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      How the Shooting on the Alec Baldwin Set Happened

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      A reconstruction of the events leading up to the fatal shooting of the cinematographer of “Rust,” the Alec Baldwin western, reveals a troubled production and a series of errors.SANTA FE, N.M — Alec Baldwin was on the set of his latest film, a low-budget western called “Rust,” working on a scene in which his character, a grizzled outlaw named Harland Rust, finds himself in a small wooden church, cornered by a sheriff and a U.S. Marshal, and decides to shoot his way out.Members of the small crew — including the director, cinematographer, cameraman and script supervisor — clustered around Mr. Baldwin inside the cramped, spartan set. The location is on a sprawling ranch outside Santa Fe, where Hollywood has been sending some of its biggest actors to don Stetsons and leather holsters to film westerns since 1955, when Jimmy Stewart made “The Man From Laramie” there.As light poured through the church’s windows, casting slanted rays in the dust that swirled over the pews, a shadow fell, and the crew had to adjust the camera angle.Then it was time for Mr. Baldwin, 63, who was seated on a pew, to practice his scene: a close-up of his hand as he slowly reached across his chest, drew a .45 Long Colt revolver from a shoulder holster and moved it toward the lens of the camera. The crew had been assured the gun was “cold,” meaning it held no live ammunition, according to court papers. In fact, investigators said, it was loaded with a live round. The error would prove fatal.Suddenly there was a loud noise that the director, Joel Souza, later told a detective “sounded like a whip and then loud pop” as the gun went off.The film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, who was standing just feet away from Mr. Baldwin, to the left of the camera, grabbed her midsection and began to stumble backward, fatally struck in the chest by a lead bullet that investigators say passed through her and then wounded the film’s director, Mr. Souza, 48.The small church set where the scene was being filmed.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressThe questions of why there was any live ammunition on a movie set, where it is usually forbidden, and how a revolver loaded with a lethal round was placed in the hands of an actor, have started a complicated inquiry as law enforcement officials in New Mexico try to determine whether negligence on the set of “Rust” rose to the level of a crime. It has raised questions about firearm safety on sets, and whether proper procedures were followed on “Rust,” a troubled production where some members of the crew had quit before the shooting. Those core questions about the gun and ammunition remain unanswered. But a reconstruction of the events based on court papers and interviews with members of the production, crew and law enforcement officials makes it clear that a cascading series of mistakes led to the fatal moment just before 1:48 p.m. on Oct. 21.The fatal shooting has drawn intense news coverage. Journalists gathered Wednesday for a news conference at the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office.Nick Layman/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA Delayed Start, After Trouble on the SetThe “Rust” crew started work before dawn, at about 6:30 a.m., and the crew gathered for breakfast at Bonanza Creek Ranch, where the movie was being filmed.But a major problem had emerged the night before: Six members of the camera crew had sent in resignation letters, citing issues including a lack of hotel accommodations and late paychecks.The tensions on the set came amid a broader national labor battle over working conditions in the industry. As “Rust” went into its second week of work on location in mid-October, the union that represents members of film crews was negotiating a new contract with production studios. The union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, voted this month to authorize a nationwide strike if talks failed.Mr. Baldwin had arrived on the set about a week after filming had started in early October, and had spent time working on his horseback riding, rehearsing scenes and practicing with guns, including trying to simulate the recoil that is missing when live rounds are not used.Mr. Baldwin was not only the star of the film, which was expected to cost about $6.5 million to make, but one of its producers, along with Ryan Winterstern, Matt DelPiano, Anjul Nigam, Ryan Donnell Smith and Nathan Klingher.After the union’s leaders reached a tentative agreement with the studios, Mr. Baldwin posted an Instagram video — filmed from Santa Fe — in which he urged the rank-and-file members to strike if they were unhappy with the deal. Tensions on the set of “Rust” were building, though. And just days before the fatal shooting, at least two accidental gun discharges on set had put crew members on edge.At a vigil for Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer who was killed, a sign alluded to the recent union negotiations over workplace safety.Kevin Mohatt/ReutersOne former member of the “Rust” crew said in an interview that he had been alarmed by the safety conditions on the production. “It was the most unorganized set I’ve ever seen,” said the crew member, who was granted anonymity because he feared that speaking out would harm his future work prospects.He said there had been concern about the limited experience of the film’s armorer, who was in charge of the weaponry on the set: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was 24 years old and just starting her career as a head armorer.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers, Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, said in a statement Friday that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was working two different jobs on the film, “which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer.’’ (The production did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement.)The lawyers charged that “the whole production set became unsafe due to various factors, including lack of safety meetings,” and suggested that others had been responsible for previous accidental discharges on the set: “The first one on this set was the prop master, and the second was a stunt man after Hannah informed him his gun was hot with blanks.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Even as the tensions brewed, one former “Rust” crew member said, Ms. Hutchins, the cinematographer, bonded with members of the crew, taking some out for sushi after a long day of work.“She was very passionate about what we were all doing,” he recalled.Ms. Hutchins told a friend, Dan Frenkel, over the phone that there were labor tensions but that she thought they could work through them.They could not. Most of the film’s camera crew resigned over issues that were not dissimilar to those that union leaders had been discussing at the bargaining table.Bonanza Creek Ranch, the site of filming, has been a location for movie westerns since the 1950s.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA Live Round Goes Undetected in Safety CheckThe production had been delayed, but replacement crew members were found, and the crew got back to work.They were working on the church scene when, at about 12:30 p.m., it was time for lunch. Production workers were shuttled in vans to a nearby catering tent. The guns and some ammunition were kept locked in a safe kept inside a white truck, but some ammunition remained unsecured on a cart outside.After lunch, the film’s prop master, Sarah Zachry, entered the combination to the safe and handed the guns to Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who set them up on a gray cart outside the church.Both Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and Dave Halls, the first assistant director, were supposed to check the guns before handing them to actors.The protocol, Mr. Halls told a detective, was for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed to show him the gun so he could check its barrel for obstructions, and for her to then open the revolver and spin it so he could see the contents of its chambers. Then he would call out “cold gun,” signaling to the crew that the gun did not contain live rounds.When the cast and crew got back from lunch that day, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed showed Mr. Halls the .45 Colt revolver that Mr. Baldwin would handle. Mr. Halls told a detective that he recalled seeing three rounds inside but could not recall whether Ms. Gutierrez-Reed had spun the drum so he could check every chamber and every round.“He advised he should have checked all of them, but didn’t,” Detective Alexandria Hancock wrote.Both Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and Mr. Halls have been the subjects of complaints on previous productions.In 2019 Mr. Halls was fired from a movie, “Freedom’s Path,” after a gun discharged unexpectedly on set, causing a minor injury to a crew member, its production company said. Neither Mr. Halls nor his lawyers responded to requests for comment.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who had been learning how to be an armorer from her father, Thell Reed, a Hollywood weapons expert, was just getting started as a head armorer herself. In a recent podcast, she noted that she had just finished filming her first movie as head armorer, a western called “The Old Way” starring Nicolas Cage, and confided that “I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready.”Stu Brumbaugh, a key grip on “The Old Way,” said in an interview that he had recommended Ms. Gutierrez-Reed be fired after he witnessed two unannounced discharges of weapons she was holding, startling others and in one case prompting an angry reaction from Mr. Cage. She was kept on, he said, which he saw as evidence of a broader problem in which producers try to cut costs by hiring less experienced crews. The incident was reported earlier by CNN.Lawyers for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed said that she had “never had an accidental discharge” during her career; they did not respond to follow-up questions about the incident on “The Old Way.”“Ultimately this set would never have been compromised if live ammo were not introduced,” her lawyers said of the “Rust” set. “Hannah has no idea where the live rounds came from.”A “Cold Gun” That Was Anything But“Cold gun!” Mr. Halls called out after lunch as he handed the revolver to Mr. Baldwin. Then, as Mr. Baldwin practiced his draw, the gun went off.Ms. Hutchins stumbled backward and was helped to the ground. Mr. Souza saw blood on her — and then noticed that he was bleeding, too. Ms. Hutchins said she could not feel her legs.Ms. Hutchins, a talented cinematographer who left a husband and son behind, was recalled at a candlelight vigil in Burbank, Calif. David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMamie Mitchell, the movie’s script supervisor, ran out of the church, cellphone in hand, and dialed 911.“We’ve had two people accidentally shot on a movie set by a prop gun,” Ms. Mitchell told the dispatcher. “We need help immediately.”At 1:48 p.m., the sheriff’s department was dispatched to the ranch.Back on the set, Mr. Halls picked up the revolver from a church pew and handed it to Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who opened it up to see what was inside. Mr. Halls told a detective that he saw at least four rounds with a hole in the side, which sometimes indicate that a round is a dummy. (Dummy rounds contain no gunpowder and are used to resemble bullets on camera.)But there was another round in the gun, he told a detective, one with just a casing, no cap, and which did not have the pierced hole.Real sheriff’s deputies, from Santa Fe County, rushed to the church set, with the first arriving at 2 p.m. Ms. Hutchins was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Albuquerque, where she was pronounced dead. Mr. Souza was taken to a closer hospital.Mr. Baldwin’s western costume was turned over for evidence, because it appeared to be stained with blood.A few days later, Sheriff Adan Mendoza of Santa Fe County would announce what had become increasingly clear: The gun had fired a live round, a lead bullet.The bullet was recovered from the director’s shoulder. Now the investigation is focused on how it got into the revolver.Simon Romero reported from Santa Fe, Julia Jacobs from New York and Graham Bowley from Toronto. Nicole Sperling contributed reporting. More

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      Four Stand-Up Specials That Showcase Hard-Working Comics

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      Theo Von, Roy Wood Jr., Ricky Velez and Jo Firestone each turn in solid hours filled with smart, funny observations.The stand-up specials that get the most attention tend to be made by celebrities, but as dedicated comedy fans know, the funniest ones are much more likely to emerge from midcareer workhorses, like the artists who recently put out these new hours.Theo Von“Regular People” (Netflix)A couple times a year, some city slicker with impeccable elite-media credentials whispers to me: What do you think of Theo Von? What this translates to is: I didn’t think I was going to like this guy, but he’s hilarious. And it’s true. One of the most magnetic storytellers in comedy today, he plays with hot-button cultural issues, but not for cheap shock. The title refers to the people from his Louisiana hometown. He’s less charitable about those in Los Angeles, where he currently lives. About them, he quips: “I don’t blame the, um, fires.”There’s not only sincerity to his act, but an eccentricity that takes you by surprise. He opens by mocking his appearance — “I look like somebody who might have matches on them” — before a series of yarns about kids he grew up with, like one with no arms named Gert or a boy named Tot, who had “a lick of autism, a pretty good lick of it.” There’s affection and even innocence in these tales, which sound like a white-guy/red-state version of the “Fat Albert” gang.His sentences often begin and end with “bro,” but in between are musical bursts of slang that, like the jokes of Norm Macdonald, find elaborate ways to say simple things. “A chair” becomes “seatery,” and “You feel the squirrels run, baby” is his way of describing getting horny. Von first burst on the scene via the MTV reality show “Road Rules,” so it’s tempting to make him out to be a creature of showbiz — a Larry the Cable Guy for a new generation. But spend enough time with him, particularly on his podcast, whose clips often go viral, and you see an earned vulnerability. He frequently goes over some of the same territory (family, his roots) there as in his special, but with melancholy and soulful gratitude. Seeing this new hour gives you more respect for how he turns this into silly jokes. At one point, Von says you can’t find jewelry in his hometown, before dramatically sticking his hand up to count the things you can. No. 1: turpentine. He pauses, before naming the second: “Some ideas.” You can go a long way with that.Roy Wood Jr.This special preaches forgiveness but understands that revenge has its benefits.Sean Gallagher/Comedy Central“Imperfect Messenger” (Comedy Central)Roy Wood Jr. hopes you are OK but won’t ask. “You ask somebody how they’re doing now, you better be careful, because they might tell you,” he says, enunciating consonants like a boxer following through on uppercuts. A correspondent for “The Daily Show,” Wood is one of the best political comics today, and this special, a tight hour of provocative jokes told with a deep well of empathy, feels perfectly pitched to the moment when the pandemic is not over so much as it’s gone on long enough that we want to change the subject. He pulls off the feat of finding fresh takes on well-worn subjects like the relationship between Black people and the police, but his overarching theme here is the hard work needed to find any scrap of happiness in a cruel world. He is clear about outrages but also admirably willing to explore nuance, even if it makes him look bad. This is the rare comedy that preaches forgiveness but understands revenge has its benefits. His great metaphor, which he keeps returning to, is that finding contentment is like digging for food in a crab leg: You take whatever you can claw out..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Ricky VelezBits mocking the very old and the very young are among the funniest of this hour.Mark Schafer/HBO“Here’s Everything” (HBO Max)One of the funniest sets I ever saw was by the Queens-born comic Ricky Velez — and the strangest part was that he was an opening act. It was many years ago and I recall little outside of a strong belief that this live-wire joke slinger would one day produce a dynamite comedy special. I wish I could say this debut was it, but instead it’s just a solid introduction to his spiky, propulsive comedy. It starts with a close-up of him looking intense, teary-eyed perhaps, the sound of the subway rumbling in the distance. “I’m coming to terms with the idea that my brain does not work good,” is his first line. This sets expectations of another brooding special about mental health. That fits the fashion in comedy today better than the comic.At his best, Velez has the swagger of a con man on a hot streak. He’s nervy, side-eyeing everyone. Velez talks about anxiety and insecurities rooted in a hardscrabble childhood, but he doesn’t wallow in this. If anything, unlike so many of the wealthy boldface-name stand-ups, he speaks of being poor with a refreshing urgency and irreverence. There’s not enough of this in prominent stand-up specials. His bits on the difference between rich and poor are some of his smartest, but the mockery of the old and very young is his funniest. He’s sick of people lying about babies on social media. They’re not all cute. A new dad, he establishes his cred: “I’m in the parks. Kids are ugly out there.” Then he draws a line with defiance: He won’t like a baby photo on Instagram. Sure, he might leave a comment: “Better luck next time.”Jo FirestoneTequila Minsky, left, Jo Firestone, Bibi Elvers and Helen Yalof in the comic’s new special.NBC“Good Timing With Jo Firestone” (Peacock)My favorite moment in this comic documentary about a group of senior citizens taking a comedy class is when we are dropped in the middle of a rambling digression from an older lady in a scarf saying she wished religion and gender were banned, then segues into the horror of the Holocaust and a story about coal mines before the camera shifts to the comic Jo Firestone sitting across from her. Gently interrupting, Firestone asks: “I think the question is: Is comedy a gift?”A beloved staple of New York comedy, Firestone has always exuded warmth and good cheer in a scene awash in bitterness and cynicism. As anyone who has seen her co-host the weekly Brooklyn show “Butter Boy” can tell you, she’s also an excellent foil. Teaching the workshop in the special, she gooses jokes out of her students by digging into their lives. The most surprising moments, which also happen to be the funniest, are not the jokes, but hearing her students talk about them — how punch lines helped them fall in love, cheer up, make sense of things. Firestone is the professional here, but she is comfortable in the background, grasping that the best way to show the gift of comedy is to let amateurs talk about their hopes to get into it. More

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      ‘Rust’ Armorer Has ‘No Idea’ How Live Rounds Got on Set, Lawyers Say

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      Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was in charge of firearms on the New Mexico film set where Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer with a gun that was not supposed to contain live ammunition.Lawyers for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on the set of the film where Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer last week as he rehearsed with a gun he was told had no live ammunition, issued a statement Friday defending her adherence to safety protocols and saying that she did not know how live rounds wound up on the set in New Mexico.“Hannah has no idea where the live rounds came from,” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers, Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, said in the first public statement on her behalf.In their statement, they charged that the set of the film, “Rust,” had been unsafe, and that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, 24, had been hired to two positions on the film, “which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer.’’ The production did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement. “She fought for training, days to maintain weapons, and proper time to prepare for gunfire but ultimately was overruled by production and her department,” it said. “The whole production set became unsafe due to various factors, including lack of safety meetings. This was not the fault of Hannah.”Either way, the production set was awash in guns and ammunition. In addition to the guns and ammunition that were recovered in an earlier search, detectives found more when they searched a white prop truck on the set, Detectives Alexandria Hancock and Marissa Poppell with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said in a court document released on Friday.The detectives recovered 12 revolvers; one rifle; a bandolier (a belt usually slung sash-style over the shoulder to hold ammunition); four cardboard boxes with miscellaneous ammunition; a spent blank; and one “45 Colt round.” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed — who also goes by Hannah Reed and Hannah Gutierrez — was relatively inexperienced as a head armorer. In a recent podcast she noted that she had just finished filming her first movie as head armorer in a western called “The Old Way,” starring Clint Howard and Nicolas Cage, that is set for release next year, saying, “I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready.” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed has also come under scrutiny for reports of unexpected gun discharges on the sets of films that she has worked on..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION 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header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Her lawyers said that they wanted “to address some untruths that have been told to the media, which have falsely portrayed her and slandered her,” and said that safety was her “number one priority on set.”While some news accounts have suggested there might have been recreational shooting on the set, reports law-enforcement officials called “unconfirmed,” the lawyers said in their statement that the guns being used for the film could not have been used for such activities.“Hannah and the prop master gained control over the guns and she never witnessed anyone shoot live rounds with these guns and nor would she permit that,” the statement said. “They were locked up every night and at lunch and there’s no way a single one of them was unaccounted for or being shot by crew members.”In the week since the shooting at Bonanza Creek Ranch, which killed the movie’s director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, and wounded its director, Joel Souza, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and the film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, have come under scrutiny, since they both handled the Colt .45 being used in the film before it was handed to Mr. Baldwin.The gun was declared “cold,” meaning it was not supposed to contain any live ammunition, according to court papers. But when it went off as Mr. Baldwin practiced drawing it, it fired a real bullet, which struck and killed Ms. Hutchins and wounded Mr. Souza, Sheriff Adan Mendoza of Santa Fe County said at a news conference Wednesday.Three former crew members on “Rust” said there were at least two accidental discharges on set on Oct. 16, days before the fatal shooting.In the lawyers’ statement, they said that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed “has never had an accidental discharge” during her career. They suggested that others had been responsible for the two accidental discharges on the “Rust” set: “The first one on this set was the prop master and the second was a stunt man after Hannah informed him his gun was hot with blanks.”“Hannah is devastated and completely beside herself over the events that have transpired,” the statement said.Nicole Sperling contributed reporting. More

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      A Filmmaking Life Gets a Sequel

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      Joanna Hogg is the rare director to be given the greenlight for a two-part drama about finding her own voice. She’s only been thinking about it since 1988.Sequels and spinoffs and origin stories fill the multiplexes, but it’s vanishingly rare to see two feature-length dramas centered on the same, real-world character. Enter “The Souvenir,” two films directed by Joanna Hogg on a subject that’s also not common onscreen: a young woman finding her way in life and coming into her own.In “The Souvenir,” released in 2019, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is a film school student in 1980s London. Her relationship with Anthony, a witty, debonair older man, goes off the rails as it emerges that he’s addicted to heroin. “The Souvenir Part II,” which opens Oct. 29, follows a solo Julie working out her voice as a person and as a director — a new rich chapter of experience where a single film might have declared “The End.”“You don’t normally have that opportunity with the story, to have a break in the middle and think about what you’re doing and approach things differently the second way,” Hogg said in an interview at a downtown hotel the day after her movie’s New York Film Festival premiere last month. (Part II takes place only a few days after Part I but was shot two years later.)Until recently, her films have been like a much-beloved secret. “Joanna Hogg — where have you been all my movie-loving life?” Manohla Dargis wrote when the director’s first three features were finally released in the United States in 2014. A.O. Scott called the first part “an absolute joy to watch.” Distributed by the brand-savvy A24, “The Souvenir Part II” is the latest entry in Hogg’s ardently admired oeuvre.Her fans include Ari Aster, director of “Midsommar,” who said in an email, “At her best, she lends a subtle, deeply individual strangeness to the quotidian.” He praised her as “a fastidious and texture-obsessed diarist in the best sense.” Another fan: President Barack Obama, who counted “Part I” among his favorite movies of 2019.The Scottish novelist Ali Smith (“Summer”), who once screened Hogg’s work in an arts festival, said via email, “Her films are beautiful things in the world, and witty, hyper-intelligent, scalpel-sharp, simultaneously merciless and deeply humane.” Smith added, “She takes class apart, she has a clear eye across the traditions that skewer us or vitalize us.”Julie’s story draws closely on Hogg’s memories. Like Julie, Hogg studied filmmaking in the 1980s, at the National Film and Television School, and dated a devastatingly charming man with an all-consuming drug addiction. And Julie’s background, like Hogg’s, is solidly upper middle class. Visits to the country home of Julie’s parents punctuate both films; artifacts, clothing and photos from Hogg’s life appear throughout, too. “Part I” broaches the notion of privilege, as Julie faces teachers skeptical of her initial proposal to make a film about a struggling port city. “Part II” sees her coming out of her shell and, as Hogg put it, “joining the world, joining life.”Honor Swinton Byrne, left, and Tilda Swinton in “The Souvenir Part II.”Sandro Kopp/A24Hogg went onto a career in British television and did not direct her first theatrical feature until 2007 at age 47: “Unrelated,” starring Tom Hiddleston, also making his feature debut. “The Souvenir Part II” imagines a different trajectory for Julie, giving her a freedom Hogg did not have at the time.“I didn’t get to make a film at film school that spoke about the relationship that I’d been in,” the director said. Friendly and low-key in a subdued dark top and pants, she chose her words firmly but with a dry, winningly modest sense of understatement that would fit without a rustle right into a Joanna Hogg film. “It was important for her to be less naïve and therefore more in control of her life and therefore her story.”The ties of friends and family are further entwined through Hogg’s cast. The director knew Swinton Byrne as the daughter of an old schoolmate, Tilda Swinton. (Hogg is Swinton Byrne’s godmother.) Swinton starred in Hogg’s real graduate film, “Caprice,” and plays Julie’s doting mother in both parts of “The Souvenir.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Yet Swinton Byrne was cast less than a month before shooting on “Part I” began. Hogg was visiting Swinton about playing Julie’s mother but still didn’t have a Julie.“I was getting onto a train to go back to London, and Honor was arriving from London coming home,” Hogg said. The two chatted on the platform about “what it is to be in your early 20s,” and for Hogg it just “clicked.”“I feel like I was very like Julie when I was a bit younger. You know how insecure it is,” Swinton Byrne, 23, said, bubbly over the phone from Edinburgh, where she’s studying psychology after a teaching stint in Namibia, among other things. (“My mom says that I’m still not fully baked yet,” she said, laughing.)Swinton Byrne’s Julie reckons with the past in “The Souvenir Part II” but spends a lot of time on a soundstage, leading her crew and explaining motivations to her actors. (Her classmates include a hilariously biting Richard Ayoade.)Hogg “dramatizes the fragmentary life of the imagination, completing a story that was full of hesitations in the first place,” the critic Molly Haskell said in an email, invoking Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet. “To my mind, the only remotely analogous cinematic experiment of recent years is Richard Linklater’s ‘Before’ trilogy.”Hogg’s two-part idea — which she dates at least to a journal entry in 1988 — wasn’t a sure thing. She had planned to shoot both films at the same time, until a financier pulled out. Another twist involved Robert Pattinson, who was slated for a role (later reworked) in “Part II” but was tied up with “Tenet” instead. (No hard feelings from Hogg: “I hope that I’ll work with him in the future.”)“I wanted desperately to make them at the same time, because I thought there was a danger that if I just made the first one, I wouldn’t get the opportunity to make the second one,” Hogg recalled.Today, she is grateful for the extra time and even believes the second part would have been “a shadow of its current self” if she’d shot both movies together.It’s easy to see this ability to adapt and find an alchemy in the shifts of reality as part of her filmmaking style. Despite her movies’ precise ear for the spoken word, Hogg doesn’t write traditional screenplays, giving actors the space to come up with dialogue. She lets scenes unfold at length, often with room-wide shots that allow us to soak in the give-and-take.One tragicomic sequence in her “Archipelago,” starring Hiddleston, observes a family dither dysfunctionally over where to sit at a restaurant. (“Never has the term ‘faffing about’ been so perfectly illustrated,” the critic Jonathan Romney wrote approvingly in The Independent.)Alex Heeney, who co-wrote a monograph about Joanna Hogg, told me, “Hogg’s films are less about duration than they are about how people orbit each other and how their spaces facilitate or prevent this.” In “The Souvenir,” she added, Julie “has to work to become the protagonist in her own life, and that’s not taken lightly.”Hogg is already editing her next film “The Eternal Daughter,” a ghost story starring Swinton. In the meantime, Hogg’s “Souvenir” star, Swinton Byrne, seemed still to be reflecting on her character’s two-part journey.“It is like watching a friend get up on her feet after a really intense breakup or intense loss,” she said. “It’s what I waited for a long time, to see Julie, who I see as a friend, become a full person.” More

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      ‘Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin’ Review: Still Recording

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      With this new installment, the found-footage franchise incorporates Covid-19, Amish country and too many cameras.“Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin,” the latest sequel, reboot or byproduct of the durable found-footage franchise, brings the series into the Covid-19 era and into Amish country, where you hope that none of the visiting, quickly maskless outsiders are bringing the disease. The adopted Margot (Emily Bader) is making a documentary about meeting her biological family. Her birth mother, who abandoned her — as seen in hospital security-cam video that is mystifyingly never revisited — was shunned by her farm community after getting pregnant.The lack of electricity could pose an interesting challenge for Margot’s two-person crew, but mostly not so much; that’s what a generator is for. While the image quality has improved since the original installment, released in 2009, the proliferation of small cameras (there’s even drone work here) allows the director, William Eubank, to get lax about observing the fixed perspectives that made these movies scary to begin with. When Margot asks Chris (Roland Buck III) to use a pulley to lower her into a secret shaft in a church that an elder (Tom Nowicki) has warned them not to enter, and that obviously leads to something hellish, any cutting or alternation of point of view constitutes a misstep.Absent formal rigor, the “Paranormal Activity” concept doesn’t offer much else. Here we get mysterious thumps from an attic, overly poised children, an old woman who peels her hand instead of a potato and, finally, generic-looking special effects that violate the D.I.Y. spirit of the enterprise.Paranormal Activity: Next of KinRated R. Creepy farm activity. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      Producers of Alec Baldwin Film Scrutinized After Shooting

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      The team behind “Rust” chose not to get an insurance package often carried by productions, which some in Hollywood said was a sign of cutting corners.LOS ANGELES — Independent film productions that cost more than a few million dollars often carry two forms of insurance in case something goes wrong. Forgoing full coverage, Hollywood veterans say, is less a sign of optimism than corner cutting.Alec Baldwin’s now-infamous “Rust” had only one.Chubb, the insurance giant, sold Mr. Baldwin and his five fellow “Rust” producers a package covering a wide range of potential problems, including damage to equipment (a cracked camera lens), injury to cast and crew (a broken wrist after a fall) and the worst-case situation of a death on the set. What the “Rust” producers did not secure is a completion bond — an often-expensive package that serves as a type of umbrella policy should anything horrific happen and the production can’t be completed. Such a policy costs about 2 percent of a film’s budget.“Producers who don’t want to bond are only doing so to save money,” said Randy Greenberg, a producer, film finance consultant and former studio executive. “And it’s the last place where you want to save money.”The producing team declined to comment for this article, although a spokeswoman confirmed the insurance details. Last week, the producers said in a statement that they were “fully cooperating with all investigations and inquiries.”The authorities in New Mexico, where “Rust” was filming last week, are still trying to figure out what went wrong. On Wednesday, the Santa Fe County district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, said at a news conference that criminal charges were still possible, including charges against Mr. Baldwin, who fired a gun being used as a prop, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounding its director, Joel Souza. Mr. Baldwin, who is also a producer, was told the gun was “cold,” meaning that is contained no live ammunition, according to an affidavit.“It will take many more facts, corroborated facts, before we can get to that criminal negligent standard,” Ms. Carmack-Altwies said, adding in later interviews that civil lawsuits would inevitably arise.Alec Baldwin and his fellow producers on “Rust” did not secure a completion bond, an often-expensive insurance package that serves as a type of umbrella policy.Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images But a look at the constellation of production companies behind “Rust” is helpful in answering one of the many questions: How did Mr. Baldwin — an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actor who has worked with A-list directors like Martin Scorsese and has 40 years of experience in productions big and small — end up on a set with a lethal gun in his hand?Mr. Baldwin may have a reputation of flying off the handle in his personal life, as when he blasted New York City on Twitter as “a mismanaged carnival of stupidity.” But he is not known for working on productions that could be described the same way.“Rust” was conceived by Mr. Baldwin, 63, and its writer-director, Mr. Souza, 48, who previously collaborated on “Crown Vic,” a low-budget crime film about the hunt for two cop killers. (It cost $3.6 million to make and sold $3,868 in tickets at a handful of theaters in 2019 before arriving on streaming sites like Hulu.) Announced in May 2020, “Rust” would follow an Old West outlaw, Harland Rust, who goes on the run with his grandson, a teenager convicted of an accidental murder and sentenced to hang.District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said Wednesday that criminal charges were still possible after the shooting death of the film’s cinematographer.Adria Malcolm/ReutersWhile known almost exclusively as an actor, Mr. Baldwin has dabbled in producing since at least 1994. His company is called El Dorado Pictures, and its credits include seven films, none particularly notable. There was “Seduced and Abandoned,” a 2013 documentary for HBO that chronicled efforts by Mr. Baldwin and an associate, the director James Toback, to secure financing for a film. (Mr. Toback was later accused of sexual harassment by 38 women, accusations he denied.) El Dorado’s biggest hit came in 2001, when it was involved with the David Mamet satire “State and Main,” which collected $9.2 million, or about $14 million in today’s dollars. El Dorado also produces television and, until July, had a first-look deal with ABC Studios.To pay for “Rust,” which was expected to cost about $6.5 million to make, Mr. Baldwin and the various producers who joined him on the project began pulling the usual levers available to independent filmmakers: tapping wealthy outsiders with an interest in cinema, securing a loan from a film-financing company, preselling distribution rights. (Whether Mr. Baldwin directly took this path or wound up on it after shopping it unsuccessfully to a major studio or streaming service is not known.)Some money came from Streamline Global, a film investment company run by Emily Hunter Salveson, the granddaughter of Melvin Salveson, who invented and patented the credit card. Founded in 2015 and based in Las Vegas, Streamline helps wealthy clients obtain tax breaks by investing in certain types of movies, according to its website.Another pool of money came from BondIt Media Capital, which is backed by Revere Capital, a Texas hedge fund. BondIt provided debt financing for “Rust” based in part on tax credits: New Mexico offers a rebate ranging from 25 percent to 35 percent of in-state film production costs. Founded in 2013 and based in Santa Monica, Calif., BondIt specializes in ultralow-budget films (“The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre”) that never make it to theaters and feed the home-entertainment pipeline.Additional “Rust” funding came from the sale of the film’s North American distribution rights, which was orchestrated by Creative Artists Agency. C.A.A. sold them to an offshoot of the Highland Film Group. Highland, known for its foreign film sales business, recently gained attention for handling “Me You Madness,” a campy thriller starring Louise Linton, the wife of Steven Mnuchin, the former Treasury secretary, and “The Reckoning,” a disastrously reviewed horror film starring Charlotte Kirk.As investigators in New Mexico piece together what happened on the “Rust” set, the producers of the film are coming under increased scrutiny. On an independent film in particular, the producers are ultimately responsible for what happens on a set; for all intents and purposes, they are the employers. “The buck is supposed to stop with them,” said Mark Stolaroff, a producer, independent filmmaking instructor and former production company executive. “As a producer, you are responsible for vetting the safety protocols, not just on the day, but also in the planning.”Mr. Stolaroff added that he was “shocked” that “Rust” had no completion bond.A vigil for the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was held in New Mexico on Saturday.Kevin Mohatt/ReutersThe “Rust” producers are a rather motley band — a “ragtag group,” as The Hollywood Reporter called them this week. Five of the six were physically on the New Mexico set on the day of the shooting, according to the spokeswoman for the producing team. They were not, however, in the immediate area where Mr. Baldwin was rehearsing when he fired the gun.In addition to Mr. Baldwin, the producers who were present include Ryan Donnell Smith, who is also president of Streamline Global and an owner of Thomasville Pictures, a Georgia production company. Mr. Smith has multiple executive producer credits, which indicate financial involvement, including one for “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” But “Rust” was only his second scripted feature as a full producer, according to IMDb Pro, an entertainment industry database.Two more producers, Nathan Klingher and Ryan Winterstern, who have a company called Short Porch Pictures, have no previous credits as full producers. Both of them also hold jobs at Highland Film Group. (Mr. Winterstern’s father is Henry Winterstern, an investor, producer and corporate turnaround artist whose credits include the unsuccessful 2018 Sylvester Stallone vehicle “Escape Plan 2: Hades.”)The fifth producer on the set was Anjul Nigam, who helped Mr. Baldwin produce “Crown Vic.” Mr. Nigam has spent his career primarily as an actor, appearing intermittently as Dr. Raj on “Grey’s Anatomy” from 2005 to 2017.Rounding out the producing team: Matt DelPiano, who was previously Mr. Baldwin’s agent at Creative Artists Agency. Mr. DelPiano left C.A.A. in 2019 to become a partner at Cavalry Media. Cavalry was founded a year earlier by Keegan Rosenberger, notable in Hollywood for serving as a senior finance executive at Relativity, which collapsed in 2015 in epic fashion; and by Dana Brunetti, a fast-lane Hollywood character who has Oscar nominations for producing “The Social Network” and “Captain Phillips” and who once had a production shingle with Kevin Spacey.According to the “Rust” call sheet, Gabrielle Pickle was directly managing the set on the day that Mr. Baldwin fired the gun. Ms. Pickle is a line producer, which is a subordinate role but an important one. Line producers are usually involved in hiring and vetting key members of the crew. Ms. Pickle works for a Georgia production services company called 3rd Shift Media. The company could not be reached for comment. More

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      Labor Board Looking Into Complaints at Sean Penn Vaccination Site

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      Two online commenters complained of working 18-hour days and not getting food from Krispy Kreme or Subway. Penn saw “narcissism” and “betrayal.”A nonprofit group co-founded by Sean Penn is facing a National Labor Relations Board hearing over an accusation that he implicitly threatened employees after complaints about long hours and the food served during a Covid-19 vaccination effort.In January the group, Community Organized Relief Effort, played a key role in an operation to administer vaccines in a parking lot of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.The work drew praise, but an anonymous online comment posted in response to a New York Times article late that month about the vaccinations said that employees were working up to 18 hours a day. A second comment, also anonymous, said there had been a lack of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Subway sandwiches — food described by the Times report as being at the site.Soon, CORE employees were sent a long, impassioned email by Penn. He wrote that he was grateful for their work and mindful of his responsibilities in “the race against mutations and the fight against the current strains of Covid-19.”He also appeared to suggest that the online commenters were guilty of “reckless narcissism” and “broad betrayal.”And Penn proposed that those who might feel inclined to gripe online amid a pandemic ought to simply leave the group instead.“Any of us who might find themselves predisposed to a culture of complaint, have a much simpler avenue than broad-based cyber whining,” he wrote. “It’s called quitting.”A labor lawyer in Los Angeles read the message after it was published, in early February, along with an accompanying article, by The Los Angeles Times. That lawyer, Daniel B. Rojas, said Penn’s remarks struck him as unlawful and that he quickly filed a charge with the N.L.R.B. The N.L.R.B. process calls for a charge to be followed by an investigation, which can lead to a complaint or a dismissal.In this instance, the N.L.R.B. issued a complaint, dated Oct. 25, saying Penn’s email violated federal labor law. Penn had, the complaint added, “impliedly threatened” employees with reprisals or discharge.A hearing before an administrative law judge has been scheduled for January.A lawyer for CORE and for Penn said that “on principle and merit,” both had rejected a settlement offer from the N.L.R.B. that did not involve any fine or monetary payment, and will “vigorously contest and fight” the charge.“Despite its utter lack of legal merit, the N.L.R.B.’s General Counsel and Regional Director have decided to waste federal resources and taxpayer dollars by filing an ill‐advised and meritless lawsuit, even as CORE continues its groundbreaking work,” a statement from the lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, said. “The N.L.R.B.’s actions to distract CORE from its crucial mission for a case where no employees were harmed, are shameful.”In May, Rosengart and two colleagues sent a letter to the N.L.R.B. saying the complaint about long hours was false and that charges by Rojas were “utterly frivolous” and should be dismissed. Penn’s email, the lawyers added, was “a motivational rallying cry.”The N.L.R.B. general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, said in a statement on Thursday: “Although CORE engages in important and admirable work, like all employers, it must respect the right of its employees under the National Labor Relations Act to engage in protected concerted activities, such as discussing matters of mutual concern with one another and bringing workplace concerns to the public, federal agencies, or other third parties.”This week, Rojas explained his motive in filing the charge, writing in an email: “It’s neither selfish nor un-American to discuss your wages or working conditions with the public.”.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-k59gj9{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;width:100%;}.css-1e2usoh{font-family:inherit;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;border-top:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 10px 0px;background-color:#fff;}.css-1jz6h6z{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;text-align:left;}.css-1t412wb{box-sizing:border-box;margin:8px 15px 0px 15px;cursor:pointer;}.css-hhzar2{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform ease 0.5s;-webkit-transition:transform ease 0.5s;transition:transform ease 0.5s;}.css-t54hv4{-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-1r2j9qz{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-e1ipqs{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;padding:0px 30px 0px 0px;}.css-e1ipqs a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-e1ipqs a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1o76pdf{visibility:show;height:100%;padding-bottom:20px;}.css-1sw9s96{visibility:hidden;height:0px;}.css-1in8jot{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;font-family:’nyt-franklin’,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;text-align:left;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1in8jot{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1in8jot:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1in8jot{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}What to Know About Covid-19 Booster ShotsThe F.D.A. has authorized booster shots for millions of recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Pfizer and Moderna recipients who are eligible for a booster include people 65 and older, and younger adults at high risk of severe Covid-19 because of medical conditions or where they work. Eligible Pfizer and Moderna recipients can get a booster at least six months after their second dose. All Johnson & Johnson recipients will be eligible for a second shot at least two months after the first.Yes. The F.D.A. has updated its authorizations to allow medical providers to boost people with a different vaccine than the one they initially received, a strategy known as “mix and match.” Whether you received Moderna, Johnson & Johnson or Pfizer-BioNTech, you may receive a booster of any other vaccine. Regulators have not recommended any one vaccine over another as a booster. They have also remained silent on whether it is preferable to stick with the same vaccine when possible.The C.D.C. has said the conditions that qualify a person for a booster shot include: hypertension and heart disease; diabetes or obesity; cancer or blood disorders; weakened immune system; chronic lung, kidney or liver disease; dementia and certain disabilities. Pregnant women and current and former smokers are also eligible.The F.D.A. authorized boosters for workers whose jobs put them at high risk of exposure to potentially infectious people. The C.D.C. says that group includes: emergency medical workers; education workers; food and agriculture workers; manufacturing workers; corrections workers; U.S. Postal Service workers; public transit workers; grocery store workers.Yes. The C.D.C. says the Covid vaccine may be administered without regard to the timing of other vaccines, and many pharmacy sites are allowing people to schedule a flu shot at the same time as a booster dose.By many measures, CORE’s pandemic work has been a success. The group, which Penn co-founded after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, has provided free coronavirus testing in California and beyond. At Dodger stadium, CORE assisted the Los Angeles Fire Department, which led an operation that administered nearly 56,000 vaccinations in its first nine days.The description of the parking-lot scene in The Times article in late January included: “There is Krispy Kreme for breakfast and Subway for lunch (the fruit on the tables is for poking with syringes during training sessions). At the trailers marked ‘Vaccine Draw,’ runners elbow past Mr. Penn, slide their empty coolers inside and await a fresh batch of syringes.”Among 150 comments in response to the story were the two that purported to come from CORE workers. One, attributed to “CORE staff,” referred to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, writing: “We have staff working 18 hour days, 6 days a week,” adding: “This is an OSHA violation.”A second commenter, “staff #2,” wrote: “We do NOT get krispy kreme for breakfast. In fact, we usually DON’T get breakfast, just coffee,” that commenter wrote. “And the lunch is NOT subway. It’s the same old lettuce wraps every day. It’s free lunch for staff/volunteers so I’m not complaining but still … not subway.”The day after the article ran, Penn’s message addressed to “All CORE Staff” went out, citing “a pair of highly visible comments on a major news outlet’s platform.” He began by commending CORE workers and wrote that he is consumed with the fight against Covid: “I awaken pre-dawn and pass out post-midnight every morning and every night, pulling at my hair and pounding pavement.”Penn wrote that CORE has strong complaint procedures and complies with OSHA regulations, but also warned against “obscene critiques” and stated that “valuable, organized response is most vulnerable to destruction from within.”And although he wrote that he had “taken counsel” and would refrain from using certain language, Penn left little doubt about his feelings toward the commenters.“And to whoever authored these,” he wrote, “understand that in every cell of my body is a vitriol for the way your actions reflect so harmfully upon your brothers and sisters in arms.” More

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      Eleonore Von Trapp Campbell, of the ‘Sound of Music’ Family, Dies at 90

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      She was a member of the Trapp Family Singers, which toured internationally, though she herself was not depicted in the musical or the film.Eleonore von Trapp Campbell, the second daughter of Maria von Trapp, whose Austrian family was depicted in the stage musical and the beloved movie “The Sound of Music,” died on Sunday in Northfield, Vt. She was 90.The death was confirmed by Day Funeral Home in Randolph, Vt.Ms. Campbell was a younger half sister to the von Trapp children who were depicted in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music” and its hugely successful 1965 movie adaptation. Both were based loosely on a 1949 autobiographical book by Maria von Trapp, who died in 1987.“The Sound of Music” tells the story of an Austrian governess (played by Julie Andrews in the film) who marries her employer, a widower (Christopher Plummer in the film), and then teaches his seven children music. The movie won the Academy Award for best picture.Ms. Campbell’s father, Capt. Georg von Trapp, and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, had the seven children who were the basis for the singing family. Maria Kutschera married the captain after Agathe von Trapp died.Georg and Maria von Trapp had three children, who were not depicted in the movie; Ms. Campbell was the second. Early on, she sang soprano as a member of the Trapp Family Singers, who performed in Europe before World War II and, after fleeing Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938, continued to do so in the United States and internationally.“The life of singing on tour is one that involves an extraordinary amount of discipline and hard work,” Ms. Campbell’s daughter Elizabeth Peters said, “and my mother lived as a teenager singing lead soprano, night after night after night, and toured much of the year, and it really shaped who she was.”Ms. Campbell stopped touring in 1954 when she married Hugh David Campbell, a coach and teacher. They lived in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where she raised seven daughters, teaching them to cook, bake, garden, sew, knit, darn and make butter and ice cream from scratch. In 1975, the family moved to Waitsfield, Vt.Later in life she traveled to festivals with her instruments and told children about her music career.Eleonore von Trapp, who went by Lorli, was born on May 14, 1931, in Salzburg, Austria, on the border of Germany. After fleeing the country, her family settled in Vermont in the early 1940s and opened a ski lodge in Stowe, where Ms. Campbell’s two surviving siblings, Johannes and Rosmarie von Trapp, live.In 1996 the family became engaged in a bitter dispute over money and control of the lodge, a 93-room Austrian-style resort on 2,200 acres. Johannes and several siblings bought out the others in 1995; Ms. Campbell and the rest said their shares were worth more than the price they had received.“He acts as though I’m the chief instigator, and I’m not,” Ms. Campbell told Vanity Fair in 1998, speaking of her brother. “I’m sad at the situation, which was completely unnecessary.”In addition to her two siblings and Ms. Peters, Ms. Campbell’s survivors include five other daughters, 18 grandchildren and six great-grandsons.One daughter, Hope McAndrew, said that while she and her siblings knew every word from “The Sound of Music” as they were growing up, they also knew the songs the Trapp Family Singers had sung on tour long before the musical.The New York Times contributed reporting. More