I feel like anyone handling guns on an acting job should be given some sort of gun safety education though. Great have a props person but the people handling them should have some sort of knowledge around it.
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Dominic monaghan of LOTR/Lost fame posted a very good insta story of how guns are handled on set. Worth a watch.
Has it actually been confirmed that he shot two people? Just horrific, of course my thoughts went straight away to her family & friends but I also can’t stop thinking about Alec. Like him or not, he will have to live with this for the rest of his life and people sharing those pictures of him are extremely heartless and insensitive.
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According to news reports one person was shot and has died the other was shot and is in intensive care.
Imagine going to work and that happening. Thinking it's another day at work, then next thing you're dead. Madness.
Ah right ok, I just read that a second person was injured but wasn’t sure if they had been shot or not. Reports saying that person is already out of hospital which is good if true, i think rather than shooting two people the bullet has potentially either went straight through her (horrendous) or has ricocheted.
That doesn’t make any sense. If it’s a movie prop and loaded with blanks or an accident by the prop dept what does your “responsibility to ensure it’s not loaded” mean? Everyone knew it was loaded?
But he has nothing to do with the gun at all, he is handed it ready loaded, when on his marker for the action shot. It’s someone else’s job all he does is pull a trigger for gun powder to come out. It should basically be like firing a toy gun. It’s not his fault that someone put a real bullet in it!
It’s like saying, for example a Lion on set kills someone and it’s the actors fault for letting the Lion kill someone when the Lion has a handler who is in charge of said Lion. Not the actor!
Oh it’s all coming out in the wash now…kinda starting to feel a little less sorry for him.
Crew walked off due to poor conditions and it’s been reported the gun was fired twice days earlier. This is about to get very messy.
Crew walked off due to poor conditions and it’s been reported the gun was fired twice days earlier. This is about to get very messy.
I just saw the LA Times article about this. It doesn’t look good. Disputes on set, complaints from staff, a super low budget production with corners being cut, non-unionised staff being brought in and unionised staff stood down on the day of the accident.
Not only that, but: “There were two misfires on the prop gun on Saturday and one the previous week, the person said, adding “there was a serious lack of safety meetings on this set.””
Not only that, but: “There were two misfires on the prop gun on Saturday and one the previous week, the person said, adding “there was a serious lack of safety meetings on this set.””
First rule of gun safety is to assume a gun is loaded. Doesn't matter if its a prop, if the person who gives you it says its not, whatever. First rule. Assume its loaded.
The second rule of gun safety is that you don't point a gun at anything you don't want to kill.
It being a prop and the fact that it "shouldn't" be loaded are, from a gun safety and a moral point of view, utterly irrelevant.
It might be possible that he is legally exonerated, depends on local laws and liability issues.
But in terms of a movie set, this is all down to the prop master and the prop team to ensure that those safety measures are met.
Alec may not be a gun expert, he may not know much safety laws around guns so what you say may make sense but not to someone who is acting the part of a character with a gun not someone who is playing make believe and may have not much knowledge other than this is the trigger, aim here and press this to turn the safety on when we cut.
If corners are cut like reported and it’s unsafe then that falls down to the props team and production company who should of fired them for breach of safety.
I think it's just not good enough to say Alec may not have known gun safety etc. I think anyone handling a gun whiles acting should have been educated before hand. It's easy to say these things should be done but it won't change whats happened. Hopefully in future gun safety is taken more seriously.
Legally you may well be right, although that will depend on local laws.
He is a producer on the film though, so he may well have some responsibility anyway.
Morally though it doesn't matter. If you are going to pull the trigger on a gun, in any situation, you make damn bleeping sure its not loaded. Whether you're an actor or not.
But that doesn’t make him a murderer like people are trying to make out. Everyone should be able to go to work and be safe no matter what position and trust your colleges. He should of been able to trust that the gun given him was a prop and only that. The director, cinematographer and other crew memebers also should trust that when they are in a room with a firearm that the correct safety measures are in place for their safety.
This whole thing happened because of a lack of safety from the props team and firearm specialists they have on set, they put a live bullet in a gun instead of a blank… it’s just mind boggling how this managed to happen!
Manslaughter exists to cover this exact situation.
It still doesn't make him completely innocent either. He needs to take some responsibility for what happened. If he wants to produce a film involving guns he should have some gun safety knowledge.
He will, his production company who hired everyone on the movie will have to pay for what happened. I just don’t think it will be Alec going to jail. It was an horrific accident much like Brandon Lee, Michael Massee didn’t go to jail, the production company were sued.
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