The ABC series The Rookie announced the same thing last month.
Your aerobatic analogy applies. They don’t just suspend FAA flight rules. Aerobatic performances come with their own set of rules. They’re given specific envelopes and rules to fly by.
to say the protocols broke down in this case is stretching it. It doesn’t look like they existed at all. It’s not that hard to hand someone an empty gun, demonstrate it’s empty and cleared, and then display only the rounds to be loaded into it in full view of the actor and the crew. It’s 30 seconds of effort.
Recoil is faked by actors now (or more likely, ignored). No gunshots without real bullets will have recoil. Not even blanks. Recoil requires a mass to be launched from the barrel at high speed.
The biggest problem with fake guns is cycling the action, ejecting spent casings, etc. That stuff is pretty hard to CGI, especially in a low budget film. I expect the Rock’s gun scenes to look significantly worse if they userubber guns only. And I guess no scenes of the guns being loaded, magazines changed, etc.
You’re right about budget constraints for many films. Otherwise, for blockbusters and such … the “hard to CGI” hurdle is likely surmountable. There was a time recently when natural movement of fur/hair was hard to CGI – in 2021, it’s routine and accessible even to streaming-television productions.
A larger question is why are guns so prominent in film and TV stories? They certainly don’t play such a prominent role in real life stories of interest. It’s almost like firearms are a crutch for creating conflict in onscreen storytelling.
Wars and fighting have always captivated the mindset in storytelling. See:
Epic of Gilgamesh
Many Roman / Greek myths
Homer’s Odyssey / Iliad
Many Germanic myths
Many Roman and Greek plays
Most of Shakespeare’s plays have some level of fighting or violence in them etc etc
Why? Just use a prop with a solid piece of material for the muzzle.
Zero firearms in any of those examples.
That’s entirely missing the point of @Martin_Hyde’s post. No doubt that stories of war and fighting from before the invention of gunpowder don’t include firearms.
Basically, not using fireable weapons (including both inert props and/ir a device that cycles the action and creates a flash or puff without anything travelling down a barrel) is a good alternative — but the safety protocol becomes of course ensuring that no fireable gun is anywhere near. So you still have to have someone who knows inspect the thing and verify it IS the nonfiring prop.
Maybe because we live real life stories and don’t want to watch it for entertainment?
I wonder if that’s because Achilles didn’t have access to firearms? Also guns/cannons are mentioned in Shakespeare–they had been around for a couple hundred years by his time.
Future news story: “Of course I didn’t check to see if it was loaded. I thought it was just a heavy, rubber gun. There aren’t supposed to be any real guns on the set!”
I quipped once at a Con, “Nobody wants to read Conan the Accountant where the chief conflict is whether to wear black or brown shoes to work today.”
And we do make quite many dramatic and comedic film/TV works that do not involve any sort of armed violence. But the kind of conflict that involves at the very least punching the bad guys in the face, is easier to sell to the international market. Even more so if something blows up.
Tangent:
Though the “Crush your enemies …” scene could be pretty funny in that milieu.
Re-stating this from a couple weeks ago. Maybe Johnson will spearhead a way to get CGI firearms into lower budget productions.
If the guns can extend something green out of the barrel, it would make it pretty easy to add CGI. Similar to those prank guns that shoot a “BANG!” flag. When the actor presses the trigger, a green cylinder quickly extends and retracts that has motion capture dots on it. They should be able to add a CGI barrel flash pretty easily. Some of the CGI barrel flashes do look a little cheezy since they look like the computer is just trying to figure out the placement on its own. But if high-quality, CGI-ready prop guns become the norm, I would guess they will get pretty good at it.
Probably a good thing Achilles didn’t have access to firearms, as he’d probably shoot himself in the foot.
Further tangent: one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels has a group of teenage vampires, who like to stay up all day, give themselves weird names like “Nigel” and “Stacey”, and pretend to be accountants and real estate brokers. One claims to drink wine, but it’s really just blood in a wineglass.