Alec Baldwin accidentally shoots woman dead on set

FastEddie

Kilgore said:

drofluf said:

Kilgore said:

<snip>

It can't be an actors responsibility to "know what state it is in". 

I disagree; it should be the responsibility of the person holding the gun to know the state that it’s in. As @FastEddie said it only takes an hour to learn. In the same way that actors learn to fall if they want to do their own stunts they should be qualified in gun handling if they want to play a part that requires them to handle a gun. 

 If an actor is in a scene which requires them to wear some kind of safety equipment, harness for example. Is it their ultimate responsibility to check the equipment?

If an actor is in scene requiring they drive a vehicle are they responsible for checking the vehicle is safe?

The answer to both is no. An actors job is to pretend they're doing stuff that they're not actually doing.

It is the responsibility of other professionals on set to facilitate this in a safe manner. 

I could not disagree more. 
Learning how to check a weapon is so simple, it's as easy as putting on a seatbelt. 

It takes a few seconds to hand over a weapon correctly. That's it. There is nothing complicated I promise you. I can introduce you to soldiers who could not lay an E chord but can check a weapon. 

I f were an actor, I'd want to check my harness, weapon, or anything where my own life, and those in my immediate vicinity, were put at risk. 

It's simple but I also say that the protocol's must work because deaths are few and far between.

soma1975

I appreciate you might know to check a weapon. Do you know what it takes to be an actor? 

drofluf

soma1975 said:

I appreciate you might know to check a weapon. Do you know what it takes to be an actor? 

There’s really no comparison. Checking a weapon is a simple task; it’s over 30 years since I last handled a firearm but I can still remember what to do. If an actor is capable of remembering lines following the director’s instructions then they should have no problem remembering a few simple steps. And they certainly shouldn’t be cosseted because “there’s so many things to being an actor”. 

Philly_Q

Wow, six pages of people speculating on what's happened in this tragic situation and expounding about what they think film industry gun protocols should be?

The film industry has had over a hundred years to develop its practices and protocols, and clearly they work, 99.9% of the time.  But no system is foolproof, mistakes, failures and tragic accidents will happen from time to time.

This shouldn't be a lesson to actors to check firearms, it should be a lesson to the armourers to do their jobs properly - or to their employers to recruit more carefully.  In every organisation, every hierarchy, different roles and tasks are delegated to experts at the appropriate level.  The guy at the top doesn't check the work of everyone he employs (and yes, I realise they are not life or death situations).

@soma1975 actually works in this industry, can we not just accept what he says?

soma1975

drofluf said:

soma1975 said:

I appreciate you might know to check a weapon. Do you know what it takes to be an actor? 

There’s really no comparison. Checking a weapon is a simple task; it’s over 30 years since I last handled a firearm but I can still remember what to do. If an actor is capable of remembering lines following the director’s instructions then they should have no problem remembering a few simple steps. And they certainly shouldn’t be cosseted because “there’s so many things to being an actor”. 

If you think being an actor is just 'remembering lines and following a Director's instruction' you clearly don't know (and seemingly don't care to know?) what it takes to have the mindset to be an actor and why it is an unbelievably catastrophically bad idea to make them responsible for firearm safety.

soma1975

Philly_Q said:

Wow, six pages of people speculating on what's happened in this tragic situation and expounding about what they think film industry gun protocols should be?

The film industry has had over a hundred years to develop its practices and protocols, and clearly they work, 99.9% of the time.  But no system is foolproof, mistakes, failures and tragic accidents will happen from time to time.

This shouldn't be a lesson to actors to check firearms, it should be a lesson to the armourers to do their jobs properly - or to their employers to recruit more carefully.  In every organisation, every hierarchy, different roles and tasks are delegated to experts at the appropriate level.  The guy at the top doesn't check the work of everyone he employs (and yes, I realise they are not life or death situations).

@soma1975 actually works in this industry, can we not just accept what he says?

I appreciate it's 2021 and everyone has entrenched opinions about stuff they don't know anything about but it really wears after a while. I don't wade into the accordion player forums telling them all the accordion shit I read on Google as though it's fact. Because it's you know, not my area of expertise.

Mellish

Let's just wait for an official announcement. Sure, we can to and fro, but for what?  

monquixote

FastEddie said:

Kilgore said:

drofluf said:

Kilgore said:

<snip>

It can't be an actors responsibility to "know what state it is in". 

I disagree; it should be the responsibility of the person holding the gun to know the state that it’s in. As @FastEddie said it only takes an hour to learn. In the same way that actors learn to fall if they want to do their own stunts they should be qualified in gun handling if they want to play a part that requires them to handle a gun. 

 If an actor is in a scene which requires them to wear some kind of safety equipment, harness for example. Is it their ultimate responsibility to check the equipment?

If an actor is in scene requiring they drive a vehicle are they responsible for checking the vehicle is safe?

The answer to both is no. An actors job is to pretend they're doing stuff that they're not actually doing.

It is the responsibility of other professionals on set to facilitate this in a safe manner. 

I could not disagree more. 
Learning how to check a weapon is so simple, it's as easy as putting on a seatbelt. 

It takes a few seconds to hand over a weapon correctly. That's it. There is nothing complicated I promise you. I can introduce you to soldiers who could not lay an E chord but can check a weapon. 

I f were an actor, I'd want to check my harness, weapon, or anything where my own life, and those in my immediate vicinity, were put at risk. 

It's simple but I also say that the protocol's must work because deaths are few and far between.

It's easy to learn how to check a weapon but what if it's a

Musket

Shotgun

Sniper rifle

Sub machine gun

Wild west revolver

First world war repeating rifle

Heavily modified "hero" weapon which might not be what it looks like

Soldiers can be trained for the equipment they are expected to encounter but an actor could literally be required to deal with any exotic weapon which could have been arbitrarily modified in any way.

WiresDreamDisasters

This is a topic that I would find it very hard to be an armchair expert on.

And I'm stone cold sober. So I won't try. Soz.

VimFuego

Without wanting to get involved in the fascinating conversation about the weapon knowledge required of a hollywood celeb, it should be pointed out the weapon NSP's probably wouldn't work as the actor (or whoever it was who fired the weapon) in this instance had a reasonable expectation for the weapon to be loaded (NSP's are there to ensure you only ever hand over an unloaded weapon), and it's probably unreasonable to expect an actor, director or whoever to load the weapon. In the same way as you wouldn't expect them to fuel a vehicle. If the things mentioned earlier are correct, the issue isn't that the weapon was loaded, it was supposed to be, it was what it was loaded with. I would make the argument that that falls within the remit of the firearms specialist employed on set.

sinbaadi

It's absolute madness when you think about it, and yes if the weapons are capable of causing harm then whoever uses them should be capable and competent.
But experts are there for a reason, too.

drofluf

soma1975 said:

drofluf said:

soma1975 said:

I appreciate you might know to check a weapon. Do you know what it takes to be an actor? 

There’s really no comparison. Checking a weapon is a simple task; it’s over 30 years since I last handled a firearm but I can still remember what to do. If an actor is capable of remembering lines following the director’s instructions then they should have no problem remembering a few simple steps. And they certainly shouldn’t be cosseted because “there’s so many things to being an actor”. 

If you think being an actor is just 'remembering lines and following a Director's instruction' you clearly don't know (and seemingly don't care to know?) what it takes to have the mindset to be an actor and why it is an unbelievably catastrophically bad idea to make them responsible for firearm safety.

I didn’t say that and you clearly have no insight into what I know or care about. But you clearly have your own axe to grind so I’ll try to stay out of this. 

soma1975

drofluf said:

soma1975 said:

drofluf said:

soma1975 said:

I appreciate you might know to check a weapon. Do you know what it takes to be an actor? 

There’s really no comparison. Checking a weapon is a simple task; it’s over 30 years since I last handled a firearm but I can still remember what to do. If an actor is capable of remembering lines following the director’s instructions then they should have no problem remembering a few simple steps. And they certainly shouldn’t be cosseted because “there’s so many things to being an actor”. 

If you think being an actor is just 'remembering lines and following a Director's instruction' you clearly don't know (and seemingly don't care to know?) what it takes to have the mindset to be an actor and why it is an unbelievably catastrophically bad idea to make them responsible for firearm safety.

I didn’t say that and you clearly have no insight into what I know or care about. But you clearly have your own axe to grind so I’ll try to stay out of this. 

Forgive me for taking my insight from the exact thing you wrote.

Happy to leave it there but it's not like your post was particularly ambiguous and open to all sorts of interpretation with its 'If they can follow lines they can do a gun safety check' and 'shouldn't be cossetted' message. 




Have a lovely evening. 

Handsome_Chris

crunchman said:

It will be the same in the film industry.  The armourer doesn't want to be the one holding up the whole film shoot and costing money while everybody else sits around waiting.  There will be pressure to take short cuts.

@crunchman ;, at least one of the armourer's non-technical skills are not up to scratch, consciousness or attention management, which is what led to this incident happening?  

BillDL

As a fully trained and experienced firearms handler I would like to add my input to this enthralling episode of Columbo.  Wouldn't it be better to wait for an official announcement by the coroner instead of speculating?

crunchman

Handsome_Chris said:

crunchman said:

It will be the same in the film industry.  The armourer doesn't want to be the one holding up the whole film shoot and costing money while everybody else sits around waiting.  There will be pressure to take short cuts.

@crunchman ;, at least one of the armourer's non-technical skills are not up to scratch, consciousness or attention management, which is what led to this incident happening?  

It's probably more a case of "it'll be alright".  That's what happens on the railway sometimes.  People ignore the rules and take shortcuts because they think it will be alright.  It is down to time pressure, and not wanting to spend longer doing the job.

VimFuego

crunchman said:

Handsome_Chris said:

crunchman said:

It will be the same in the film industry.  The armourer doesn't want to be the one holding up the whole film shoot and costing money while everybody else sits around waiting.  There will be pressure to take short cuts.

@crunchman ;;, at least one of the armourer's non-technical skills are not up to scratch, consciousness or attention management, which is what led to this incident happening?  

It's probably more a case of "it'll be alright".  That's what happens on the railway sometimes.  People ignore the rules and take shortcuts because they think it will be alright.  It is down to time pressure, and not wanting to spend longer doing the job.

I'd also imagine in an industry like film, where I guess most people are contractors, if you're a stickler for the rules, it'd be easy to get a reputation as someone who holds up filming, and you may find yourself losing out on jobs to someone who is more flexible, it may be a culture thing rather than an individual. This is, of course, generic and not specific to this case, as we still don't really know anything. 

Sassafras

Every time someone gets injured or killed by a firearm, the weapons manufacturers should be sued for astronomical sums of money.
That might be an effective form of gun control.

ICBM

I think the speculation is because many of us find it difficult to understand how this accident could have happened given that there are proper safety rules and procedures in place, and that an apparently similar fatal shooting happened thirty years ago which lessons should have been learned from. I don't doubt that the proper procedures do make it safe to use even something potentially lethal like a real gun on a movie set - many other dangerous things are used for stunts too, and the accident rate is low. The people in charge are professionals who know what they're doing.

Or thus we thought. From what's come out so far it appears that may have been a misplaced assumption. It's a tragedy for the victims, their family and friends, and not least for Alec Baldwin who will probably always blame himself for it to some extent even though it was *really* not his job to make sure he hadn't been handed a prop which was capable of killing someone.

Handsome_Chris

FastEddie said:

Kilgore said:

drofluf said:

Kilgore said:

<snip>

It can't be an actors responsibility to "know what state it is in". 

I disagree; it should be the responsibility of the person holding the gun to know the state that it’s in. As @FastEddie said it only takes an hour to learn. In the same way that actors learn to fall if they want to do their own stunts they should be qualified in gun handling if they want to play a part that requires them to handle a gun. 

 If an actor is in a scene which requires them to wear some kind of safety equipment, harness for example. Is it their ultimate responsibility to check the equipment?

If an actor is in scene requiring they drive a vehicle are they responsible for checking the vehicle is safe?

The answer to both is no. An actors job is to pretend they're doing stuff that they're not actually doing.

It is the responsibility of other professionals on set to facilitate this in a safe manner. 

I could not disagree more. 
Learning how to check a weapon is so simple, it's as easy as putting on a seatbelt. 

It takes a few seconds to hand over a weapon correctly. That's it. There is nothing complicated I promise you. I can introduce you to soldiers who could not lay an E chord but can check a weapon. 

@FastEddie , you make an interesting argument for education in the field of weapon handling; however, in 2017 seven people were injured through accidental firing of weapons.  A further one was fatally injured by an accidental discharge of a weapon.  These incidents were not down to some Hollywood mishaps, where an amatuer mis-handled a loaded weapon, they were down to weapons being handled by members of H.M Armed Forces (gov.uk, 2018).

If professionals get it wrong, why hold actors to a higher standard?