Alec Baldwin fatally shoots woman with prop gun

I don't understand how any actor could be handed a gun by the film studio without being explicitly reminded every single time, that even if this gun is not loaded with bullets, you always treat it like it's an armed weapon

That was the brandon lee case. there was a squib from a previous firing stuck in the barrel of the weapon and the armorer never checked before loading a blank. the armorer wasn't rushed, they were incompetent. They tried to make their own blank rounds from live rounds and fucked it up.

Article I read says a bullet was found lodged next to Lee's spine.

“The death of Brandon Lee in a filming incident took a startling turn Thursday when police revealed the actor was killed by what was apparently a .44-caliber bullet.

“What appeared to be a bullet was discovered lodged near Lee’s spine during an autopsy, calling into question the safety procedures on the set of the film.” https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-prop-gun-death-brandon-lee

exactly. a squib is a bullet that failed to exit the barrel.

Yeah, that's the squib. Fully armed bullets have the actual bullet, which is usually solid metal, inside a casing. In the casing is a small quantity of gunpowder to fire the bullet, and a primer - which is like the flint in a cigarette lighter. This is the familiar circular pattern at the bottom of a bullet.

The hammer in the gun strikes the primer, which causes a small burst, this ignites the gunpowder, which propels the bullet out of the gun. The casing is then discarded.

In Brandon Lee's case, the props team had self-modified bullets to remove the gunpowder but leave the bullet and primer together, so the gun looked realistically loaded. One of these "deactivated" shells was fired, and there was enough force in the primer to detach the bullet from the casing and force it into the barrel. When they removed the casing, nobody noticed the bullet was detached (or maybe thought nothing of it).

In the next scene they loaded a blank - a shell with gunpowder and primer with no bullet - and when that was fired it propelled the bullet out of the barrel. He may as well have shot with a live round.

What happened today, allegedly they were trying to get a shot of Baldwin firing directly into the camera, so the director and cinematographer were behind the camera looking at the screen as the gun was fired. The blank round could even have damaged part of the camera and that's what flew off and hit them. I guess we'll find out at a later time.

Seems insane after so many accidents that there aren't very specific protocols about the use of guns on-set. I would have thought at the very minimum you would need someone with a specific qualification whose job it is to manage any weapons on set, and protocols such as never, ever pointing a real weapon - regardless of whether it's loaded - in the direction of other people.

I didn't know Boards.ie had so many prop-masters.

100% What should have happened was that whomever was going to be using the gun on set should have been sent on a course for a few hours. Have their brain aligned to the dangers of its misuse...

furthermore as long as the gun was on the set it should have remained outside the control of actors until filming was commencing... ie. you are filming.. you are handed the gun by say security , in between takes you give it back...Baldwin or whoever wants to practice,, use a toy or rubber gun...

they intended to remove the primer and bullet from all of the rounds used in the first day but they missed the primer on one of them. whatever about checking the barrel (and they definitely should have done that) they should have noticed that one of the rounds no longer had a bullet.

AFAIK they generally use rubber guns for distance shots, and more realistic ones for close ups.

That we only know a handful of accidents after thousands of movies and TV shows, perhaps suggests thats is very rare to have an accident. (or we don't hear about it).

We don't even know the context.

She was director of Photography so may very well have been staging the scene and he was just following her instructions.

He has made a statement.

Awful thing to happen.