What went wrong on the set of “Rust”?

Last week, the Student Movement’s editor, Alyssa Henriquez, touched on the tragedy that occurred on the set of the film “Rust” several weeks ago. You can read her enlightening discussion on political civility here. This week, we break down the tragic events that took place.

“Rust,” a film starring Alec Baldwin, directed by Joel Souza, and with Halyna Hutchins as cinematographer, was shooting in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when tragedy struck. Shooting was set to start early on the morning of Thursday, October 21, but was delayed when most of the camera crew did not come in for work. Around 1 pm, Alec Baldwin was running through a stunt before shooting the weapon that had previously been identified as a “cold weapon” by 1st Assistant Director (AD) Dave Halls. The round inside the gun was, in fact, a live round, and when discharged, shot and killed Hutchins, who was standing behind the camera, likely setting up for the shot Baldwin was practicing for.

Since the tragedy, confusion has struck social media and Baldwin has been virulently shamed as a murderer. In fact, in a recent interview, former president Donald Trump echoed the sentiments of millions: ​​“In my opinion, he had something to do with it, but if nothing else, how do you take a gun, whether it’s loaded or not loaded, how do you take a gun, point it at somebody that’s not even in the movie, and just point it at this person and pull the trigger, and now she’s dead?”

While Trump is entirely neglecting to account for the fact that a film set is nothing like real life, guns are discharged on set multiple times every day. In fact, on the set I worked on this summer, we had a multitude of shots that included the use and  discharge of a real gun. In the case of “Rust '' specifically, the shooting of westerns often requires the use of cold rounds in order to achieve the “smoking gun” effect. Sets and their employees are set up to deal with normal weapon discharges on a regular basis. An actor, or “talent” as they are called, is never responsible for the gun they are handed. Responsibility for the loading and maintenance of the weapon is in the hands of the art department, specifically the armorer, who never loads live rounds and ensures the gun is safe to be discharged in the shot. Next, it is the 1st AD’s job to maintain safety on set, so they are the one who receives the weapon from the armorer and hands it to the talent. Once talent has the gun, it should be run through the proper safety checks and is then ready to be discharged. Not only is it not the talent’s responsibility to check the ammunition in the weapon, their job is simply to point and shoot on the director’s cue.

In this particular case, Hutchins and Souza were likely behind the camera setting up the shot and were running Baldwin through what moves he would have to do during the take. One of these moves included pointing the gun and shooting a “cold round” toward the camera. However, due to a series of events that had transpired, what was supposed to happen didn’t, and instead everyone on set and the world of Hollywood lost a woman of incredible talent.

Problems on “Rust” started with a low budget. Small budget films can be difficult to work on, since producers often cut corners to save costs. In this case, the producers neglected to set up budgeting for a multiple-member armory team. The crew members were being put up in hotels that were located hours away from set and the camera crew was getting so frustrated that they walked off set that morning. Gutierrez-Reed was new to the film scene and this was only her second film as lead armorer. Lastly, this wasn’t the first time 1st AD Halls had been careless in favor of a quicker shoot day. He’d been fired off a set previously for carelessness with weapons and allowing for accidental, unplanned, discharges. Furthermore, the weapons on the set of “Rust” had already experienced problematic discharges during stunt training and checking.

So what went wrong on the set of “Rust”? Truly, it’s not really yours or my decision to make. There’s a lot of little things that went wrong, a lot of little things that go wrong on thousands of low-budget film sets every day but don’t end in a fatal shooting. Sometimes being on a film set can feel like the rules of reality are bent, but this tragedy is a cruel reminder that guns are still guns on set and people are still people. Safety on a set is complex, but it’s so, so important. The producers, already working with a low budget, didn’t ensure that funds were set aside for their set members’ safety; crew members were tired after driving an hour beyond their regular 12-15 hour days, the armorer was new and inexperienced, and the 1st AD neglected to slow down and be careful with weapons on set.

Bill Dill, a cinematographer friend of a friend of mine, wrote the following in his NBC thinkpiece on this tragedy: “However, the real responsibility for this awful thing lies with the culture of callous disregard for the safety of people for whom a movie set is more than a workplace. For the people who work on movie sets, it’s not just a credit. It’s not a sale. For them, it’s a dream. The very least we owe them is a safe place to work.”