Patrick Walberg wrote:
Many photographers I know have photographed models with guns. I've even done so many years .. make that decades ago. Some images I've seen even have the model pointing the gun at the camera.    I have friends here and on Facebook who are gun collectors and/or enjoy the sport of shooting.   I used to be a gun owner.  I have enjoyed target shooting.  Something happened to me where I had a change of heart regarding guns.  The fact is that I am not into hunting, and I have even reduced the amount of meat I eat.  However, I DO NOT tell my gun owner friends that they should not use their guns in images or videos.  You know where this is going ....

Thankfully this did not become an anti-gun thread.  It has gone a direction that it should not have thanks to one person who insists on making this about conspiracies. So I am breaking down the original post to bring it all back to what I hoped would be a discussion regarding safety on our sets. In the past I had made a post about photographing or shooting on railroad tracks.  It became similar to this thread as people commented about such incidents where people were killed while shooting around railroad tracks, but no one blamed the conductors for not being able to stop the train in time, even in one case where it was a movie crew foolishly caught on the tracks.  One person died, and a few were badly injured. Two people involved with the making of the movie were found guilty of crimes.

Patrick Walberg wrote:
So by now I'm sure that most of you are aware that there was a tragic mishap where a director on a movie set was shot and killed by a gun that was thought to be "cold" but was actually loaded with live ammo.  The actor is well known, and distraught.  My father who taught me about gun safety told me NEVER point a gun at someone or something unless you intend to shoot it.  Also ALWAYS consider that the gun is loaded .. do not assume it is unloaded, as that is when accidents can happen. If I ever shot someone and they died, even if it was justified .. I wouldn't be able to cope.  That is why I changed my mind about being a law enforcement officer a very long time ago.  I feel horrible for Alec Baldwin.  He has to live with this the rest of his life.  .

The safety record of movies when including guns to be used in the scripts is incredibly good when you think about it.  Very few people have been killed from being shot by a gun on a movie set. However they have routines for safety checks they go through to extremely limit the possible accidents. There is no conspiracy!  I had to mention the Rust shooting as it has been in the news.  I felt this was an excellent time to discuss safety on our own sets.     

Patrick Walberg wrote:
Photographers, does this make you rethink how and why you would use guns on your own set?  Do you think that the film industry will ban live ammunition from being on the set of future movies?   Models, are you okay with doing shoots with guns in your hands, or have you decided it's not for you?  It seems like gun pictures are becoming cliché and about as dangerous as railroad tracks.  I believe that IF done right with safety in mind, it is possible to get great images with guns or around railroad tracks.  I've done both, but not anymore.  I understand that the crew (union) walked off the set of 'Rust' due to safety concerns and that they continued work with a bare bones and non union crew.   -sigh-

I hope we can get back on track.  No one should die during a photo shoot or film shoot.  Live ammo should not have been on the set!  There are methods and things that can be done to protect each other when using guns on or off the sets. The Rust shooting was a tragic accident.  What can we do to prevent future accidents?

Patrick Walberg wrote:
I hope we can get back on track.  No one should die during a photo shoot or film shoot.  Live ammo should not have been on the set!  There are methods and things that can be done to protect each other when using guns on or off the sets. The Rust shooting was a tragic accident.  What can we do to prevent future accidents?

The record prior to Rust was very good. What "Rust" has shown is that people need to do their job within the rules already in place... and common sense. There will always be lapses when humans are involved. Maybe it will be better when the robots take over.

JSouthworth wrote:
I don't think Gutierrez-Reed loaded the gun with live rounds. I think Baldwin loaded the gun, and I think he intentionally shot the cinematographer and director.

Why does Baldwin deny pulling the trigger? Because he's extremely arrogant, arrogant enough to think that he can use his acting skills to convince us of something which, in an objective sense, is an impossibility.

Baldwin has been complaining about losing work as a result of the Rust shooting. That demonstrates zero remorse over what he did and also zero compassion for the relatives of the victim. So in the end, the question is why he wouldn't shoot two people, if he thought there was a good enough reason for doing so. As yet we don't know what that reason was, although a possible financial motive has been suggested.

It would be interesting to know more about the plot of the movie, then we could consider the question of why Baldwin, as producer, decided to cast himself in that role.

Why do you insist on exposing yourself as a ridiculous clown? Just asking.

Hunter  GWPB wrote:
Anyway, since this is all hypothetical.  Don't live your life with demons and fog and bright colored lights swirling around inside your head where complicated lies take the joy and meaning from your life, and destroy your credibility and cause you to lose the respect of your peers.  Don't be that that guy that goes nuts and shoots people.  Get help.

Imagine a situation where your hypothetical dude happens to consider himself a photographer and discovers that a model he's worked with has a purely administrative civilian role within a local police force. However, said dude has a hatred of the police (alongside an unhealthy obsession with guns, chainsaws, girly magazines and several other things) which, coupled with his bent for conspiracy theories, leads him to directly accuse the model and her partner of being under-cover police officers, proclaiming that she used her posing to try to entice him into sex during a shoot so they could arrest him. Might said hypothetical dude have taken his bizarre and completely unfounded accusation/complaint to the police thus revealing her modelling activities to her employer and jeopardise her continued employment? Not to mention the implication that she may be involved in prostitution.

Nobody sane could be that unbalanced (and potentially dangerous) surely?

P R E S T O N wrote:

Imagine a situation where your hypothetical dude happens to consider himself a photographer and discovers that a model he's worked with has a purely administrative civilian role within a local police force. However, said dude has a hatred of the police (alongside an unhealthy obsession with guns, chainsaws, girly magazines and several other things) which, coupled with his bent for conspiracy theories, leads him to directly accuse the model and her partner of being under-cover police officers, proclaiming that she used her posing to try to entice him into sex during a shoot so they could arrest him. Might said hypothetical dude have taken his bizarre and completely unfounded accusation/complaint to the police thus revealing her modelling activities to her employer and jeopardise her continued employment? Not to mention the implication that she may be involved in prostitution.

Nobody sane could be that unbalanced (and potentially dangerous) surely?

Way off topic as usual..

Focuspuller wrote:
Why do you insist on exposing yourself as a ridiculous clown? Just asking.

Why are you continually exposing yourself, typically several times a day, as an opinionated, under-educated little ignoramus? I don't know, I guess there has to be a reason for that, beyond the fact that you don't have anything else to do.

JSouthworth wrote:
Why are you continually exposing yourself, typically several times a day, as an opinionated, under-educated little ignoramus? I don't know, I guess there has to be a reason for that, beyond the fact that you don't have anything else to do.

Pot calling the kettle black...

JSouthworth wrote:

Why are you continually exposing yourself, typically several times a day, as an opinionated, under-educated little ignoramus? I don't know, I guess there has to be a reason for that, beyond the fact that you don't have anything else to do.

Seek help.

JSouthworth wrote:
Why are you continually exposing yourself, typically several times a day, as an opinionated, under-educated little ignoramus? I don't know, I guess there has to be a reason for that, beyond the fact that you don't have anything else to do.

You are the one with far too much time on your hands!  Talk about a hijacking, you've taken this thread to China and back!  You insist on talking about conspiracy theories and not about what we can do in the future to make sure our own photo/video sessions are safe.  The record of accidents on the set of the movie industry is incredibly low by comparison with other industries. You seem to have a thing for Alec Baldwin for some reason.  I get it!  Can you just stop!  Please! Better yet, take a clue and seek help!

JSouthworth wrote:
Baldwin does have one advantage in that the instinct of most of the other people who were on the set is to disassociate themselves from this whole mess as far as possible in order to minimise the effect on their subsequent careers, which in practical terms means going along with the story that the shooting was accidental. But does Baldwin still have a career in the movie industry after this? Maybe not, because his name would tend to jinx any movie that he appeared in, and changing it would only underline that fact.

"... the instinct of most of the other people who were on the set ..."

Utter bullshit from an unhinged mind. Interview the crew, did you? Of course you didn't. Your supreme arrogance on top of total ignorance is palpable in these forums. In this case, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about -  you should really just shut the fuck up. You have nothing to contribute except your own absurd delusions.

Patrick Walberg wrote:
My post seems to have become a place to bash Baldwin and spread conspiracy theories. It's my fault for bringing up the Rust accident .. which I am of the firm belief that it was and accident!  It "was" a big news item for awhile, and now it seems that the criminal case is unwinding to be nothing much.  There were lapses of safety procedures on the set which resulted in the fatality. It's time to tighten our belts and move on in discussion. 

Photographers, does this make you rethink how and why you would use guns on your own set?  Do you think that the film industry will ban live ammunition from being on the set of future movies?   Models, are you okay with doing shoots with guns in your hands, or have you decided it's not for you?   

Have you as a model or photographer been in a dangerous or risky situation?  Speaking of guns, there have been some armed robberies of camera gear in San Francisco not that long ago.  Besides having guns near by, some locations can be risky.  Train tracks, anyone?

In the course of a forty-year career working on films, I was "in the line of fire" many times, protected by plexiglass, furniture blanket, face mask, and earplugs, when blanks were going to be fired in the shot. It never crossed my mind that proper procedure was not being scrupulously followed or what would be my fate if it wasn't. Looking back, I most certainly "dodged a bullet". Accidents will always happen unfortunately, and I am sure vigilance after a fatality will be intense. For a while. Long term, maybe the banning of all working firearms is a solution, but right now live  rounds are banned on sets and look what happened.