Well this disturbingly explains why there were ever live rounds in the gun, including while filming more days than on the one Halyna Hutchins was killed.
Oh so NONE of the crew were IATSE Local 44? Gee, I wonder if the previous crew were. You know, the ones who walked off set due to shit accomodations, lack of COVID safety, and, you guessed it, a lack of gun safety:
Sounds like the Assistant Director was also a piece of trash and had unsafe practices. Sadly, I’m not surprised, all things considered.
The amount of things we learned about this movie in the past 24 hours alone, holy crap. The more and more that comes out about this, the more and more disgusting this situation turns out to be. And Halyna’s death was more than enough to make this a disgusting tragedy. Sounds like she was supportive of them.
Not sure what happened here, but if you work in the industry, a reminder:
Prop guns are guns. Blanks have real gunpowder in them. They can injure or kill — and they have. If you’re ever on a set where prop guns are treated without proper caution and safe handling, walk away.
p.s. They add the muzzle flashes in post now anyway, and they can even cycle the slide and add a shell ejection in VFX. Having live blanks on your set is not worth it. No show or shot is worth risking people’s lives.
When I was in college, we were lucky enough to have a teacher who was REALLY good about prop gun safety. He did a demo where he hung a piece of paper from a c-stand and then fired a prop gun BESIDE it, not even pointed at the paper.
But because this prop gun had a plugged barrel, that means all the blast — ½ the gunpowder required to propel a bullet beyond the speed of sound — comes out the SIDE of the gun.
It blew a hole in the paper and lit it on fire.
Prop guns are guns. Full stop.
Because there are different types of prop guns, they are all dangerous in different ways. Plugged barrel guns expel the blast sideways. Unplugged guns fire a blast out off the barrel, half the force of a real round without the bullet. But that was enough to kill Jon-Erik Hexum.
And because these are, in many cases, real guns firing blank round with ½ or ¼ load, they tend to jam and misfire. Which means you frequently wind up with an actor or prop master frantically trying to unjam the thing so you can keep shooting. Not a recipe for a safe set.
This has been a tragedy of epic proportions that we are all still processing.
Earlier last week I felt compelled to tell Halyna just how awesome I thought she was. I told her how incredible I thought her camera shots were and just how exciting it was to watch her and her team work. Truly. She laughed and said thank you and gave me a hug. I’ll forever be thankful we had that moment. She had a spunk and passion that infected the entire crew from the top down.
She was an inspiration.
My heart and prayers go out to Halyna’s husband, son and the rest of her family. There just aren’t enough words to express what an immense loss this is.
She will be incredibly missed by all of us who knew and admired her.
Danneel and I have donated to the AFI scholarship fund in her name and to the go fund me. If you are able, and feel compelled, here are the links for more information.
