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How he can be tried for the duty of a prop person or the director who hired that person is beyond ludicrous. The man showed up to do a job. That job was not to keep the props safe. He was handed a tool and told it was ok to use. Fuck this system. Let him go about his life. I'm sure the trauma of having shot someone for real is enough to make him double-check for the rest of his life. That's enough.
Umm. No. Sorry gunna pull my union card on this one since this is my Industry and while I am not an armorer or a props person I am emeshed in their understanding of property on a set as an On set dresser.
There is a legal duty of care held by everyone who handles a prop weapon. Furthermore there is a duty of care held by Producers on a show. Baldwin was not just an actor, he was a producer on Rust which means he had hiring and firing power.
Regularly this is how prop weapon safety works.
Prop weapons are only handled by an armorer who must maintain a full supervision of the weapon. It can never be used with live ammunition.
Loading can only ever take place by the props person (non union exception) or a designated armorer who must have an up to date licence.
Any mishandling of the weapon up to this stage leaves the armourer open to criminal liability. If someone steps in to this process at this stage they might take the lions share of liability. If an actor or someone who is not the props person charged with care of the weapon grabs it for instance without a hand off.
During the hand off of the weapon to an actor the props person does a last physical check of all the rounds in the weapon in sight of the actor. IF an actor accepts a weapon without doing this check then they are considered criminally negligent for any harm done with the weapon that would have been reasonably negated by this step. If the actor uses the weapon in a way that is unsafe after this check all liability is shoulded by the actor.
Following the weapon that killed on Rust it was used with live ammunition to shoot cans and abandoned on a cart. This makes the props person negligent by film safety practice. It was picked up by the 1st Assistant Director whom was not entitled to handle the weapon AT ALL which transfers some criminal negligence to him. The 1st AD handed the weapon to Baldwin and claimed it was a safe weapon WITHOUT performing the check. Anyone who saw this trade off on the set should have set off general alarm. But they didn't. This could have had to do with power imbalances on set. You generally do not tell a Producer that they are doing something wrong unless you are either willing to trust the producer to be reasonable or baring that, are willing to lose your job. Wrongful termination suits are nigh nonexistent in film because chasing one might blacklist you from other productions.
The 1st AD is the main safety officer on set and Baldwin as an experienced actor would have been briefed on weapon safety protocols many times before. Having the 1st AD just hand you a weapon on set EVEN one that is an inert rubber replica would be an instant firing offence for the AD. Accepting the weapon without insisting on a check leaves the liability on the actor. They might have a lesser share depending on how experienced they might be. If they were ignorant of the protocol at the time then the production team would take that share liability for not properly enforcing safety on the set.
Baldwin as a producer in the days leading up to the accident had shown signs of being negligent in other areas of production safety and the people hired into positions that were to enforce safety on set. People left the production citing the unsafe conditions in protest. He may not shoulder the full liability of criminal negligence but he ABSOLUTELY owns a chunk of it. Directors and Producers REGULARLY push the boundaries of crew safety when they think they can get away with it and the bigger the name the more likely these accidents are. Remembering WHY we have these safety protocols and the people injured or killed in the past is something that is well known in the industry. We remember those killed or permanently maimed by production negligence because there but for the grace of God go us. Everyone who has been in this industry more than a decade personally knows someone whose life was permanently impacted by a bigshot throwing their weight around because of the natural power imbalances on set. One of my Co-workers sustained a permanently debilitating brain injury last year for just this reason. You dice with some one else's death you gotta pay up when you lose.
I enjoy having my mind changed by well-written, well-reasoned posts from people who are informed. Thank you.
Thank you for having your mind changed!
A lot of people fall into error regarding common sense safety on set...like I have heard people go on about how "brave" Lady Gaga was to throw her weight around to film her video in an actual thunderstorm because the outcome was "worth it" not realizing how many injuries, including potentially fatal injuries could have resulted on the crew. People tend to sympathize and uncritically digest what people they "know" and respect tell them versus the rest of us who are relatively faceless.
The particularly upsetting thing is I know people who have literally ruined people's lives and not only are they still working but overall they don't change. The presumption that someone actually feels bad and applies that later isn't my experience. At some level they find ways to self justify that what they did was reasonable and then they just blindly trust that lightning won't strike twice.
Lemmy needs a Best Of so this could be posted to it
Damn this should be a best of Lemmy post if we have a community for that
This is new info to me (producer). Thanks for enlightening me.
The instinct is to react to something like this as a potential trolling move but... You could be sincere. I can't say my brushes with Producers has given me much faith in their understanding of interdepartmental property management. Kind of makes sense since the general attitude I've noted regarding most potential Producer caused property damages from people at my level is "if they want to ruin the equipment we've rented they are the ones paying for it in the first place."
I don't tend to think of our industry as being very grounded. I have had production designers, directors and decorators ask for things that are quite frankly impossible by the easily observable laws of physics with no idea about how absurd they sound... But it's something of a career limiting move to frame their request as being astronomically dumb when suggesting the potential complications. The "Emporer has no Clothes" effect is alive in film. But when you look at things from an outside legal perspective you have employers and employees and the chain of responsibilities to maintain a safe work environment. Most of the time the actual nuts and bolts work is the domain of the PM to mitigate potential damage to the overall investment.
I think union film work is in part generally pretty well inoculated against the majority of criminal negligence cases by the culture of highly regimented structure... And endemic jadedness at the bottom. A newbie will light themselves on fire to keep production warm but that isn't good for production or the newbie so it's unofficial job of the seniors in lateral positions and the boss directly above to make sure that doesn't happen.
Most of the time it seems like the creative captains and financiers of the ship keep their eye firmly on what they want to creativity achieve and rhen the bosses below look at their first job as being to impress. We play very risky political game with our own supervisors if we call foul. Put a call into an IATSE steward about a safety concern that makes a boss look bad and they will give you the straight rule as best they can apply it to your complaint but they also give you a caution that just because the rules are there to protect your safety doesn't mean that you as a laborer won't have your career harmed for standing your ground.
We're all just day calls. We don't have to be fired. Our bosses just don't have to hire us back for the next show and the people at the top never need to know.
TIL that being an actor requires a law degree if you don't want to potentially end up in jail.
Nope, all actors need to know is "Don't take a gun from anyone but a props person and make sure they open the chamber, remove and check each round in the chamber while you watch."
It's like one or two more steps complicated than telling a young child "don't take medicine from anyone but a parent".
Your comment, if anything, proves it's the AD who's responsible
That's not how liability works. It's not a hot potato that stops with the first person in a chain of people who did wrong. Everyone who contributes to a catastrophe of broken rules essentially gets a slice of the consequence pie the only thing that changes is how big a slice of the overall pie you get.
Here's what the situation says to me. You have a 1st AD and a Principle and senior Actor/ Producer who were breaking the most basic of rules. For context on a film set say a camera person sets a case of lenses on something I as a set dresser need to move. It is largely unacceptable for me to even touch that box until I have tried everything viable to hail the correct department to move it. If somebody tries to hand me something I am not supposed to be handed I go talk to their supervisor. Some things even if I have explicit permission to handle from a props person, like a gun, I am liable if I handle it anyway because there is no circumstances where me putting my hand on that item is acceptable. First rule on a set you learn day one "Don't touch ANYTHING that belongs to someone outside your department".
If this incredibly basic rule was SO flagrantly violated on so many levels by THE CHEIF SAFETY OFFICER ON SET that tells me that the safety problems and the culture of improper protocol were endemic on the set. This very obviously wasn't one bad day of lax protocols. This was an unsafe set and an everyday unsafe crew culture. Lots of times you don't get burned when something isn't safe so people try their luck which is all fine and dandy until tragedy hits.
This AD had a previous incident where a gun he handled fired a live round went off on a set and just didn't hit anybody. At that point people should have fucking hung drawn and quarted him and busted him back down to Trainee. He was a demonstratilably consistent danger to the crews he was on but Rust STILL HIRED him as their primary safety officer anyway.
When something goes this desperately wrong that pie gets so big there's a slice for everyone. The other Producers on this show had a duty to hire people who do the job properly. The 1st AD is a major hire. Ist ADs arguably do more to protect production liability than a Director does and production has their eye on the pick. If something a director wants is unsafe it is a 1st AD who has veto power. They set the culture of the set to make provisions for safety. If you rent a peice of equipment that has a record of dangerously failure and one of your workers gets hurt by it you as an employer get burned. The same goes for personnel. The producers absolutely should find some liability pie on their plates too. Are they gunna get prison time? Probably not but they are still negligent and there are consequences that scale to fit.
Baldwin could very well be the armorer's direct supervisor and father and it still would be her and the ADs fuck-up the gun shot a live round.
She was hired for the sole purpose of making sure all guns on set are handled safely and she simply failed: the shooting is her fault and I'm sure despite all of us getting riled up in the comments this in fact will be the final verdict
It's true it's ultimately a matter for the courts to figure out. But I will tell you that I know what sets like these are like. I worked a lot of them back when I was new and I know rhe type. The assumption of remorse is bullshit. There are plenty of big shots who coerce people into getting debilitatingly hurt in my industry and after they feign a period of remorse it is right back to business as usual.
Baldwin deserves his lumps. He had to have been a greenhorn on his first day on set and a fucking king of idiots besides to not know better. If public opinion won't hold him to account because they buy his bullshit victim card act I hope he sees consequences in court.
I couldn't give less shits about him in particular, because being non-american I have never heard of him before I saw this particular meme on Lemmy.
I just wish to believe at least in the justice system in the US. I'm still skeptical about the Rittenhouse verdict but if the fucking armourer isn't found guilty and Baldwin is instead, then this just confirms your system is broken.
No lol, this is the same thing as saying "the gun seller is responsible for the school shooting"
No it's not, stop playing dumb. A gun seller's job is to sell guns. Even if a potential school shooter buys one, the gun seller has done their job. Who failed perhaps is the person who issued a gun license to a potential school shooter, but then you can make a case of whether potential school shooters can be detected before the act.
An armorer's job is to make sure guns on set are handled safely. A revolver which was under her supervision has not been handled safely, and as far as we know it was her and precisely her mistake that left the live bullet inside the barrel, therefore she failed at her job and is culpable for the death. This in no way compares to a gun seller.
Baldwin didn't "show up to do a job." He was a producer on the film, not just an actor.
Producer is a broad term, there are many producers for a movie. He was likely just overseeing casting and other actor stuff.
Exactly. It happened on his set by his hand. Makes a bit more of a tough situation
No it doesn't. If I cut the brakes in your car and it causes you to run into someone, then it's my fault, not yours.
Edit: you know who else could be found viable? The service person who checked the vehicle before you took it on the road and allowed it through despite nonfunctional breaks.
A gun's purpose is to kill people, a car's is not. The analogy is flawed.
Still, assuming you have mandatory regular inspections of cars in the US, imagine you are an experienced mechanic by profession. Someone lends you a car and says it's safe but you know immediately this rustbucket hasn't been to an inspection in decades. By experience and papers. But you drive in a public space anyways and kill someone due to a fault that would have been found during an inspection. It is 100% your fault.
As I understand it, following safety procedures would have prevented this death, in the same way nonfunctional brakes would certainly be found during service.
On a side note, as an electrician who has to sign documents that electrical devices are safe to use, if one of those devices kills someone and I can prove that I followed protocol during testing, I am in the clear. Following rules makes the difference between a tragic accident and negligence.
A gun’s purpose is to kill people
Spoken like a true psychopath.
A gun's purpose is to provide safety and utility to the bearer. "Killing people" that are attempting to harm you is called self-defense and is totally legal.
"The trio behind the monitor began repositioning the camera to remove a shadow, and Baldwin began explaining to the crew how he planned to draw the firearm. He said, "So, I guess I'm gonna take this out, pull it, and go, 'Bang!'" When he removed it from the holster, the revolver discharged a single time. Baldwin denied pulling the trigger of the gun, while ABC News described a later FBI report stating that the gun could only fire if the trigger was pulled. Halls was quoted by his attorney Lisa Torraco as saying that Baldwin did not pull the trigger, and that Baldwin's finger was never within the trigger guard during the incident. When the gun fired, the projectile traveled towards the three behind the monitor. It struck Hutchins in the chest, traveled through her body, and then hit Souza in the shoulder. Script supervisor Mamie Mitchell called 9-1-1 at 1:46 p.m. PT and emergency crews appeared three minutes later. Footage of the incident was not recorded."
"In August 2022, FBI forensic testing and investigation of the firearm determined the Pietta .45 Long Colt Single Action Army revolver could not have been fired without a trigger pull from a quarter cocked, half-cocked, or fully cocked hammer position. It was also determined that the internal components of the revolver were intact and functional which ruled out mechanical failure as a reason for an accidental discharge. Baldwin stated during a December 2021 interview for ABC News that "the trigger wasn't pulled" and "I didn't pull the trigger."
So he most likely lied about it. Maybe he was drunk or on drugs..
"On January 19, 2023, New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said she would charge Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed with two counts each of involuntary manslaughter. Halls agreed to plead guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon, and received a suspended sentence and six months of probation."
"On June 22, 2023, Gutierrez-Reed faced a second charge of tampering with evidence, in which the special prosecutors allege that she transferred "narcotics to another person with the intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of herself.” They later specify from a June 29 court filing that she attempted to conceal a small bag of cocaine the night of the fatal shooting after her initial police interview. On August 4, 2023, Gutierrez-Reed waived her right to a preliminary hearing to determine whether or not the criminal charges would stand, thus allowing the trial to move forward and on August 9, she pleaded not guilty to both charges. On August 21, a New Mexico judge scheduled her trial to run February 21 through March 6, 2024."
There were drugs on set.
"On November 10, Rust gaffer Serge Svetnoy filed a lawsuit against the production for general negligence. A second lawsuit was filed on November 17 by script supervisor Mamie Mitchell, who says the script did not call for the discharging of a firearm. On January 23, 2022, Baldwin and other producers filed a memorandum that asked a California judge to dismiss the November 17, 2021 lawsuit by Mitchell. In November 2022, the court rejected a request to dismiss Mitchell's lawsuit against Baldwin and his production company"
I didn't know it is his own company as well..