot of industrial safety process evaluation people up front do a fault tree analysis (FTA), which is different to a Failure Modes Effect and Consequence analysis (FEMECA). A fault tree is where you start with the bad thing (someone getting injured on set with a gun discharge) and then you write down all possible immediate causes that have to be present for the accident to happen. Those immediate causes are linked to the top event with logic AND OR NOT etc gates. It could each of those immediate causes if present on their own would cause the event or several things have to be present at the same time to cause the event.
For each of the immediate causes you have their immediate causes, again linked by logic conditions , and you work your way down until you get to a point that is considered as a basic event, often a decision or need to do something. Fault trees can also get used for a post event investigation and the basic event maybe a point you would do a test of get some evidence of that thing happening, or determine it’s not worth developing that chain any further.
The same immediate causes may show up in several different places in complex fault trees. You can do a fault just based on conditions that exist, you can add decisions that are made, controls that failed or bits that broke etc. You have to be pretty careful and take small steps down the tree, which can be a bit frustrating as people like to jump straight to root cause.
It’s a bit more detailed than just asking the 5 whys as that tends to take you on a very linear chain of events , , although if you do a branching why chain it’s kind of the same thing and so you may as well do a fault tree as it captures the AND OR conditions.
The swiss cheese model is really a representation of what your safety controls are, it’s not really a way to set up the controls in the first place. The assumption is that a lot of controls will stop bad things, the fault tree can show up the straight hole through the cheese that hadn’t been considered or controlled ( well we never thought that could happen! ). FTA is also a top down process whereas something like a FMECA are a bottom up, which start at a component or system failure and looks at the cascading effects of that and see all the top level events that could occur. You may end up doing both and that kind of gets into the Bow Tie method where you look at an event, the things that cause it and the consequences, so its not like is better, they are different methods that have different outputs
Anyway in a FTA once you have all that, you can assign probabilities to the various stages if you are going for a quantative evaluation , you can turn the thing into a reliability block diagram and also do a little bit of Boolean algebra to get a cut set (or several cut sets) , which is the set of basic events which if they occur together will guarantee the top level event will occur. There could be several cut sets in complex systems particularly if you have an OR at the top level
Now you have all of this, you can start to stick in the controls to put breaks in the chain. When you have a cut set that can be really helpful get the right number of controls in place rather than stick a control at every single gate. You may have multiple controls of different types at each gate.
For the controls they are typically viewed from weakest to strongest as Awareness, Warnings signs, barriers , Administrative, Engineering, Remove
So awareness is general , “hey you are doing dangerous shit this is what could happen and how”. Warnings Signs are the usual warning signs condition indicators say a red light or a Barriers are as you might expect railings, protective screens etc. people go both ways on personal protective equipment (PPE) being a barrier as some say those are a consequence mitigation and the FTA should stop the event, others do the upper level event as an injury where one of the AND gates is the PPE was missing /ineffective etc.
The admin controls are basically all your safety checks, trained people doing things, sign out sheets, lock out tag out , all that stuff people have to do. Engineering controls get into the design of the system automatic shut downs with motion sensors, pressure relief valves, and then finally , remove or eliminate which is ‘just don’t do what you wanted to do” which could be engineering out the risk or failure mode entirely or do things differently .
You can lump all of those back into your fault tree as immediate conditions at the various events and see what happens if the control is ignored or fails. Lots of time its someone didn’t follow an admin control.
For this event I would see top level someone “getting injured on set from a projectile from a gun” for sure you could add “and dies” in there and then you bring in the emergency response side into the FTA, but the consequence side of a bow tie might be a better way to handle the impact mitigation. You could also consider breaking that top level in to and change projectile to “real bullet” and one for “dummy round” and you could consider it for a set as a whole , general scene shooting or even get to one for a specific complex scene
For this event it might look something like :
“getting injured on set from a projectile from a gun” has several immediate causes .”1 Person in potential hit zone” AND “2 projectile has sufficient energy to cause injury when it go to target” AND “3 projectile Left the muzzle”
2nd Level from cause 1 could be “1.1person in direct line of muzzle” OR “1.2Person in ricochet zone” OR “1.3person in line of sight obscured behind something” (OR NOR what ever you like) . For those could break them down further or start to stick in controls , training not to point gun at people, clear zones , minimize equipment or add absorbent coverings, minimize people on set when actual gun in use, reduce frequency of occurrence by using rubber guns during rehearsal etc
2nd level of cause 2 ( sufficient energy to cause injury) would go down as 2.1 projectile left muzzle with sufficient energy AND 2.2 projectile didn’t lose sufficient energy by time it got to target . and 2.1 causes may be 2.1.1 Gun with real bullet selected used OR 2.1.2 Gun with dummy round over charge propellant used OR 2.1.3 Gun with Correct charge propellant used . And over on the not losing the energy could be real bullet areo dynamics or dummy projectile didn’t lose velocity or too close to gun. Add in controls on scenes, distance etc
Take that Gun with real bullet chain and keep going Gun intended to have bullet intentionally selected, Gun with intended real bullet unintentionally selected, gun with intended dummy bullet but real bullet intentionally selected, etc and keep digging down
Then finally on the projectile left the muzzle you end up going down path ways about the gun fired on its own, the firing was initiated unintentionally, the firing was triggered intentionally and then intentionally knowing the condition of the gun, not knowing the condition of the gun etc
Again, go back do the cut set , put in the controls and
anyway I am sure I beat that to death but FWIW I and other have used this method a fair bit, and although laborious getting into the fine steps can show up other Risks and controls you need to think about
Not sure that law enforcement would appreciate getting calls like that.
But, they would if it were law. Given the climate in the aftermath of this high-profile shooting, I believe the law could easily be enacted.