The media and especially the entertainment media is awash with the story about the incident on the set of the film ‘Rust’ which ended up with the star, Alec Baldwin, accidentally shooting to death the film’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. This is an utter and complete tragedy and one that might have been avoided.

The more I read this story the more I am baffled as to how it could have happened. Live rounds should not have been on the set and I can’t understand why there was a need for live rounds to be used for any of the scenes. Was this a horrific mix up with ammunition? Were the staff who had a responsibility for safety too inexperienced and therefore not confident enough to speak up when they encountered a safety issue? If there was an extreme and unavoidable need for a live round rather than SFX to be used, for example to show someone firing a gun at an inanimate object, then how were the safety protocols managed?

When films are made in the USA the firearms used are often real guns capable of firing a real and deadly round which means that safety protocols have to be extremely tight indeed. There should have been an absolute and complete barrier to the possibility of a real gun being accidentally loaded with a real live round.

A lot of people are piling onto Alec Baldwin and criticising him for this but I believe that this is extremely unfair. Actors and Actresses are not skilled and experienced armourers, they may not even be that familiar with firearms, they are handed a weapon that they should reasonably be able to assume is either a rubber prop gun, which are used for long shots, or a real gun filled with blank rounds for close up shots.

There’s a brilliant and informative thread on Twitter, which you can find HERE, by SL Huang a person who says that they are an experienced movie armourer and based on what they have said it seems that on a well run film set such an accident that occurred on the set of ‘Rust’ just should not have happened. There should have been a number of layers of safety systems that should have prevented this accident from occurring. If these safety systems were in place and being operated correctly then how did this tragic accident occur?

The armourer wonders whether or not cost cutting might be at the heart of this incident and I can readily see why this might be a factor. The entertainment and especially the movie business is a difficult one with small profit margins for anything other than a big studio backed blockbuster and it is a business with a lot of financial risk attached to it. Lots of movies get made but the number that make megabucks for their production companies is not that high. There must be a temptation by some production companies to put all their money into paying for a high profile cast but cut the budget for the backroom stuff that might not contribute to the appeal of the movie but is necessary to ensure that the production is safe.

We also have to factor in the aftermath of the Covid Pandemic. Covid has made an already fragile and highly competitive business environment even more so. A lot of studios shut down productions and laid off staff because filming could not continue on many projects because of the threat of illness on set and among backroom production staff. I do wonder whether production staff are so desperate for jobs and the finances of production companies so tight, that corners are being cut and decisions are being made about the hiring of staff for backroom work like armourers and assistant directors (who play a big role in safety) is being made on the basis of cost rather than experience?

With people being desperate for jobs there must be some temptation for some workers to let concerns about potentially dangerous aspects of filming, not just regarding firearms but also about stunts and fire based special effects, to slide in order to not rock the boat by making an issue of them? I can well see how a more junior member of a production team might be tempted to keep silent about a safety issue rather than speak up and be thought of as a troublemaker or a nuisance, especially if the complaint costs the production company money.

What we have seen with the Alec Baldwin accident on the set of ‘Rust’ is just that, an accident. However it is an accident with a cause and we will probably need to wait for the conclusion of the investigation to find out just what happened.