Real life accidents on film/tv sets

[The Legendary Shark]

So, to Hell with the victims? It was too complicated a task to protect them? I'm not buying that.

Just because someone is educated and paid does not make them responsible, infallible or, indeed, even competent - again as this incident clearly demonstrates.

Baldwin pulled the trigger. Sure, he was handed an incorrectly loaded weapon by an armourer who seems to have been incompetent (as well as trained and paid), and so the armourer bears the brunt of the responsibility, but Baldwin pulled the trigger. I'm not saying he (Baldwin) must be prosecuted, I'm saying that this incident, isolated though it is, highlights a need for actors pulling triggers to be competent, responsible and involved.

[Mister Pops]

I dunno, this whole discussion just seems like solutioneering

[Funt Solo]

So many blanks, with nobody getting hurt, would suggest that, in general, safety protocols that are in place work well the vast majority of the time.

The specifics around the tragic incident on the set of Rust will no doubt come to light over time - there are certainly a few court case irons in the fire, and a police investigation.

[sheridan]

So, to Hell with the victims? It was too complicated a task to protect them? I'm not buying that.

Absolutely nobody in this thread has suggested that, so why are you pretending they have?  Everybody (even you) is saying that the armourer is responsible - the only disagreement until you said that was that some (well, you) think the actor should also be held responsible.

[Jim_Campbell]

Absolutely nobody in this thread has suggested that, so why are you pretending they have?

Because that's the entire schtick — strike a contrarian position on a fairly uncontroversial topic and then ratchet up the debate by erecting increasingly ludicrous strawmen and attempt to claim the moral/philosophical high ground by opposing statements that literally nobody made.

[Funt Solo]

So you're saying we should just destroy the entire planet with a giant space gun?

[Hawkmumbler]

So you're saying we should just destroy the entire planet with a giant space gun?

Yes, and be done with it.

[GordonR]

Feels like an intervention is called for here.

“Legendary Shark, can you show us - using this vintage action figure from the 1994 movie The Shadow - what the bad man Alec Baldwin did to you?”

[Funt Solo]

Harold Lloyd (who you'll know from BBC2 at 6pm in the 80s*) nearly killed himself with what he thought was a prop bomb - he lit the fuse with his cigarette and blew off a couple of fingers.


* Not as good as Monkey or The Water Margin, but there you go.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

I agree with Shark, TBH.

The armourer must take some blame. Whoever let the gun be used for target practice should take some blame.

But if you are handed a gun and told, even by someone whose job it is to know, that it is empty... and it turns out not to be empty... and you kill or injure someone... then surely there has to be some personal blame?

"I was told it was safe," does not allow you to abdicate responsibility in other situations.

This was a weapon, FFS. Not an airline meal.

[Jim_Campbell]

The armourer must take some blame. Whoever let the gun be used for target practice should take some blame.

Also the armourer.

"I was told it was safe," does not allow you to abdicate responsibility in other situations.

It most certainly does when the person telling you bears legal responsibility for ensuring that safety.

The Health & Safety officer signing off on scaffolding, as I mentioned before. If you're not a scaffolder, and you paid an appropriately skilled scaffolder to put the thing up, then got a H&S officer to confirm it's safe, how is it conceivably your fault if it falls down and kills someone…?

"My doctor told me it was safe to give my child these tablets," as another example. Turns out they weren't safe. How were you supposed to know? You're not qualified to make that judgement, which is why you defer to the expertise of someone with a legal responsibility to make it on your behalf.

[Proudhuff]

One of the reasons I'll never go on those fairground rides where you appear to be attached by one bolt/link, tightened by an uninterested teenager with a joint in his mouth...

[Funt Solo]

I agree with Shark, TBH.

To be fair, I can see where Shark's coming from, as well. The questions around this case revolve around all sorts of issues to do with the culture on set, whether Baldwin (as both the person firing the gun and also one of the producers of the film) is partially culpable, whether anyone else is and so on.

I still think there's a valid point to be made (and it has been already of course) regarding one's personal responsibility where the safety of something has been guaranteed to you by a trusted expert. It was perhaps frivolous of me to link to an A-Team clip, but on the other hand do you really think Howling Mad Murdoch (I realize he's acting) was checking each clip before firing his automatic rifle out of a bullet-proof dustbin?

"I was told it was safe," does not allow you to abdicate responsibility in other situations.

Doesn't it, though? I got sold a car and was told it had never been in an accident. Later, it broke down, and the mechanic let me know the problem - the radiator was bust because it had been in an accident. He also discovered that the driver's airbag was non-operational for the same reason. I contacted the seller, who I persuaded to pay for all the repairs. They did so because (well, because they realized they were lucky I wasn't suing them) it was their responsibility - because they'd told me it was safe (in writing, on official-looking paper and signed by their trained mechanics).

If the worst had happened, and I or someone else had died because of the failed airbag, your argument is that it would be my own fault? Have you checked the validity of the airbag in your car? Or do you just trust that it's operational?

---

That U-Toob lawyer guy goes on about the Rust case here. (Of course, he makes money from views, so from one perspective he's just enriching himself by jumping on board the gossip bandwagon. He even uses gunfire SFX on his vid, which is, kindly, tasteless.)

[sheridan]

But if you are handed a gun and told, even by someone whose job it is to know, that it is empty... and it turns out not to be empty... and you kill or injure someone... then surely there has to be some personal blame?

Nobody would have told the actor that the gun was empty - they'd have told the actor that the charges in the gun were blank, so as to make light and/or sound, but not to shoot out a projectile.  Seeing as the rest of your reply seems to hinge on that falacy I'll ignore it from there. 

[Tjm86]

Thinking about my own experience with firearms in the RAF, I suppose the points about personal responsibility are valid to some degree.  You were responsible for every round, the state of your rifle, its storage and carriage.  "Negligent Discharges" (ND's) were / are treated with the utmost severity regardless of outcome. If a round was chambered without justification there were serious consequences.  Even pointing a firearm at someone else in jest could lead to disciplinary action.

That said, this is all around live armed practice.  We weren't handling weapons with blanks.  In that instance you do need to have a complete focus on the consequences of actions so there is no room for flippancy.  The rules were enforced to underscore this.

A film set is completely different though, isn't it?  This is about make believe / fantasy.  There are no lasting consequences and a general attitude that mistakes can be rectified / repeated.

I guess my point is that if I were an actor handed a firearm and told it was safe then my attitude would be completely different to when I did live armed guard duty back in the day.  I would be listening to the instructions I was given and assuming that they were being given by someone competent.  Ultimately though I would do things like pointing the weapon at someone based on the premise that this did not pose the same risk.