Alec Baldwin fatally shoots woman with prop gun on movie set

harms

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He's not critical at all. I've just read that he's been let out of hospital so thankfully ok.

That is the odd bit for me, though. What in the hell happened that he killed one and injured another.

They hardly gave him live rounds, did they?
Oh, that’s great, I guess it was a wrongful or outdated report that I’ve seen.
 

Pogue Mahone

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He's not critical at all. I've just read that he's been let out of hospital so thankfully ok.

That is the odd bit for me, though. What in the hell happened that he killed one and injured another.

They hardly gave him live rounds, did they?
I guess whatever fired out of the gun (fragments of blank cartridge?) sprayed like shotgun pellets. The dead woman took the brunt of it but the spread must have been enough to hit someone else too.
 

Mockney

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I guess whatever fired out of the gun (fragments of blank cartridge?) sprayed like shotgun pellets. The dead woman took the brunt of it but the spread must have been enough to hit someone else too.
It could’ve been a “down the barrel”-esque shot and the director and DP were directly behind the camera?

Pure speculation of course
 

Adam-Utd

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Why is he firing the gun towards the director anyway? is this was a live scene that went wrong, or was he just clowning around?

It seems a bit odd to me.
 

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Why is he firing the gun towards the director anyway? is this was a live scene that went wrong, or was he just clowning around?

It seems a bit odd to me.
May be aiming at the camera in the scene for a front shot. It doesn't have to be a side shot.
 

Adam-Utd

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May be aiming at the camera in the scene for a front shot. It doesn't have to be a side shot.
No idea how it works to be honest, I thought with zooming etc with modern cameras why would they ever need to be that close? i'm sure more details will be released eventually
 

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Pure speculation, but an assistant armourer (the name given to the people who manage firearms on a production) posted something that their suspicion would be a failure in the weapon itself, their guess was a shotgun to cause these results.
It could’ve been a “down the barrel”-esque shot and the director and DP were directly behind the camera?

Pure speculation of course
The person above said when this is done usually, the actor would aim at the camera and behind the camera would be safety screens and the camera wouldn't be manned.
 

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How the accident might have happened:

 

slyadams

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How the accident might have happened:

This is also speculation for a number of reasons. Firstly the prop master doesn't manage the firearms, that's the armorer, or weapons master. Secondly we don't know if the armorer was even there, Brandon Lee was killed in part because they filmed a scene with a firearm after they sent the armorer home because they thought they were done for the day.
 

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Feck, that's just tragic. Absolutely awful.

The guns they use to fire blanks are sometimes real, functioning firearms (reading up on it, the use of functional, non-modified firearms is, fortunately, quite rare these days). They need to be modified to enable blank cartridges to cycle the action, however, which often involves using a barrel with a very tight choke point in it. Such a choke point has a secondary function of making it harder to accidentally fire a live round (it'll make the barrel explode. Still dangerous, mind, but much less likely to be fatal), though ideally it's been modified to make it impossible to chamber a liver round at all.

This was a western, though, and in the old west they used revolvers, break-action shotguns and, in the later era, pump-action shotguns. None of these rely on the energy of the bullet firing to cycle, the all have manual actions, meaning there's no need to choke the barrel. Thus, if you're using real firearms, a mixup it all it takes for you to have a live, lethal weapon.

With Brandon Lee, what happened was that they used an functional firearm (a revolver). Their dummy bullets (inert rounds that look like the real deal, for scenes where they show someone loading a gun) were improperly made, as they had left the primers in (the thing that the firing pin/hammer hits that then ignites and detonates the powder.) At some point, someone pulled the trigger with one of these "dummy rounds" in the chamber, and while the primer wasn't enough to send the projectile down range, it did cause it to separate from the casing and get lodged in the barrel. The same gun was then used to fire blanks, without having been properly inspected to ensure there were no barrel obstructions. When the blank was fired, it had enough force to dislodge the projectile stuck in the barrel and send it out with enough force to kill.
 
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shaky

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Technically it isn't.

Murder is defined as the unlawful premeditated killing of one human by another.
Nobody claimed he murdered anyone. The title mentioned "killed", which was correct. Even The Guardian has gone with "Alex Baldwin kills woman by.."
 

WI_Red

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A weird tangent to this story:

I first saw this on twitter as he word "manslaughter" was trending. Basically it was the MAGA crew reveling in the thought of charging AB with manslaughter. Everything is politics these days.
 

Maticmaker

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Folsom Prison Blues ...Johnny Cash. "....My mamma told me son, always be a good boy and don't ever play with guns....".
How can this have happened, movie making is supposedly about play acting not reality?
 

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You'd think so. Although they look very realistic and there's not exactly a lack of guns in the US, so maybe the guns got switched up?

If prop guns actually can fire deadly rounds, then it's one of the dumbest designs I've heard about.
No kidding, I would have thought using blanks in a real gun was no longer done. How on earth can a prop gun kill someone?
 

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Usually when they get prop guns they rent it to companies who's core business is to get props to movies. Most of these props are used and later stored without really anyone checking, usually they just check if the prop is returned and if it's not damaged.

If the company stores it without checking and the production team doesn't check it either, it's easy to understand how this accidents happen.
 

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A weird tangent to this story:

I first saw this on twitter as he word "manslaughter" was trending. Basically it was the MAGA crew reveling in the thought of charging AB with manslaughter. Everything is politics these days.
No doubt we’ll see a ‘From the Desk of President Trump’ communique later today somewhat reveling in Baldwin’s situation.
 

Gambit

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How the feck does a prop gun can even kill people? Don’t they just shoot blanks and add in effects later?
Blanks as such can be made from wadded paper, plastics felt and cotton, they still create a lot of force. All it takes is for a piece of metal or stone to be in the barrel and the get fired out at a great force still. Pretty much what happened to Brandon lee.
 

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Aren’t ‘prop guns’ different to a ‘loaded gun firing blanks’. Surely a non-lethal replica should be used on sets in this day & age.
 

Penna

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This was a complete and awful accident, may she rest in peace. Any culpability would rest with whoever was responsible for preparing the props, surely? In any case, sometimes accidents happen and it's no-one's fault, it's just a chain of events which lead to disaster.

edit - there are now reports online saying there was a live round in the gun. You have to feel sorry for Baldwin too, it must be devastating to have been the one who pulled the trigger.
 

Gambit

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Aren’t ‘prop guns’ different to a ‘loaded gun firing blanks’. Surely a non-lethal replica should be used on sets in this day & age.
Costs time and money in post. I believe after this though there will probably be a movement towards it all being in post.
 

Penna

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Costs time and money in post. I believe after this though there will probably be a movement towards it all being in post.
There's no reason why all guns on movies shouldn't be non-firing replicas. With all the special effects available nowadays, surely the impression of a gun firing can be edited in afterwards?
 

Gambit

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There's no reason why all guns on movies shouldn't be non-firing replicas. With all the special effects available nowadays, surely the impression of a gun firing can be edited in afterwards?
Yes, but the time and money it costs to do the little things, tracking, smoke replacement, cartridge release etc etc especially in a gun heavy film. Either pay a good technician who will take an hour or longer per round to do it in post to make it look real, or do it in camera with a fake gun that mimics all that for a single second. The difference is a hundred fold in cost. I'm all for doing it in post but most directors and producers prefer to do it in camera, on set on the day,
 

Gambit

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There's prop guns now that only have an led light on them and all the tracking markers to help with the post but the cost difference will always be the main decider, unfortunately.
 

MrMarcello

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A weird tangent to this story:

I first saw this on twitter as he word "manslaughter" was trending. Basically it was the MAGA crew reveling in the thought of charging AB with manslaughter. Everything is politics these days.
Has Orange Raider released a statement from the office?
 

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There's no reason why all guns on movies shouldn't be non-firing replicas. With all the special effects available nowadays, surely the impression of a gun firing can be edited in afterwards?
Not really. For something like the Matrix or John Wick absolutely, and I think they already are almost entirely CGI.

But CGI gunfire would ruin any serious western.
 

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Blanks as such can be made from wadded paper, plastics felt and cotton, they still create a lot of force. All it takes is for a piece of metal or stone to be in the barrel and the get fired out at a great force still. Pretty much what happened to Brandon lee.
With Brandon Lee, it was a .44 Magnum slug lodged in the barrel.