Alec Baldwin shoots and kills his own cinematographer

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

And also... Real Bullets don't belong anywhere on a movie set to begin with.

Fixed it for you. And yes, I agree 100%.

[Leo656]

A real bullet didn't kill Brandon Lee. "Oops".

There's only one reason anyone wants real guns (or bullets) on a movie set. Redneck Bullsh*t. I have no time for that. It's lunacy.

I mean, all this talk about "gun safety", when I'm pretty sure that one of the primary rules of gun safety is "People who are drunk and/or intoxicated shouldn't be handling guns." Meanwhile, everyone on a movie set is either drunk, hungover, or high on cocaine. It's a miracle there aren't more of these "accidents".

BUT, they're 100% preventable, and doing less than 100% to prevent them is irresponsible. I have no problem with guns. But they just don't belong in certain places. They don't belong on a movie set any more than they belong in school or church. Except if you're a security guard, obviously, but that's a different conversation.

"But the recoil!" Nobody. CARES. No-f*cking-body cares if the recoil looks "real". Everybody wants the entire industry to switch to fake guns.

This is like some "We've always had separate water fountains for black people, so let's just keep doing that even though it's stupid and makes no sense" kinda sh*t. Things evolve, that's real life.

[mrmaczaps]

Originally Posted by Leo656

No, he's not. At best he's "partially responsible". And even that is a stretch.

There were people on set who were PAID to make sure the gun wasn't loaded. THEY did not do their jobs. End of story.

I'll find the articles later about what a colossal idiot the girl with the job of "head armorer" was. You may be fascinated to read what a complete moron she is and how completely irresponsible she's been from the day she started working in the industry. Someone getting killed on one of her sets was only a matter of time, and this happened to be The Time.

I get it, you hate Alec Baldwin because he's a Democrat. I hate his politics, too, but his job is to point the gun and pull the trigger when someone says "ACTION!". That's it. The previous 87 steps regarding whether or not it was loaded were all LITERALLY someone else's responsibility. A "job" is more than just a goddamn title. The people whose JOB it was - their ONE job, in fact - did not do their One Job. There's simply no getting around that. If all blame rests on Alec Baldwin, WHY are those people even paid to be there? Come on. Objective Reasoning.

Turns out all of them - including Baldwin, as a producer - are getting sued. Well, that's fine. That's what should happen. He is "responsible" in that he is a producer and somehow or other a complete moron got hired to oversee the firearms. He's NOT responsible for her not doing her job, that's 100% on her.

Seriously, I'll find the articles I read and link them later. You won't BELIEVE what a f*cking idiot this girl is. If you end up reading all of that and still think that Baldwin is more at fault than she is... then I'm sorry, you're completely biased and beyond help.

And also... Real Guns don't belong anywhere on a movie set to begin with. If nothing else comes out of this, at least that's going to be done away with once and for all, which is long overdue. "But actors won't be able to amuse themselves between takes by shooting at cans anymore!" Cry me a f*cking river. That redneck sh*t is SO damn important, I'm sure.

Don't actually care that he's a democrat. He was handed a firearm. 100% HIS responsibility to double, triple, quadruple check that it was not loaded or properly loaded with blanks or whatever & ready for use a prop. And then to NOT point it at a living person. He is solely responsible because he did not follow ANY of the normal gun safety rules. Had he followed the rules, the person that is deceased would not be and the other person wouldn't have been wounded. It is also the fault of the person who's job it was to check, but apparently everyone on set was aware she was terrible at her job.

[Leo656]

Why have a "head armorer" whose job it is to check the firearms at all, then? To stand around?

There were multiple people whose entire job was to ensure that gun was "safe" by the time it reached Alec Baldwin's hands. I'm willing to bet that Alec Baldwin never in his life handled a real gun outside of a movie set. Most people haven't.

If someone hands me a gun and asks me to "check it", I have no idea what I'm looking at. Most people don't. If I'm an actor, nowhere is that in my job description. I'm trusting the people who DO have it in their job description, to do their goddamn job.

When I show up to wrestle, it's not my job to inspect the ring for loose cables or broken boards. I CAN do that, and some guys in fact do. But I am not supposed to HAVE to; my job is to get in the ring and perform, not to build and/or inspect it. I'm supposed to trust that the dozen guys with "Ring Crew" in their job title all did their job. Because that is the ONLY reason those people are there. If I have to do their job for them then something is very wrong.

And if I shoot a guy into the ropes, and the rope breaks - which has happened, not to me personally but I've witnessed it up close - and the guy hits the floor and gets hurt, *I* am not the one at fault and I'm not the one who gets fired. That's the Ring Crew Guy who f*cked up, and they're the one who gets the heat. I only did exactly what I was supposed to do; "mechanical failures" are not my problem because none of that is in my job description. Because me shooting the guy into the ropes isn't why they broke, in this hypothetical; they broke because they were put on wrong, and I wasn't the one in charge of that.

Even if Alec Baldwin "checked the gun", you have no reason to believe that he'd even know what he was looking at. And it also doesn't negate the fact that this woman in charge of gun safety was completely negligent in her duties on another movie earlier this year, and that prop guns were going off like Jiffy-Pop all week long on this movie's set before the incident with Baldwin even happened.

It's technically true that Alec Baldwin pulling the trigger was what caused the cinematographer's death. BUT. If the person whose ONLY job it was to ensure gun safety had done their job, then Alec Baldwin isn't holding a loaded gun in the first place.

That's just simple Cause and Effect. Sh*t rolls downhill, not uphill.

[skylord]

for a stage play we handled a real gun for a murder mystery show. There was a very lengthy, standard set of procedures we had to follow. As stage manager I was part of this process.

1. I had to retrieve the gun which was locked in a room on the opposite side of the building and also unlock it from a safe for which I was the only one with the key.
2. The gun, stored in a small locked box, was handed to someone else familiar with guns to make sure the gun was not loaded, including the barrel. They would then load with blanks.
3. The gun was only handled by the actor who used it during the show. It stayed in his possession until after the scene it was used.
4. When firing the blanks, the gun was aimed not at the other actor, but behind them, using the angle from the audience to obscure the reality of the shot angle.
5. Gun was confirmed empty, placed back in the box and I would take it back to the safe.

The gun was handled by 3 people, each one with specific tasks. Nobody was aimed at and the gun was inspected thoroughly before each use.

I still don't think it was worth it. ****'s dangerous. A community college doesn't need a real gun for a cheap stage play. Ideally if a gun is used, it should never be pointed at a person if possible. Human error is just impossible to avoid entirely.

[Papenbrook]

I'm just worried about the outcome of this tragedy.

What will be learned?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by skylord

for a stage play we handled a real gun for a murder mystery show. There was a very lengthy, standard set of procedures we had to follow. As stage manager I was part of this process.

1. I had to retrieve the gun which was locked in a room on the opposite side of the building and also unlock it from a safe for which I was the only one with the key.
2. The gun, stored in a small locked box, was handed to someone else familiar with guns to make sure the gun was not loaded, including the barrel. They would then load with blanks.
3. The gun was only handled by the actor who used it during the show. It stayed in his possession until after the scene it was used.
4. When firing the blanks, the gun was aimed not at the other actor, but behind them, using the angle from the audience to obscure the reality of the shot angle.
5. Gun was confirmed empty, placed back in the box and I would take it back to the safe.

The gun was handled by 3 people, each one with specific tasks. Nobody was aimed at and the gun was inspected thoroughly before each use.

I still don't think it was worth it. ****'s dangerous. A community college doesn't need a real gun for a cheap stage play. Ideally if a gun is used, it should never be pointed at a person if possible. Human error is just impossible to avoid entirely.

This shocks me. My first question is "Why?" For a stage play? Wow. Seems a bit excessive to have an actual gun in use for something like THAT. The closest person in the audience is gonna be like ten feet away AND everything they're gonna see is already gonna look more fake than usual, just given the fact that it's a stage play. Who the heck made THAT call? "What we REALLY need is a real gun. That'll distract everyone from the fact that there's curtains, a boom mic, and a stage. We gotta keep it REAL, after all!" : Like, what? I kinda don't think ya do!

Kinda seems like the polar opposite of Common Sense, to me. I'd f*cking leave, were I in that cast. Like "Nah, have fun guys, I'm out. I'm not getting paid enough for whatever the heck this is." A movie, same thing. I'm here to dick around and play pretend, don't go waving a f*cking gun around anywhere near me. With my luck I'd be the one getting accidentally shot. Nah. "That doesn't work for me, Brother."

[skylord]

Originally Posted by Leo656

This shocks me. My first question is "Why?" For a stage play? Wow. Seems a bit excessive to have an actual gun in use for something like THAT. The closest person in the audience is gonna be like ten feet away AND everything they're gonna see is already gonna look more fake than usual, just given the fact that it's a stage play. Who the heck made THAT call? "What we REALLY need is a real gun. That'll distract everyone from the fact that there's curtains, a boom mic, and a stage. We gotta keep it REAL, after all!" : Like, what? I kinda don't think ya do!

Kinda seems like the polar opposite of Common Sense, to me. I'd f*cking leave, were I in that cast. Like "Nah, have fun guys, I'm out. I'm not getting paid enough for whatever the heck this is." A movie, same thing. I'm here to dick around and play pretend, don't go waving a f*cking gun around anywhere near me. With my luck I'd be the one getting accidentally shot. Nah. "That doesn't work for me, Brother."

To make matters worse, it was a thrust stage so the angle trick only worked on a portion of the audience. It was roughly this size:



In a small room like this all we did was hurt everybody's ears. Also this was community theater so nobody got paid except the director who decided to bring in a real gun.

Seriously looking back it makes no sense. The director had a big ego and wanted to sell the "realism" by using a real gun instead of a sound effect.

[Leo656]

Oh, f*cking lovely. Guy sounds like a real winner.

One of my buddies from wrestling has been in the hospital for two weeks (and counting) with third-degree burns all over his body after doing a deathmatch with Atsushi Onita on some independent show in front of (maybe) 300 people at most. He's a nice guy, but he's a f*cking idiot and he's lucky to be alive.

Because, y'know... it's fake. Therefore sh*t like that is totally unnecessary.

Like, what's the Upside/Downside on that kinda sh*t? What is the f*cking POINT? Who are you gonna impress? Nobody WORTH impressing, I can tell you that for nothing. And worst-case, someone could die for no reason at all. Stupid!

[Jester]

What the...?

What happened?

[Leo656]

To who, my buddy Matt Tremont? Short version, "He agreed to a deathmatch with goddamn Atsushi Onita." They just did a whole "Dark Side of the Ring" episode on Onita, and the entire Japanese Death Match culture. Give it a watch on YouTube, it's fascinating stuff even though your faith in humanity will drop a hundred points in less than an hour.

I didn't see the match itself because I think deathmatch wrestling is garbage, even though I have a lot of friends who do it. But a fire stunt went horribly wrong and my buddy got the worst of it.

He owns the company, he promoted the show, he paid Onita to fly over from Japan, he booked the match, and he agreed to do the fire stunt. So, to his credit, he's not pointing any fingers.

STILL just about the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen or heard of in my entire goddamn life, though. Pro Wrestling Is Not Real. Setting yourself on fire in front of 200 sweaty mouth-breathers who would cheer at a lynching does NOT make it any more "real", it just makes you a self-mutilating dumbass. That's my position.

BUT, Matt is a teddy bear so I love and am rooting for him. I just wish he had more common sense. Because he really is a sweet guy. But in this, he has absolutely no one to blame but himself. Never should have been booked. Zero upside. NONE.

Figure 250 people there at $20-30 a ticket... even if you round it up to 300 people at $30 a head, that's what, nine grand? And I know Onita probably got paid a few thousand bucks, especially with travel expenses. Probably 30 other guys in the locker room, they each get paid from the gate. Then there's the building rental and the insurance... putting on a wrestling show is SUPER expensive and most indy shows LOSE money at the end of the night.

If my buddy went home with two grand in his pocket at the end of the night, that'd be a miracle. And that's BEFORE the lengthy stay in the burn ward. I don't know if he has health insurance, but most wrestlers don't, so... yeah.

Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes. Again, I love the guy. But... just... WHY? WHY would anyone do this? I don't understand. I'll never understand.

It's just entertainment. People shouldn't get hurt.

[Jester]

Yikes. You're right, that's messed up and in essence (as dark as the thought is, from a business stand point) even more lost money since he's out of commission and can't do a whole lot while he's mending.

[Leo656]

Yeah.

Some of the message board comments about him and his situation are... not kind. They make me mad, but I have to remind myself that 1. I know him personally, these people calling him nasty names do not, and 2. Objectively, they're not altogether wrong, even though they have no goddamn tact in expressing their feelings on the matter.

Like, nobody is GLAD he got hurt and they wouldn't be glad if he'd died. But I'm seeing a lot of, "Well f*ck it, if he did die then that's what he gets. Now he's taking up hospital resources that could've gone to someone with cancer or Covid or... y'know, anything that's not a self-inflicted 'I'm just a dumb idiot' type sh*t."

And I mean, they're not wrong. It's MEAN, but it's not factually incorrect.

Stuff like this is why when I see people get hurt needlessly - for entertainment - I just really push back hard on it. Guns on a movie set, guy getting burned alive in front of a couple hundred bloodthirsty nerds... "Do these things NEED to happen, and can they be avoided?"

Absolutely No, and Absolutely Yes.

[mrmaczaps]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Why have a "head armorer" whose job it is to check the firearms at all, then? To stand around?

There were multiple people whose entire job was to ensure that gun was "safe" by the time it reached Alec Baldwin's hands. I'm willing to bet that Alec Baldwin never in his life handled a real gun outside of a movie set. Most people haven't.

If someone hands me a gun and asks me to "check it", I have no idea what I'm looking at. Most people don't. If I'm an actor, nowhere is that in my job description. I'm trusting the people who DO have it in their job description, to do their goddamn job.

When I show up to wrestle, it's not my job to inspect the ring for loose cables or broken boards. I CAN do that, and some guys in fact do. But I am not supposed to HAVE to; my job is to get in the ring and perform, not to build and/or inspect it. I'm supposed to trust that the dozen guys with "Ring Crew" in their job title all did their job. Because that is the ONLY reason those people are there. If I have to do their job for them then something is very wrong.

And if I shoot a guy into the ropes, and the rope breaks - which has happened, not to me personally but I've witnessed it up close - and the guy hits the floor and gets hurt, *I* am not the one at fault and I'm not the one who gets fired. That's the Ring Crew Guy who f*cked up, and they're the one who gets the heat. I only did exactly what I was supposed to do; "mechanical failures" are not my problem because none of that is in my job description. Because me shooting the guy into the ropes isn't why they broke, in this hypothetical; they broke because they were put on wrong, and I wasn't the one in charge of that.

Even if Alec Baldwin "checked the gun", you have no reason to believe that he'd even know what he was looking at. And it also doesn't negate the fact that this woman in charge of gun safety was completely negligent in her duties on another movie earlier this year, and that prop guns were going off like Jiffy-Pop all week long on this movie's set before the incident with Baldwin even happened.

It's technically true that Alec Baldwin pulling the trigger was what caused the cinematographer's death. BUT. If the person whose ONLY job it was to ensure gun safety had done their job, then Alec Baldwin isn't holding a loaded gun in the first place.

That's just simple Cause and Effect. Sh*t rolls downhill, not uphill.

The actor in this case is also the director & likely okay'd the hiring of this armory person & didn't do his due diligence. Plus the fact that more reports came out saying she was terrible at her job before this incident, plus the fact that it was a real firearm & not an unworking prop or cap gun, would all point to Baldwin being responsible.

All I can say from sitting home in my easy chair is any time someone hands me a gun, I fully expect they check it before handing it over to me & I fully check it once its in my hands. Once in my hands, anything that happens with it is on me. But then, I'm a responsible firearms owner not some pos douchebag actor who thinks his sh!t don't stink that hates freedom.

[oldmanwinters]

Things are starting to get very weird on this story:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...202159907.html

[Sumac]

I wonder, how does this work?

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Sumac

I wonder, how does this work?

He is an actor. He's deflecting to create doubt and then curiosity on the story. Probably on advice of his counsel.

Originally Posted by Alex Baldwin The ACK-TORrrrr Said:

he real surprise, however, was George Stephanopoulos asking why he fired the gun when it wasn't in the script and Baldwin replied, "The trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger."

So he never pulled the trigger? "No, no, no, no," Baldwin answered. "I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them, never." But there was no explanation beyond that.

Then, while he goes on public "tour" creating vague doubt, the anger subsides for curiosity and then they will suddenly interject "a truth".

Welcome to the textbook manipulations of the $#!(bag left.

[oldmanwinters]

Assistant Director now says the gun must have misfired because Baldwin never put his finger on the trigger (on a gun that was never supposed to contain live rounds... on the set for a scene that apparently wasn't scripted for gunfire):
https://www.yahoo.com/news/apos-rust...132246934.html

I guess this is just one bizarre instance of terrible luck, or... well...

[frank_one]

At some point they will say the gun was remote-controlled.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by frank_one

At some point they will say the gun was remote-controlled.

This could end up being a conspiracy so wild that it gets its own movie.

Spoiler:

I still favor the simple explanations of incompetence and negligence, of course.