<ul class="summary-list"><li>A gun fired on the set of the movie "<keyword id="12365466" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="rust" source="Orion">Rust</keyword>" on Thursday killed one person and injured another.</li><li>Hollywood <keyword id="12062550" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="firearms" source="Orion">firearms</keyword> expert <keyword id="12368870" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="larry-zanoff" source="Orion">Larry Zanoff</keyword> said sets are supposed to have a designated person handling guns.</li></ul>The death of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on Thursday has raised questions about whether firearms are safely handled on movie and TV sets.<keyword id="12362498" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="alec-baldwin" source="Orion">Alec Baldwin</keyword>, the lead actor of the movie, fired a prop gun while filming a scene on the New Mexico set. It discharged, killing Hutchins and injuring the movie's director, Joel Souza, <a href="https://www.insider.com/alec-baldwin-discharged-prop-gun-rust-set-cinematographer-died-2021-10">the Santa Fe County Sheriff's office said</a>.IATSE Local 44, a union representing prop masters, told its members in an email that a live round was used in Baldwin's gun, although none of its members were on the movie's call sheet, <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2021/10/alec-baldwin-fires-gun-kills-cinematographer-wounds-director-on-rust-set-1234673555/">Indiewire reported</a>. A representative for the sheriff's office told Insider that an armorer was on set and that the office was investigating "how and what type of projectile was discharged."If the gun had live ammunition, it would be a major violation of set safety guidelines, according to Larry Zanoff, a prop weapons manager at Independent Studio Services."The television and motion picture industry uses blanks," Zanoff told Insider. "There's no place for live ammunition on a television or movie set."<h2>Using blanks instead of live ammunition can still cause injuries</h2>Zanoff, a former gunsmith, now works to safely <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-working-hollywood-20130217-story.html">equip actors</a> with guns on movie and TV sets. He has <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1630901/">nearly 60 credits to his name on IMDb</a>, ranging from "Captain America: Civil War" to "Westworld."He said that every set is supposed to have a designated person to oversee firearm use on set, make sure all guns and ammunition are "under lock and key" when they're not being used, and inspect the firearms before and after each scene with their use.That person, he said, is also supposed to hold multiple daily safety briefings - regardless of whether any guns are actually fired on set on that particular day."That person should be a professional who is both educated enough and technically skilled enough to handle those particular firearms that are being used on that particular production," Zanoff said. "Guns are supposed to be inspected before and after each and every use."Prop guns are often capable of firing live ammunition, but only blank cartridges are supposed to be used on set. The difference, Zanoff said, is the projectile. Live ammunition is designed to kill or injure, including a piece of metal that's supposed to speed out of the gun upon firing. Blanks might have <a href="https://gizmodo.com/why-a-gun-loaded-with-blanks-can-still-kill-you-5972313">a piece of paper or cotton instead of metal</a>. So while <a href="https://ascmag.com/blog/filmmakers-forum/filming-with-firearms">a blank may have gunpowder</a>, igniting the gunpowder won't shoot a hard object out of the gun itself.<div type="image" title="larry zanoff" height="1857" width="2500" msid="87212686" hostid="261"></div>That doesn't mean that a blank can't <a href="https://ascmag.com/blog/filmmakers-forum/filming-with-firearms">still hurt someone</a>. Igniting the gunpowder could still cause burns and other injuries, and industry standards require that the cast and crew be 20 feet away if a blank is being fired, Zanoff said."If you put something with a blank very close to your skin, clearly you'd get burned. There is an explosion," Zanoff said. "It's supposed to be simulated gunfire. So in order to look correct, you're going to get a muzzle flash."Following Hutchins's death, will industry standards change? Zanoff said it's too soon to tell, but the existing guidelines are very strong already, and he thinks it's likely they weren't properly followed on the set of "Rust.""The majority of productions go day in, day out, and manage to replicate gunfire multiple, multiple times a day in a very safe and controlled way," Zanoff said. "I don't know that there's anything more stringent that can be done as far as the safety protocol goes. It's more a question of whether or not the safety protocols were followed."

A Hollywood firearms expert explains how guns are supposed to be handled safely on set

The tattooed armorer with neon green and purple hair picked up a .45 Long Colt revolver and exposed the gun's cylinder.That armorer, <keyword id="12411979" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="hannah-gutierrez-reed" source="Orion">Hannah Gutierrez-Reed</keyword>, showed the cylinder to David Halls, the first assistant director on the <a href="https://www.insider.com/alec-baldwin-shooting-rust-cinematographer-dead-timeline-2021-10">set of the Western movie "Rust."</a> According to industry experts, Halls was supposed to visually inspect each of the gun's chambers and confirm it was safe before handing it to the actor <keyword id="12362498" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="alec-baldwin" source="Orion">Alec Baldwin</keyword> for a scene.But he didn't.A film permit for the production <a href="https://www.insider.com/rust-production-to-use-simulated-gunfire-blank-rounds-film-permit-2021-10">made no mention of the use of live ammunition</a>, and crew members expected the revolver to be loaded solely with non-explosive "dummy" rounds.But it wasn't.Instead, Baldwin went on to discharge a live lead projectile from the gun, killing the cinematographer, <keyword id="12366871" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="halyna-hutchins" source="Orion">Halyna Hutchins</keyword>, and injuring the director, Joel Souza. Members of the "<keyword id="12365466" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="rust" source="Orion">Rust</keyword>" crew have spoken to media in recent days about what they saw inside the gray-brown, cross-topped building where they filmed at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Taken together with court documents, their accounts begin to piece together how the deadly mishap rocked a set plagued with complaints about shoddy working conditions and inexperienced or incompetent staff handling firearms.Authorities are still investigating how a real bullet ended up inside the revolver, but they believe the live round that killed Hutchins wasn't the only one on set that day. How it ended up mixed in with dummy ammo before either Gutierrez-Reed, Halls, or Baldwin handled the weapon also remains a mystery. <h2>Warning signs</h2>Filming was already off to a chaotic start on the morning of October 21. The work day started at 6:30 a.m., but the production was running late because the camera crew had walked out the previous day in protest of their working conditions.Even after a replacement crew arrived, filming was taking longer than usual as the production went forward with only one camera. At least two of the four replacement camera operators looked "fresh out of high school," one crew member told <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-31/rust-film-alec-baldwin-shooting-what-happened-that-day">The Los Angeles Times</a>.Amid the disarray, the crew broke for lunch around 12:30 p.m. <div type="image" title="rust set" height="1333" width="2000" msid="87513574" hostid="261"></div>Gutierrez-Reed told authorities she had checked the guns and ensured the rounds were "dummies" earlier that day. The revolver was locked in a safe inside a prop truck while the crew ate, though Gutierrez-Reed later said the ammo was left unsecured on a cart.She also told investigators that no live ammo was ever kept on set. But, sources told <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/halyna-hutchins-live-ammo-target-practice/">The Wrap</a> and <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2021/10/23/alec-baldwin-rust-gun-accident-used-off-set-target-practice/">TMZ</a> that crew members used both live ammo and Baldwin's revolver for target practice earlier that morning, lining up beer cans and shooting them down.According to Tom Nunan, a lecturer at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television and an executive producer of the Oscar-winning film "Crash," Gutierrez-Reed was impossibly young and inexperienced for the job. The position of armorer is normally reserved for <keyword id="11895191" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="hollywood" source="Orion">Hollywood</keyword> veterans with previous military or police experience, he said.The 24-year-old had even been <a href="https://www.insider.com/rust-armorer-made-nicolas-cage-storm-off-film-set-report-2021-10">yelled at by Nicolas Cage</a> on a previous film set for firing a gun without warning multiple times near cast and crew, <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/rust-armorer-inexperience-hannah-gutierrez-fired-nicolas-cage-film/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=breaking_news_5702530s5702530s">according to The Wrap</a>.Gutierrez-Reed herself appeared to have doubts that she was up for the project with Cage. She told the "Voices of the West" podcast she'd <a href="https://www.insider.com/who-is-hannah-guttierez-reed-rust-armorer-alec-baldwin-shooting-2021-10">fretted about her lack of experience</a> before joining that film."It was also my first time being head armorer as well. I almost didn't take the job because I wasn't sure if I was ready," she said. "But doing it, like, it went really smoothly."Halls, the first assistant director, has come under scrutiny for his previous work as well. His <a href="https://www.insider.com/rust-assistant-director-urged-actor-unsafe-stunt-former-colleagues-say-2021-10">former colleagues told Insider</a> he had once pushed an actor to do an unsafe stunt on Hulu's "Into the Dark," resulting in the actor getting hit in the eye with a projectile.<a href="https://www.insider.com/rust-assistant-director-fired-from-another-film-2019-over-gun-2021-10">Halls also had been fired</a> from the film set of "Freedom's Path" in 2019, when a gun unexpectedly discharged and injured a crew member.Had the production looked closely at Halls' track record, Nunan told Insider, "they would have really thought twice about hiring him."Other crew members took note of Gutierrez-Reed's and Halls' reputations. The film's gaffer, Serge Svetnoy, blasted the producers in a <a href="https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=7126586147366790&amp;id=1000004642739823982">Facebook post</a>, saying "professionals" had been hired in every department except the one responsible for weapons."There is no way a 24-year-old woman can be a professional with armory," he wrote. "Professionals are the people who have spent years on sets, people who know this job from A to Z."He continued: "To save a dime sometimes, you hire people who are not fully qualified for the complicated and dangerous job, and you risk the lives of the other people who are close, and your lives as well."Gutierrez-Reed, Halls, and a representative for the production company behind "Rust" did not respond to Insider's requests for comment for this story.<h2>"In all my years, I've never been handed a hot gun"</h2>After the crew returned from lunch, Baldwin sat in the wooden pew of the mock church, dressed in an old-fashioned western getup. The camera wasn't yet rolling; the mics weren't yet recording. He was rehearsing a scene that involved him wielding the revolver.Gutierrez-Reed first showed Halls the gun, according to an affidavit from the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office. The assistant director told investigators he could only recall seeing "three rounds" inside, although the gun had six chambers. He also didn't remember if Gutierrez-Reed "spun the drum." Halls said he knew he should have inspected further at the time, but didn't. Instead, he declared, "Cold gun on set."<div type="image" title="rust set" height="1333" width="2000" msid="87513575" hostid="261"></div>Larry Zanoff, a Hollywood firearms expert and prop weapons manager at Independent Studio Services, told Insider that Halls' description of his actions are "very confusing" and appear to be "a deviation from the industry guidelines.""If he himself is saying that he only checked three chambers in a six-chamber gun, then clearly the gun was not inspected definitively to say that it was cold," Zanoff said.In the scene Baldwin was rehearsing, he used one arm to withdraw the gun from a holster on his opposite hip, drew it across his body, then pointed it directly at the camera. Crew members heard a whip. Then a loud pop. Hutchins, who was standing behind a monitor just two feet away, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-31/rust-film-alec-baldwin-shooting-what-happened-that-day">according to The Los Angeles Times</a>, clutched her midsection and stumbled backwards. Souza, who was standing behind her, noticed blood blossoming from a wound on his shoulder. "What the fuck just happened?" Baldwin asked, according to the newspaper."What the fuck was that? That burns!" Souza yelled.A live bullet from Baldwin's revolver had ripped through Hutchins' chest and pierced Souza's clavicle. Someone helped ease Hutchins to the ground, where she said that she couldn't feel her legs. Medics converged on her and Souza, and crew members locked down the set. The script supervisor, <a href="https://www.insider.com/911-caller-rust-movie-set-blames-assistant-director-gun-firing-2021-10">on the phone with a 911 dispatcher</a>, cursed out the assistant director."This motherfucker," she said. "He's supposed to check the guns. He's responsible for what happened."First responders airlifted Hutchins to an Albuquerque hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Baldwin, who was in shock and didn't yet know he had just killed a woman, was also taken to hospital. "In all my years, I've never been handed a hot gun," he kept repeating.<h2>The ground rules</h2>Halls told investigators that immediately after the shooting, he picked up the revolver from one of the pews and told Gutierrez-Reed to "open" it and check what was inside the cylinder.Dummy rounds look identical to live ones, except that dummies have a hole drilled into the side of the cartridge casing. Hall told investigators he saw four dummy casings, and one casing with no hole.Thousands of American-made movies and television shows involve scenes with guns, and industry guidelines dictate a strict procedure on how crews must safely handle them.<div type="image" title="halyna hutchins" height="1331" width="2000" msid="87513576" hostid="261"></div>The two key players are the armorer and the first assistant director. The armorer is responsible for all the firearms on set, and the first assistant director is the set's lead safety official. The guns, and their blank or dummy ammunition, must always be locked up when they're not in use. Just before filming a scene with a gun, the armorer brings the gun to the first assistant director to demonstrate that it's a "cold gun" - meaning it does not contain live ammunition. The first assistant director then visually inspects the weapon, agrees that it's a cold gun, and announces "cold gun on set," repeating it over the radio for crew members out of earshot. (A lawyer representing Halls <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/rust-assistant-director-dave-halls-statement-shooting">told Fox News</a> her client was "not responsible" for checking the gun).Importantly, whenever the gun is aimed into a camera lens, or near a member of the cast or crew, any person has the right to request that they also be shown the gun is cold, according to Zanoff.Halls told deputies his normal firearms-handling practice was to "check the barrel for obstructions, most of the time there's no live fire, [Gutierrez-Reed] opens the hatch and spins the drum, and I say 'cold gun on set.'"But Zanoff told Insider that Halls and Gutierrez-Reed's descriptions of their actions when they checked the gun before the scene appear to violate industry standards.Zanoff added that the industry guidelines expressly forbid live ammunition on a film or television set. Gutierrez-Reed told sheriff's deputies the same, and yet investigators recovered "possible additional live rounds on set" that have been sent to the FBI's ballistics lab in Virginia.<div type="image" title="rust set" height="1333" width="2000" msid="87513577" hostid="261"></div>In total, Santa Fe authorities recovered at least 12 revolvers and a rifle from the "Rust" set, and over 500 rounds of ammunition.Zanoff said fatal shooting incidents on movie sets simply don't occur when everyone's following the rules."We shoot guns all day long, day and night, for decades. Millions of rounds of blank ammunition have been expended," Zanoff said. "Whenever there are incidents like these, it always winds up being because the person that was in charge and had the responsibility did not follow the guidelines. And then something bad happens."Prosecutors in New Mexico <a href="https://www.insider.com/rust-shooting-district-attorney-says-charges-havent-been-ruled-out-2021-10">haven't ruled out criminal charges</a> in the shooting, though legal experts have <a href="https://www.insider.com/alec-baldwin-likely-wont-face-charges-legal-experts-2021-10">said Baldwin isn't likely facing any criminal risk.</a> Some film industry veterans suggest the actor has some moral culpability."Yes, it's on Baldwin as well," the cinematographer Michael May, who was unaffiliated with "Rust," said in a <a href="https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10225920140846254&amp;id=11161907890789">popular Facebook post</a>. "Baldwin should know better. He's been at this game for a long time. Surely he should've recognized that the armorer was inept. Surely he knew what the crew was dealing with… There aren't a lot of secrets on a movie set."Baldwin's representatives did not respond to Insider's request for comment for this story.<h2>"These were people who were wildly inept or unqualified"</h2>Though filmmakers, fans, and lawmakers have already called for bans on using real guns on movie sets, some industry experts told Insider blaming Hutchins' death on guns or regulations is a cop-out. "It just feels like a production that came together quickly and in a roughshod fashion, and the wrong people were hired," Nunan told Insider. "These were people who were wildly inept or unqualified. As a result, they created tragic circumstances. Horrifying circumstances."Despite being both a Western and an action movie, "Rust" was being produced on a budget of just $6-7 million.Westerns are particularly pricey because of the elaborate sets and costumes required for period pieces, and adding action sequences on top of that can easily rocket up the costs, according to Nunan. Small budgets also have huge implications when it comes to hiring crews, he said."What I suspect is that this movie was profoundly under-budgeted, meaning people were getting hired at a lower cost because they just didn't have enough money to make this movie look handsome and be what it wanted to be," he said. "As a result, you hire crew that are less experienced, and probably doing not just their job, but two or three jobs at a time."<div type="image" title="rust set" height="1333" width="2000" msid="87513578" hostid="261"></div>Gutierrez-Reed's lawyers said in a statement on Friday that she had been juggling another job on set in addition to her armorer duties, but they did not provide further details. The lawyers also blasted the "Rust" production company for failing to provide adequate training, safety meetings, and time for Gutierrez-Reed to maintain the weapons and prepare for gunfire. "Hannah was hired on two positions on this film, which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer," the statement said. "The whole production became unsafe due to various factors… [Not] the fault of Hannah."When a <a href="https://www.insider.com/video-alec-baldwin-talks-about-his-friend-halyna-hutchins-for-first-time-2021-10">paparazzo tracked Baldwin down</a> to the small Vermont town he and his family were staying in after the shooting, the actor said he couldn't comment while the investigation was active. But he said he'd be "extremely interested" in regulations against using real guns on sets."There are incidental accidents on film sets from time to time but nothing like this," Baldwin said. "This is a one-in-a-trillion episode.""A woman died. She was my friend," he said. "She was my friend."

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A Hollywood firearms expert explains how guns are supposed to be handled safely on set

Jacob Shamsian

Unsecured ammo, failed safety checks, and cut corners: What went wrong on the set of 'Rust'

Michelle Mark