Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever

23quarius

I am ignorant and dumb, why the hell would live rounds be anywhere on a movie set? Snap caps are so cheap and come in colors and materials that are so obviously fake you can see they're fake from the MOON, do they not use them???

Sure, sure, okay, snap caps are just inert little plastic doohickeys that aren't going to create any special effects magic and you're going to need something else to make the special effect of "that thing/person got shot" but

But why the hell would live rounds be anywhere on a movie set???? That feels so criminally preventable to me, what the hell???

Arkandel

My (spoiler-free) thoughts on Eternals.

It was... a lot of movie for a movie. It's possible that modern-day TV, as well as the way films had been structured in the past where characters were set up in one then payoffs and arc resolutions were delivered in another, has skewed my expectations.

But there were 10 brand-new characters in one sitting. That meant some got a lot of screen time and some received less, but also that I simply knew - and cared about some more than others. I definitely wanted to know more about some of the 'secondary' Eternals, especially when they portrayed chemistry between them very convincingly or hinted at personal history that we're not exposed to.

I really felt this could/should have been a Disney series. Give us the chance to know these people. Like... I feel I spent more time with Aunt May in Spider-man, and cared about her relationship with Happy, than I did about some of the ones in Eternals.

But otherwise this was a good movie. I liked it. The scope was excellent. It portrayed characters who had depth and agency, and whose - sometimes very difficult, deeply moral - choices put them in a sympathetic light no matter their actions.

Kumail Nanjiani legitimately lifted the movie in several spots when it needed a laugh. The guy is funny. Angelina Jolie is a movie star and it showed whenever she was given a chance to steal a scene. And I'd definitely be interested in watching a sequel.

Also: The film was apparently banned in certain countries because of a kiss between two men. It's still important that Disney did that without blinking though. The movie didn't either glorify or shy away from it; it felt organic, and fit in the flow of its narrative.

faraday

@23quarius said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

I am ignorant and dumb, why the hell would live rounds be anywhere on a movie set?

That's the million dollar question that will determine whether this is a criminal matter or just negligence.

Unless you're Adam Savage shooting Iron Man armor for a documentary or something, industry safety standards say there should never be live rounds on sets.

Yet this sort of error has happened before--even on military training exercises where regulations are even stricter. Somebody had live rounds from some other day and gets them mixed up, leaves a round in the chamber, has a misfire that doesn't clear (ala the Crow incident), grabs the wrong box off the shelf when preparing the batch of ammo for the day, etc. That's why it's so critical to have MULTIPLE levels of safety checks involved, so that any one human screw-up isn't going to kill somebody. And why it's so staggering that all those levels failed on Rust.

Snap caps are so cheap and come in colors and materials that are so obviously fake you can see they're fake from the MOON, do they not use them???

There are various reasons in a film why you don't want to be able to see that the bullets are fake. Like in this case, because it's a revolver and you can see the rounds in the cylinder. Or if the actor has to load bullets during the scene. You want dummy rounds that can't fire but look real.

Also, many directors feel that blanks give a more immersive feel. They look better (CGI muzzle flashes don't quite look right) and the actors react more realistically (the pop of gunpowder in a blank makes them flinch). And of course it's cheaper.

Sure, we can sit here and say that everybody should just use CGI because it's safer, but where do you draw the line? Do we ban on-set explosions too because somebody might get hurt? What about wire stunts? Car chases? I don't think that's the right answer.

Instead perhaps there should be more stringent licensing or regulations about armorers. Maybe inspections, penalties, etc. to discourage productions from cutting corners on safety.

23quarius

@faraday Thank you for the info.

I still don't understand why you would need dummy rounds for practicing a cross draw. The thing I was reading said he was practicing for a cross draw, not filming for the real deal, so I don't really... understand why the hell the gun needed visually realistic bullets for that purpose, but I get the point overall.

I mean the gun tore THROUGH a person and into somebody else. That sounds like FMJ, which I don't know if it is the case but seems like it because it passed THROUGH somebody and that adds even more what the fuuuuck to me. Like -- what the fuck is live ammo doing there and of all the options what the fuck is FMJ doing there??

mietze

Considering the human cost to both the person killed on set and the person who shoots and kills someone on set, I'd say that yeah, I think its time that perhaps we consumers could live with special effects.

People who kill other people especially accidentally with a firearm are often wrecked even if there's no charges. Or what happened even if it was technically someone else's mistake (someone wandering into an area they shouldn't have, ect). Or even if they're a child who killed or hurt another child.

faraday

@23quarius said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

The thing I was reading said he was practicing for a cross draw, not filming for the real deal, so I don't really... understand why the hell the gun needed visually realistic bullets for that purpose...

I tend to agree. I've read accounts from other sets where they practice with completely fake plastic gun mocks until the moment of filming, which seems safer overall.

@23quarius said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

I mean the gun tore THROUGH a person and into somebody else. That sounds like FMJ

Yes, the authorities have confirmed that it was a real, live bullet in the gun.

@mietze said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

its time that perhaps we consumers could live with special effects.

Personally I'm fine with that. I read that Mare of Easttown used CGI muzzle flashes. I couldn't tell the difference.

I just think we shouldn't lose sight of the just HOW FREAKING MANY safety rules had to be violated for this to happen.

Live ammo had to get onto the set somehow.
Whoever loaded the gun had to not notice they were loading live ammo.
TWO people who were supposed to verify that the gun was safe failed to do so.

And those are just the verifiable facts - there are other accusations not verified. Crew members using the props on their time off, guns being left unattended on carts, chain of custody issues with the weapons once loaded, even more live ammo mixed in with the prop ammo, crew members raising safety concerns and being ignored, etc. etc.

There's a certain threshold of negligence at which all the safety regulations in the world won't help because the people involved aren't following them.

Derp

@faraday

A bit off (or -- I dunno, on?) topic, but -- you sure do seem to know a lot about the ins and outs of film production. Have you worked in the industry? Because that sounds fascinating.

Roz

@faraday said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

I just think we shouldn't lose sight of the just HOW FREAKING MANY safety rules had to be violated for this to happen.

Live ammo had to get onto the set somehow.
Whoever loaded the gun had to not notice they were loading live ammo.
TWO people who were supposed to verify that the gun was safe failed to do so.

And those are just the verifiable facts - there are other accusations not verified. Crew members using the props on their time off, guns being left unattended on carts, chain of custody issues with the weapons once loaded, even more live ammo mixed in with the prop ammo, crew members raising safety concerns and being ignored, etc. etc.

There's a certain threshold of negligence at which all the safety regulations in the world won't help because the people involved aren't following them.

Yeah. This isn't a case of "the safety standards of Hollywood filming in regards to guns are a failure." It was a very extreme case of a specific production failing the very extensive safety standards on -- just, like, every conceivable level. Like -- the number of standard safety checks that were flouted for this to happen are so numerous.

faraday

@Derp I don't work in the film industry specifically, but I deal with safety regulations and risk analysis in my job so a lot of that training translates. I got a bit hyperfocused on this particular incident wondering how the heck it could have happened, and ended up spending entirely more time than is healthy researching the subject. A LOT of armorers have spoken out about the typical on-set safety practices.

Here's a good article from American Cinematographer that pre-dates the Rust tragedy and explains a lot about how firearms are normally handled on set.

Jennkryst

@faraday said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

Also, many directors feel that blanks give a more immersive feel. They look better (CGI muzzle flashes don't quite look right) and the actors react more realistically (the pop of gunpowder in a blank makes them flinch).

Earlier someone said not everyone does the Keanu Quantico level training. But given that like 98% of every shot taken by John Wick is so close you cannot safely use blanks, so the whole film is done with rubber guns and all the effects are done in post... I dunno, maybe everyone should? I personally haven't heard any of the pro-gun folks call the film out for unrealistic muzzle flashes, but they could be out there.

As for 'the actors have to focus on acting, they should not have to stop and check their equipment for saftey'... if they can't do that, then maybe they should not be acting in roles where saftey measures are needed? For example... I do not want to eat a meal prepared by a cook who only focused on making the food taste good, but had no regard for salmonella.

Roz

Also, I mean, I'm pretty sure it's also standard for actors who are interacting with the weaponry to receive some training and instruction, and it's standard for them to be shown the weapon in full in regards to its loaded status whenever it's given to them. Which is not because the actor is intended to be the one with final responsibility for safety on set at all, but because a constant and consistent standard for checking the weapon and showing its status to those using it and others in proximity of it means that the armorer is doing additional checks while in the process of proving the gun's status. For the actors and other crew, I think it's just as much about maintaining their personal sense of safety (so that they can do their jobs effectively).

faraday

@jennkryst said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

As for 'the actors have to focus on acting, they should not have to stop and check their equipment for saftey'... if they can't do that, then maybe they should not be acting in roles where saftey measures are needed? For example... I do not want to eat a meal prepared by a cook who only focused on making the food taste good, but had no regard for salmonella.

Except in the film analogy the actor is more like the server who brings you the food, not the cook. The cook prepares the meal; the armorer prepares the weapons.

We've been focusing on guns, but what about other stunts? If an actor is doing a parachute stunt, should we expect them to learn how to pack their own parachute? If they're doing a wire-work stunt, should we expect them to inspect all the rigging? If they're doing a car-driving stunt, should we expect them to open the hood and check the engine? Of course not. Actors rely on the professionals around them to ensure that a set is safe.

@jennkryst said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

I personally haven't heard any of the pro-gun folks call the film out for unrealistic muzzle flashes, but they could be out there.

I dunno about pro-gun advocates, but in the articles I linked previously there were actors/directors commenting about the look and reactions of CGI muzzle flashes. So there are people who care. (I'm not one of them, I'm just passing along info.)

23quarius

I mean honestly when you're running plates it's still your responsibility as a runner to check the ticket against the plate to make sure that the cook didn't screw up. The cook shoulders most of the accountability but if you are negligent in checking the ticket you still get in (not the same amount of) trouble. A visual check of the contents before the act of handing over the thing that could be Not Correct is not really the same as "learn to pack your own parachute."

That said, I agree that in the context of guns and props liability/responsibility falls on the team whose actual job it is to safely prepare these prop weapons. I DO think it is negligent to not teach actors to do a final chamber check before going to town because people make mistakes. These mistakes shouldn't be happening in the first place if there isn't live fucking ammo on the set in the first place but I've never worked a job where I didn't have a slice of accountability in the chain before it was given to the client or customer.

Let's say I'm a runner. I didn't take the order, I'm not in the kitchen, I'm just bringing food. If the waiter wrote on the ticket "allergic to ____, hold the ____" and the chef neglected to follow instructions, I, as a runner, cannot reasonably just be like WELL IT'S THE CHEF'S JOB TO READ THE TICKET when I hand off the plate that has the thing the customer is allergic to in it. It's both of our jobs to read the ticket. There's more accountability on behalf of the chef, but we both share in the accountability.

Yeah, it's the chef's job to read the ticket right. You still check tickets in case the chef fucked up. Yeah, it's the assembly line's job to read the work order right. You still check the product they hand you against the W/O before handing it to the client. This is "visual check that things line up" and does not require dis-assembly or re-assembly and there's no ... Occurence of a slippery slope of scope creep for responsibilities on behalf of the runner or CSR.

So while where the "line" is is not clear to me here, it does fall somewhere along the lines of "If what you are doing poses a threat to people other than yourself". If you're the one who stands to get hurt, no, you should not be expected to know how to guarantee your own safety. If you're part of the chain of potentially posing a danger to someone else who is not yourself, you should be expected some minimal training.

Pointing a gun at a thing (ricochet risk) or person counts as "potentially posing a danger to someone else who is not yourself." I don't think it's unreasonable to posit that actors should be trained to do a chamber check because I don't think it's unreasonable to posit runners must check tickets in the window before handing it to the customer. For all I know, they typically are trained to do a chamber check and this just wasn't happening on Rust.

Jennkryst

@faraday Checking all of the rigging or packing the parachute themselves is akin to disassembling the gun and/or making their own ammo, so no. I DO expect an actor doing a parachute stunt to go 'hey... shouldn't all of these buckles be done?' Or 'hey, the automatic activation device? The thing that deploys my emergency parachute in case of an... emergency? Should it be flashing low battery?' Or 'why are you handing me a parachute that has a knife sticking out of it?'

Another example would be an underwater scene. Someone wearing SCUBA gear should definitely check their O2 levels before going through whatever acting tricks they need to do to get in character for the scene.

faraday

None of the analogies we're making are going to fit the situation perfectly so there's only so far we can get debating them.

The fact remains that the safety experts within the film industry have well-established practices for handling firearms. Don't take my word for it. There are plenty of interviews you can go and read/watch to hear why the professional armorers and safety experts believe that it's safer to not have actors performing the weapons checks themselves. Folks who want to disagree with them are certainly entitled to do so.

I have no personal stake in the matter. But one more imperfect analogy for the road: if you've got a perfectly good pre-flight checklist, well-proven over thousands of flights, and some nitwit decides to ignore it and just take off without checking anything and crashes? The problem probably isn't with the pre-flight checklist. It's with the nitwit who didn't follow it.

Jennkryst

@faraday I mean... 'flight crew performs saftey checks personally before takeoff' really sounds like more of an endorsement for my argument of 'actor should do saftey checks personally before acting with gun'.

I am in no way saying that it should be all on the actor. I'm saying when the armorer hands the gun over, the actor should maybe need to give the gun their own saftey check. Much like a pilot checks their fuel levels after the ground crew tells them the plane has been fueled.

Because THEN we can blame Alec Baldwin TWICE for this... once for not insisting on saftey on the production side of things, and then again for fucking around after saftey was not followed.

insomniac7809

@23quarius said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

So while where the "line" is is not clear to me here, it does fall somewhere along the lines of "If what you are doing poses a threat to people other than yourself". If you're the one who stands to get hurt, no, you should not be expected to know how to guarantee your own safety. If you're part of the chain of potentially posing a danger to someone else who is not yourself, you should be expected some minimal training.

The line is between having another pair of eyes on someone else's work and having the work of a professional undone, checked, and redone by an unqualified member of another profession.

You brought up checking the chamber, but what would that have told anyone? That there was a round in the chamber, obviously, but there was supposed to be. The issue is whether the rounds were blanks, dummies, or live rounds, and an actor isn't going to be able to tell the difference there without unloading the weapon, looking at the bullets individually, and putting them back in.

So the idea of having actors check the rounds would mean taking the weapon that was prepared in advance by a professional, and then having it unloaded and reloaded in the middle of an active set by someone in the middle of doing their actual, completely different, job.

This would void the production insurance and get any set that tried it shut down. And it would be right to do so.

23quarius

@insomniac7809 You have a point! And I get now that it's, "the current safety standards aren't the issue the fact that they weren't being followed is the issue."

faraday

@jennkryst said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

Much like a pilot checks their fuel levels after the ground crew tells them the plane has been fueled.

The pilot, yes, but not the flight attendant. Everyone has their own job in the pre-flight check.

Here are some more tales from actors and armorers of how things are done on sets that actually bother to follow the safety procedures:

“I don’t recall ever being handed a weapon that was not cleared in front of me — meaning chamber open, barrel shown to me, light flashed inside the barrel to make sure that it’s cleared,” (actor Jeffrey) Wright said. “Clearly, that was a mismanaged set.” (src)

“We open the cylinder and rotate through all six cylinders so you can clearly see that they are empty and that there is no brass inside there,” (pro armorer) Van Sickle said. "The next step in the process is going to the first assistant director, who is the primary safety officer on the set, and allowing them to visually inspect the weapon. At that point, they will call it out to the crew, they will call it out on the radio, that there’s a cold gun on set at that time,” Van Sickle said. “Any member of the crew or the cast that would like to look at that gun and confirm for themselves that it’s empty could do so.” (src - note that they mean look at the gun while the armorer held it for them, not mess around with it on their own)

"Every day I would show him (the actor) the empty firearm, load six dummy cartridges into the chambers so it looked fully loaded to camera, and demonstrate that it was completely safe by pointing it in a safe direction and pulling the trigger eight times." (src)

@jennkryst said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

Because THEN we can blame Alec Baldwin TWICE for this... once for not insisting on saftey on the production side of things, and then again for fucking around after saftey was not followed.

I have no idea what Baldwin's responsibilities were as producer, whether it was a vanity title or what. It's also unclear whether the violations of safety procedures may have been obvious to him, and what obligation he may have had to speak up. Time will tell what liability he bears.

Arkandel

George Clooney had some pointed remarks about gun safety on sets.