by Bob Walsh
Alec
Baldwin shot two people one of whom died, at the "set" for the filing
of his new film project RUST. One of the people died.
The
shooting happened at the Bonanza Ranch in New Mexico. I gather this
place was being used as a movie set and may in fact be regularly used
for that purpose.
The
situation is being called an "accidental misfire of a prop gun." That
is clearly false as the gun fired, it didn't misfire. I am GUESSING
that a prop man screwed up and the gun was loaded with live ammunition
and not blanks during a shoot though it is not impossible that Baldwin
discharged the weapon for some other reason, thinking it was loaded with
blanks when it was not. Either way, unless it was a deliberate act
(which everybody is saying it was not) the prop department is almost
certainly in deep doodoo over this one. It is of course within the
realm of possibility the gun was deliberately loaded with live ammo for
some legitimate purpose and Baldwin managed to shoot the senior
photographer and the director by accident due to horrible marksmanship.
He hates guns so one never knows.
There
is no doubt the truth will creep out eventually as there is a police
investigation under way, and there will without a doubt be an industrial
accident investigation by the state and the insurance company covering
the filming. In the meantime it will be buried in tons of bullshit.
__________
MORE POSSIBLE-PROBABLY FACTS ON BALDWIN SHOOTING
by Bob Walsh
Little by little alleged facts are creeping to the surface in the unfortunate shooting at the Bonanza Ranch movie set.
There
was some trouble on the set. Allegedly the production company (Baldwin
is the producer) had been not paying the peons, and pulled their hotel
rooms. They were pissed and some of them walked.
The
guy handling the firearms at the time of the shooting is NOT a member
of the union that represents such workers. It is not known at this time
what training or certification the guy had.
An
assistant director handed the firearms in question to Baldwin and
(allegedly) informed him it was loaded with blanks. For reasons not yet
understood or clear Baldwin was holding the firearm aimed at the chief
photographer's back when the gun discharged, killing her and wounding
the director.
Allegedly
the gun had "misfired" several times on several days prior to this
incident. This is allegedly to include one incident when the gun just
fired twice all by itself when it was being held by someone.
The
names of the prop manager and armorer on the set at the time have not
yet been released, at least not to the press. I would hope there are
maintenance records of the firearms, including what work was done to
correct the allegedly self-discharge issues and that presumably these
records, if they exist, are in the hands of the local constabulary.
It
is difficult to understand, at least for me, why Baldwin would have
been standing behind the chief photographer holding a firearm pointed at
her for any legitimate reason. I'm not saying there isn't one, I just
can't figure out what it would be.
2 comments:
Prop guns are usually real firearms filled with blanks. Even the blanks have history of being deadly. Somebody screwed the pooch on safety issues and now one is dead and another is wounded. Rumor has it that the Head Prop MFIC was the daughter of a renown Prop Specialist who had been trained but it was only her first or second film job. I read that yesterday on FB. Take it with a grain of salt.
Further info, which may or may not be correct, is that there were three prop guns, all allegedly loaded with blanks, left unattended for some period of time. An assistant director picked up one of them and passed it to Baldwin, asserting that it was in fact "cold." Neither one of them checked.
The father of the armorer is in fact Thell Reed, a very well known gunsmith, stunt man and quick draw artist. He was teaching his daughter the business and this was her second film as the principle armorer. Sad to say it may be her last one.
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