Rust (Movie)

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      Alec Baldwin Says He Is Not Responsible for Fatal Shooting on ‘Rust’

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      In an emotional interview with ABC News, the actor asserted, ‘Someone put a live bullet in a gun.’The actor Alec Baldwin fiercely insisted he was not to blame in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western being filmed in New Mexico, claiming that another person had accidentally placed a live round in the gun that went off in his grasp as he was rehearsing a scene.“Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,” Mr. Baldwin said in a television interview that was broadcast on Thursday night. “Someone is ​responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.”Mr. Baldwin made the comments in an emotional ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos, the first time that Mr. Baldwin has publicly given an account of what happened in October. The actor’s description of the episode may cast greater scrutiny on crew members and suppliers and the question of who was responsible for safeguarding firearms in the low-budget production.In the interview, excerpts from which had been released on Wednesday, Mr. Baldwin also said that he did not pull the trigger of the gun he was practicing with on the set of “Rust” when it fired a live round.“I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them — never,” Mr. Baldwin said.The fatal shooting took place on Oct. 21 near Santa Fe, N.M., on a movie set designed to be a church. Mr. Baldwin was practicing drawing an old-fashioned revolver that he had been told contained no live rounds when it suddenly fired, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding its director, Joel Souza, 48.The cinematographer who was killed, Halyna Hutchins, was mourned in October at a candlelight vigil in Burbank, Calif. Chris Pizzello/Associated PressMr. Baldwin said that he was stunned by what happened and that at least 45 minutes passed after the gun went off before he realized that it could have contained a live round..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-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.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;}“I stood over her for 60 seconds as she just laid there kind of in shock,” Mr. Baldwin said.The actor added that he did not cock the hammer of the gun, but pulled it back as far as he could and let it go in an action that might have set it off. “I let go of the hammer — bang, the gun goes off.”Investigators are seeking to determine how a live round got into the gun that Mr. Baldwin was practicing with, why the crew members who inspected it on set failed to notice, and why the gun fired.Mr. Baldwin’s contention that he had not pulled the trigger was supported by a lawyer for the film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, who had been standing near Mr. Baldwin inside the church set when the gun fired.The lawyer, Lisa Torraco, told the ABC News show “Good Morning America” on Thursday that Mr. Halls had told her that “the entire time Baldwin had his finger outside the trigger guard, parallel to the barrel.” She said Mr. Halls had told her that “since Day 1, he thought it was a misfire.”In the ABC interview, Mr. Baldwin also said he recalled that shortly before the shooting, Mr. Halls had told him, “This is a cold gun,” an industry term implying that firearm does not have live rounds and is safe to use.“When he’s saying, ‘This is a cold gun,’ what he’s saying to everybody on the set is, ‘You can relax,’” Mr. Baldwin said.Mr. Baldwin, who has come under intense criticism after the shooting, has already been questioned by detectives and is cooperating with the investigation. No one has been charged in connection with the shooting, and authorities have not placed blame on any individual.“I got countless people online saying, ‘You idiot, you never point a gun at someone,’” Mr. Baldwin said. “Well, unless you’re told it’s empty and it’s the director of photography who’s instructing you on the angle for a shot we’re going to do.”Some gun experts said it was possible that the gun, a single-action revolver, could have discharged without Mr. Baldwin’s pulling the trigger if he had pulled back the revolver’s hammer and released it before it was fully cocked. But they questioned whether that would have created enough force to fire the live round.Clay Van Sickle, a movie industry armorer who did not work on “Rust,” said guns generally go off only when someone pulls the trigger. “Unless that gun was in a horrible state of disrepair,” he said, “there is no other way that gun could have gone off.”As detectives work to trace the source of the live round, one focus has been on Seth Kenney, who supplied blanks and dummy rounds for the production.According to court documents filed on Tuesday, detectives are trying to determine whether Mr. Kenney sent live ammunition as well as blanks and dummies, and they have searched his business in Albuquerque, PDQ Arm & Prop.Mr. Kenney said in an interview that he was confident he was not the source of any live round.“It is not a possibility that they came from PDQ or from myself personally,” he told “Good Morning America.”Thell Reed, a weapons expert who has worked and consulted on a number of films, has told detectives that he supplied live rounds to Mr. Kenney for training on another film, according to court documents. Mr. Reed, who is the father of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the “Rust” armorer, suggested they might match live rounds found on “Rust.”The film’s prop master, Sarah Zachry, has told investigators, according to the court documents, that the ammunition on the set had come from “various sources” — from Mr. Kenney, but also from Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who was said to have brought some from a previous production, and from a person identified only as “Billy Ray.”Since the fatal shooting, two crew members who were in the room when the gun went off have filed separate lawsuits, naming Mr. Baldwin, the film’s producers and other crew members including Mr. Halls and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed as defendants.Both lawsuits say Mr. Baldwin should have checked the gun himself to see whether it was safe to handle. In the interview, Mr. Baldwin said that on the day of the shooting, one of the plaintiffs touched his shoulder and said he bore no responsibility for what happened.Mr. Baldwin declined to say which plaintiff it was. Serge Svetnoy, one of the crew members who filed suit, told ABC that he did say that to Mr. Baldwin but later changed his mind.The actor insisted that the tragedy occurred after he was handed the gun and was told it was safe, and that Ms. Hutchins herself had told him how to position it. Both he and Ms. Hutchins assumed the gun was safe to handle, he said.“I am holding the gun where she told me to hold it,” Mr. Baldwin said. “I can’t imagine I’d ever do a movie that had a gun in it again.”Matt Stevens More

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      Alec Baldwin Says He ‘Didn’t Pull the Trigger’ in ‘Rust’ Killing

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      The actor said in a brief excerpt from an upcoming interview with ABC News that he had not pulled the trigger when the gun he was holding went off, killing the cinematographer.The actor Alec Baldwin said in an upcoming television interview that he did not pull the trigger of the gun he was practicing with on the set of the film “Rust,” which fired a live round as he held it, killing the film’s cinematographer and wounding its director.“I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them — never,” Mr. Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos in an ABC News interview that is scheduled to be broadcast Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern. The network posted brief excerpts from the interview Wednesday as a preview.The exchange came after Mr. Stephanopoulos noted that it had not been part of the script for the trigger to be pulled in that scene. Mr. Baldwin jumped in: “Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger.”He did not elaborate on why the gun might have gone off in the excerpt ABC provided.Mr. Baldwin’s account adds another layer of mystery onto the fatal shooting, which took place on Oct. 21 on a set of a church near Santa Fe, N.M. Mr. Baldwin was practicing drawing an old-fashioned revolver that he had been told contained no live rounds when it suddenly fired, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding its director, Joel Souza, 48.It still remains unclear how a lethal bullet got into the gun that he was practicing with, and why the crew members who handled it before passing it to Mr. Baldwin failed to detect that it contained a live round when it was supposed to have only dummies.In the clip of the interview, Mr. Baldwin said he does not know why a real bullet — which was not even supposed to be on the property — was loaded into the gun. Investigators are trying to determine whether the supplier of blanks and dummy rounds for the movie, Seth Kenney, sent live ammunition as well, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.There have been some suggestions that there may have been a problem with the gun. The armorer for “Rust,” Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, told a detective that she had loaded it with five dummy rounds before lunch, but that “there was one round that wouldn’t go in,” so she cleaned it out after lunch and added a sixth round, according to an affidavit filed Tuesday.In the ABC interview, Mr. Baldwin grew visibly emotional as he spoke about Ms. Hutchins, saying “she was someone who was loved by everyone who worked” with her.“I think back and I think of what could I have done?” Mr. Baldwin said.This is the first time that Mr. Baldwin has given his full account of what happened to the public. Last month, two crew members who were in the room when the gun went off filed separate lawsuits, naming Mr. Baldwin, the film’s producers and other crew members as defendants. Both lawsuits alleged that Mr. Baldwin should have checked the gun himself to see if it was safe to handle. More

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      How Did Live Ammunition Get on the 'Rust' Film Set?

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      Investigators are trying to determine whether a supplier who was supposed to provide the movie with blanks and dummies may have sent live rounds.ALBUQUERQUE — Detectives investigating the deadly shooting on the set of the film “Rust” are trying to determine whether Seth Kenney, who was supposed to provide the production with blanks and dummy rounds, may have sent live ammunition as well, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.The focus on Mr. Kenney came to light in a warrant issued to search his business in Albuquerque, called PDQ Arm & Prop. Investigators sought the search warrant after crew members told them that ammunition for “Rust” came from various sources, including Mr. Kenney, who has also done business out of Arizona and California.The fatal shooting took place on Oct. 21, when the actor Alec Baldwin was practicing drawing a gun he had been told contained no live rounds, when it went off, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding its director, Joel Souza, 48.Immediately after the shooting the film’s prop master, Sarah Zachry, inspected the box of ammunition on a props cart on the set and discovered that some cartridges “did not rattle,” according to an affidavit for the search warrant filed Tuesday in Bernalillo County.Dummy rounds are often distinguished from live rounds by replacing the powder inside with a ball bearing, giving the round a distinctive rattle when shaken.The fact that the cartridges did not rattle suggested there were other live rounds on set, Ms. Zachry told a detective, according to the court document.“Sarah said this led her to believe some of the other rounds in that box were live ammo,” according to the affidavit, which was signed by Detective Alexandria Hancock of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office.The affidavit details efforts by investigators to trace the source of all the ammunition used in the production.Ms. Zachry said the ammunition on the set had come from “various sources,” according to the affidavit, including from Mr. Kenney; Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, who was said to have brought some from a previous production; and from someone identified only as “Billy Ray.”Ms. Gutierrez-Reed told investigators that the guns and ammunition used on the “Rust” set had been supplied by Mr. Kenney, according to the affidavit.On Oct. 27, as the police executed a search warrant on the set, Mr. Kenney told investigators that he had provided the production with dummy rounds and blanks that came from a company called Starline Brass, the affidavit said. Two days later, it said, Mr. Kenney called back to say “he may know where the live rounds came from.”In that call, Mr. Kenney told the police that a couple of years ago he had received “reloaded ammunition” from a friend, the affidavit said. “Reloaded ammunition” can refer to ammunition that has been reconstituted from the brass casing of a fired round by adding a new bullet, primer and powder, according to Clay Van Sickle, a movie industry armorer.Mr. Kenney declined to comment in response to a phone call.Mr. Kenney told investigators that in this case, he believed the ammunition had been reloaded because the cartridge of a live round had the Starline Brass logo on it, and Starline Brass “only sells components of ammunition, and not live ammunition, and therefore it had to be a reloaded round.”Starline, which is based in Sedalia, Mo., did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Another lead on where the live round might have originated came from Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s father, Thell Reed, a weapons expert who has worked and consulted on a number of films.The detective said that she received a statement from Mr. Reed in mid-November saying that he had worked with Mr. Kenney on another set in August or September where the actors were trained “for live fire with firearms, conducted on a firearms range,” and that Mr. Kenney had asked him to bring extra live ammunition in case they ran out.“Thell stated he did bring an ‘ammo can’ with live ammunition from a friend,” the affidavit said, “and this ammunition was not factory made rounds.” Mr. Reed said that the can had contained “approximately 200-300 rounds,” the document said.Mr. Reed told the police that when the production was over, Mr. Kenney had taken the remainder of the ammunition that had been in the can back to New Mexico.“Thell stated this ammunition may match the ammunition found on the set of ‘Rust,’” the affidavit said.Suspected live ammunition was among the items taken during a search of the set the day after the shooting, and identified during processing by a crime scene technician, Marissa Poppell, according to the affidavit. More

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      'Rust' Script Supervisor Sues Alec Baldwin and Others

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      A lawsuit filed by the supervisor, Mamie Mitchell, said an injury or death on the set was “a likely result” of the production’s failure to follow safety protocols.A script supervisor for the movie “Rust” recalled Wednesday how she had been watching the actor Alec Baldwin practicing a move with a gun on the set in New Mexico last month, holding her script and checking photos on her iPhone to make sure that he was wearing the right shirt and vest, when she heard a loud blast.“Then, an explosion,’’ the supervisor, Mamie Mitchell, recalled at a news conference in Los Angeles. “A deafening, loud gunshot. I was stunned. I heard someone moaning and I turned around and my director was falling backward and holding his upper body.”Then, she said, she turned and saw the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, sink down to the ground. Law enforcement officials have said that Ms. Hutchins, 42, was shot and killed, and the film’s director, Joel Souza, 48, was wounded, when the gun that Mr. Baldwin had been practicing with, which he had been told did not contain any live ammunition, discharged, firing a real bullet that struck them both.Ms. Mitchell, who said that she ran out of the wooden church set and used the phone in her hand to call 911, announced Wednesday that she had filed a lawsuit against the producers on the film, including Mr. Baldwin, and several members of its crew.“Alec Baldwin intentionally, without just cause or excuse, cocked and fired the loaded gun even though the upcoming scene to be filmed did not call for the cocking and firing of a firearm,” the lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, said.The script supervisor, Mamie Mitchell, at the news conference Wednesday announcing the lawsuit. Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images“The fact that live ammunition was allowed on a movie set, that guns and ammunition were left unattended, that the gun in question was handed to Mr. Baldwin by the assistant director who had no business doing so, the fact that safety bulletins were not promulgated or ignored, coupled with the fact that the scene in question did not call for a gun to be fired at all, makes this a case where injury or death was much more than just a possibility — it was a likely result,” the lawsuit said..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-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;}A lawyer for Mr. Baldwin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The lawsuit was announced at a news conference with Ms. Mitchell’s lawyer, Gloria Allred.It claims assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and deliberate infliction of harm, and requested unspecified damages. It said Ms. Mitchell, who was standing less than four feet from Mr. Baldwin when the revolver discharged, “sustained serious physical trauma and shock and injury to her nervous system and person” and “will in the future be prevented from attending to her usual occupation as a script supervisor.”The shooting took place Oct. 21 on the set of the film on Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe County, N.M., as Mr. Baldwin prepared to film a close-up of him drawing a .45 revolver from a shoulder holster. According to Ms. Mitchell’s lawsuit, Mr. Baldwin failed to check the gun himself to see if it was loaded before handling it.They were preparing for three tight camera shots, according to the lawsuit: one of Mr. Baldwin’s eyes, one of a blood stain on his shoulder, and one of his “torso as he reached his hand down to his holster and removed the gun.”According to court papers filed by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department, the movie’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, had called out “cold gun” before handing the revolver to Mr. Baldwin, using a term indicating that the gun did not contain live ammunition. A lawyer for the movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, said that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed had loaded the revolver with what she believed to have been dummy rounds, which do not contain gunpowder and cannot be fired.The lawsuit charges that Mr. Baldwin knew that it was typical protocol for an armorer or prop master to hand a gun to the actor after demonstrating that it is empty — not for the first assistant director to do so — and that Mr. Baldwin failed to follow those rules. It also charges that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed allowed guns and ammunition to be left unattended on the set that day. The lawsuit accuses the production of hiring Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, 24, who had just started out her career as a lead armorer in the film industry, as part of a series of “cost-cutting measures.”Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyer, Jason Bowles, has said that his client noticed that day the gun was left unattended for several minutes after she had asked other crew members to watch the firearms and ammunition. Mr. Bowles has defended Ms. Gutierrez’s qualifications for the job, saying that she was dedicated to ensuring safety on set. Previously lawyers for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed said that she had been hired to two positions on the film, “which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer.”Mr. Halls, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and Sarah Zachry, the movie’s prop master, are all named as defendants in Ms. Mitchell’s lawsuit. Ms. Zachry and a lawyer for Mr. Halls did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Bowles said he had not yet reviewed the lawsuit.Last week, Serge Svetnoy, the film’s gaffer, or chief lighting technician, filed a lawsuit accusing the movie’s producers, Mr. Baldwin and several other crew members of failing to follow appropriate firearm safety protocols that would have prevented the fatal shooting. Mr. Svetnoy said he was standing just six or seven feet away from Mr. Baldwin and said that he was injured by discharge materials from the gun and traumatized by seeing his friend die, trauma that had left him unable to work. More

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      Hollywood Crew Union Narrowly Ratifies Its Contracts With Studios

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      Camera operators, prop makers, lighting technicians and other members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees ratified new contracts with Hollywood studios on Monday. But the margin was perilously narrow, with many members viewing the pact as toothless in terms of preventing long working hours — the kind of conditions recently endured on the set of “Rust,” the Alec Baldwin movie where the cinematographer was killed and the director wounded.IATSE, as the union is known, uses an Electoral College-type system for contract ratification, in which local shops are assigned different numbers of delegates based on their size and all delegate votes are cast based on the majority vote at each local. IATSE said the combined delegate vote for the two contracts was 56 percent in favor, with 641 total votes from 36 locals.The popular vote, however, revealed deep division: 50.3 percent of members voted yes on both contracts. About 72 percent of 63,209 eligible members cast ballots, according to the union.Only 49.6 percent of members in Los Angeles voted yes. In other areas of the country — except the Northeast, which largely operates under a different set of unexpired contracts — the popular vote stood at 52 percent.“The vigorous debate, high turnout and close election indicates we have an unprecedented movement-building opportunity to educate members on our collective bargaining process and drive more participation in our union,” Matthew Loeb, IATSE’s president, said in a statement.In posts on Twitter, some outraged members demanded recounts and flung insults at Mr. Loeb and other IATSE officials.Under the new, three-year contracts, the studios for the first time agreed to give crews a minimum of 54 hours of rest on weekends when working five-day weeks, on par with actors. The contract includes pay increases of up to 60 percent for some workers who were previously paid near minimum wage in California. Studios also agreed to fund a roughly $400 million deficit in the union’s pension and health plan without imposing premiums or increasing the cost of health coverage.The studios include stalwarts like Disney, NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia and insurgents like Amazon, Apple and Netflix.Last week, a smattering of IATSE members held a news conference in Hollywood to criticize the proposed contract — in particular a provision allowing crews to continue to work 14-hour days. The contracts provide for 10-hour “turnarounds,” or the time between leaving a set at the end of a work period and being required to return.The shooting death last month of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer for “Rust,” and the wounding of Joel Souza, the film’s director, thrust concerns about crew rest into the spotlight. Hours before Mr. Baldwin fired a gun being used as a prop — he had been told the firearm was “cold,” meaning that it contained no live ammunition, according to an affidavit — a half dozen camera technicians walked off the set to protest working conditions. Their complaints included marathon work days, long commutes to the set (cutting into turnaround rest time) and delayed paychecks.IATSE and the studios reached a tentative agreement for a new pact on Oct. 16, averting a threatened strike, which would have come at a particularly bad time for Hollywood. Studios have been scrambling to make up for lost production time during the coronavirus pandemic. Another shutdown would have left content cupboards dangerously bare — particularly at streaming services, which have become crucial to the standing of some of the companies on Wall Street. More

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      The ‘Rust’ Shooting Spurs a Debate Over Using Guns on Film Sets

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      Alec Baldwin, who fatally shot a cinematographer with a gun he had been told was safe, has called for productions to hire police officers to monitor gun safety.Ever since the actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot the cinematographer of the film “Rust” last month with a gun he had been told, incorrectly, contained no live ammunition, the debate on the use of firearms on sets has been growing.Dwayne Johnson — the action star whose production company has made gun-filled films like the “Fast & Furious” spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw” — told Variety last week that the company would no longer use real guns on set. Dozens of cinematographers have signed a commitment not to work on projects using functional firearms. And a state lawmaker in California is drafting legislation that would ban operational firearms from sets.Mr. Baldwin, who was a producer of “Rust” as well as its star, weighed in this week with his own suggestion: that productions should hire police officers to monitor safety. Mr. Baldwin posted Monday on his Twitter and Instagram accounts: “Every film/TV set that uses guns, fake or otherwise, should have a police officer on set, hired by the production, to specifically monitor weapons safety.”But many in the film industry see the tragedy more as a problem of failing to adhere to existing firearms safety protocols than of requiring new, stricter protocols, and it is unclear if any of the proposed changes will have the momentum to come to fruition.The “Rust” shooting happened on Oct. 21, after an old-fashioned revolver was placed in Mr. Baldwin’s hands and proclaimed “cold,” meaning that it should not have contained any live ammunition. But it did: As Mr. Baldwin practiced drawing the gun for a scene, it fired a real bullet, law-enforcement officials said, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounding its director, Joel Souza. There should not have been any live ammunition on the set at all, according to court papers, and law-enforcement officials are investigating how the gun came to be loaded with a lethal bullet.The backlash to Mr. Baldwin’s proposal to have police officers monitor on-set gun safety included comments from industry veterans like David Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” who tweeted that “the average cop is no more a totem of gun safety than a trained film armorer.”Then there are those calling to ban the use of functional guns — which are supposed to be loaded only with dummies or blanks — on sets. They say that technology has advanced to the point where special effects can be used to create the illusion of convincing gunfire. After the shooting in New Mexico, Craig Zobel, the director of the HBO whodunit “Mare of Easttown,” noted that all of the gunshots on that show were digital. But some studio executives say that there are times when visual effects are not sufficient, and that some actors struggle to make fake weapons that cannot even fire blanks appear convincing.The calls for systematic change are complicated by the fact that it is still unclear exactly why the tragedy occurred.Some crew members voiced concerns about the experience level of the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, whose lawyers have defended her training and commitment to safety and faulted the production. And the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, told a detective investigating the case that he should have checked the gun more thoroughly before Mr. Baldwin handled it, according to an affidavit. (His lawyer later said in a television interview that checking the gun was not his job.) But the central question, of how a live round got into the revolver in the first place, remains a mystery.Despite the remaining questions, the fatal shooting has spurred calls for change inside and outside of the film and television industry..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-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;}The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, said days after the shooting that “if the industry doesn’t come forward with very specific accountable safeguards, they should expect that we will.”Stephen Lighthill, the president of the American Society of Cinematographers and one of the prominent signatories of the statement — first reported by Variety — pledging to avoid operational firearms on sets, said that there had not been a wide-scale conversation around what the industry standard should be before the “Rust” shooting. Cinematographers including Bill Pope of “The Matrix” and Mandy Walker of “Mulan” have signed on to the pledge. The statement was posted with a hashtag:#BanBlanks, calling for an end to the use of blank cartridges, which contain gunpowder and paper wadding or wax.Another signatory, Reed Morano, a cinematographer who directed episodes of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” wrote in an Instagram post that she had once been hit by a blank at close range while operating a camera and wished she had thought more about large-scale change then.“How many more deaths do we need to mourn to prove that this must change?” Ms. Morano wrote.In California, a Democratic state senator who represents Silicon Valley, Dave Cortese, has been drafting legislation that would ban operational firearms from sets, which he said would effectively also ban blanks. Mr. Cortese said in an interview that the current system for safety protocols around handling guns on sets — guidelines outlined by unions and production companies — were not sufficient to ensure enforcement and accountability.“Right now what’s missing is the consequences,” he said. “Life and death is not an OK consequence of an error or omission.”Another legislative approach that is being considered, Mr. Cortese said, is a restriction on certain kinds of blanks. But his preference is for an outright ban on operational firearms and blanks, which he thinks can be replaced with special effects.“Some people say, ‘Why get rid of them?’” Mr. Cortese said. “Why have them? What’s the point in this day and age?”He said he has scheduled a meeting this week with members of the union local that represents armorers, and a bill would likely be considered in February.Those in the film industry who warn against making such rapid and wholesale changes to the industry say safety protocols are usually clear, and usually closely followed.Michael Sabo, who was propmaster on “The Wire” and oversaw the use of operational guns on the set, said he thinks nonfunctional guns would appear fake to viewers. Instead of a ban, he favors tighter restrictions on who can handle them.“You can have some of the best actors in the world, but if they pull a trigger and nothing happens, it’s not real,” he said. “That’s my biggest problem when they say we should ban guns on sets.”Brooks Barnes contributed reporting. More

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      Lawyers for ‘Rust’ Armorer Say Gun Was Briefly Unattended Before Shooting

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      The weapon handed to Alec Baldwin was left on a tray for several minutes, said the lawyers. Earlier, they had said it had been unattended for hours.The lawyers for the armorer on the film “Rust” — who has been under scrutiny since Alec Baldwin fatally shot the movie’s cinematographer with a gun that was not supposed to contain live ammunition — said in interviews on Wednesday that the gun had been left unattended for hours, but later corrected themselves to say it had only been several minutes. The gun left on a prop cart had been loaded with six dummy rounds by the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who took the prop ammunition from a box labeled “dummies,” said one of her lawyers, Jason Bowles. Dummy rounds contain no gunpowder and are used to resemble bullets on camera.Earlier in the day, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers, Mr. Bowles and Robert Gorence, said in a television appearance and in an interview with The New York Times that the guns had been left unattended for about two hours on that day, including during the crew’s lunch break. Mr. Bowles later said they had been mistaken, and after consulting Ms. Gutierrez-Reed again, he said they had been locked up in a safe during lunch and had only been left unattended for a total of five to 10 minutes. Mr. Bowles said Ms. Gutierrez-Reed asked her colleagues to watch the cart when she wasn’t there but remembered seeing it left unattended at various points that day.At about 11 a.m. on Oct. 21, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, 24, loaded three firearms that were going to be used later that afternoon during a filming session, including the .45 Long Colt, Mr. Gorence, said. “Was there a duty to safeguard them 24/7?” Mr. Gorence said. “The answer is no, because there were no live rounds.”Even though the gun was declared “cold,” meaning it was not supposed to contain any live ammunition, a live round was in the revolver that killed the movie’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounded the director, Joel Souza. The key question in the investigation is how it got there.According to an affidavit released last week by the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office, the firearms were secured inside a safe on a “prop truck” at lunchtime and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed told a detective that the head of the film’s prop department, Sarah Zachry, opened the safe after lunch and handed the guns to her..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-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;}Mr. Bowles said that after lunch, the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, asked for the firearm; Ms. Gutierrez-Reed then spun the gun’s cylinder and showed him all six rounds inside — which she believed to all be dummies. Mr. Halls then entered the set, a wooden church, while Ms. Gutierrez-Reed remained outside because there were not supposed to be any gun discharges happening inside that she needed to be present for, the lawyer said.“Hannah thinks the gun is secured,” Mr. Bowles said. “So she goes and does her prop duties.”In addition to working as the film’s armorer, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was a props assistant, which made it difficult for her to focus fully on her job as armorer, her lawyers have said. She was a nonunion worker and was on the set for about 17 days before the shooting occurred.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s first job as head armorer was on a western called “The Old Way” starring Nicolas Cage, which was filmed this year, fueling concerns from colleagues on both that film and “Rust” who worried she was too inexperienced for the job.Her lawyers disputed those claims, saying Ms. Gutierrez-Reed trained with her father — the weapons expert Thell Reed — from a young age, and that she would like to continue being an armorer.“She’s a female, 24 years old in a male dominated profession,” Mr. Gorence said. “She wants to work at what she’s been trained to do.” More

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      Lawyer for ‘Rust’ Assistant Director Says Checking Gun Was Not His Job

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      The assistant director, Dave Halls, had previously told a detective that he should have more thoroughly checked the gun before Alec Baldwin handled it, according to an affidavit.A lawyer for the assistant director on the film “Rust” — who law-enforcement officials said had handed a gun to the actor Alec Baldwin before it discharged a live round that killed the cinematographer — said in an interview on Fox News Monday that it was “not his responsibility” to check the weapon.The assistant director, Dave Halls, had told a detective shortly after the fatal shooting that when the movie’s armorer had shown him the firearm to inspect its rounds, he “should have checked all of them, but didn’t,” according to an affidavit released by the sheriff’s office in Santa Fe County, N.M. According to another affidavit, Mr. Halls had called out “cold gun,” indicating that the gun did not contain any live rounds, and handed it to Mr. Baldwin.But Mr. Halls’s lawyer, Lisa Torraco, contended in an interview with Martha MacCallum on Fox News that the main responsibility for checking the gun was with the film’s armorer, claiming that it was “not the assistant director’s job.”“What I can tell you is that expecting an assistant director to check a firearm is like telling the assistant director to check the camera angle or telling the assistant director to check sound or lighting,” she said in the interview. “That’s not the assistant director’s job. If he chooses to check the firearm because he wants to make sure that everyone’s safe, he can do that, but that’s not his responsibility.”The film’s director, Joel Souza, who was wounded in the shooting, later told a detective that the firearms were checked by the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, and “then the firearm is checked by the assistant director Dave Halls, who then gives it to the actor using the firearm,” according to another affidavit released as part of a search warrant application.Larry Zanoff, a veteran armorer whose past films include “Django Unchained” and “Fantastic Four,” said it was common practice on a film set for the first assistant director to be one of the people responsible for inspecting guns on set, including checking to make sure a gun is empty before the armorer hands it to an actor.The shooting on the set of “Rust” killed Halyna Hutchins, an up-and-coming cinematographer.Since the shooting, public scrutiny has been largely focused on Mr. Halls and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, because investigators reported that they handled the gun shortly before the incident. In an affidavit released by the sheriff’s department, a detective, Joel Cano, wrote that he learned that shortly before the shooting, Mr. Halls had picked the gun up from a gray cart that had been set up by Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and had taken it onto the set, where he handed it to Mr. Baldwin and yelled “cold gun.”.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-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;}Ms. Torraco disputed that chain of events in the Fox interview, saying, “This idea that my client grabbed the gun off of a prop cart and handed it to Mr. Baldwin absolutely did not happen.” Ms. Torraco said she has heard differing accounts from crew members on set.She did not directly give her client’s account. “My client went through something that was such a freak accident that he’s in shock,” Ms. Torraco said. “He’s having a hard time sorting out what happened.”Mr. Halls has not responded to several requests for comment; Ms. Torraco’s office declined to comment last week and has not responded to several requests for comment this week.Mr. Halls has been the subject of complaints on previous film 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. Ms. Torraco did not respond to a question in the Fox interview about the previous complaints.No criminal charges have been announced in the case, but the district attorney overseeing it, Mary Carmack-Altwies, has said that her office has not ruled them out. As details have emerged around a series of errors on set that preceded the fatal shooting, how a live round got into the revolver that Mr. Baldwin handled remains unclear. More