‘Rust’ kills Hollywood on making choices about guns
The fatal “Rust” shooting incident was a vivid reminder that many of the weapons used on movie sets are real. Sometimes they are loaded with dummy, inert bullets that resemble real bullets but cannot be fired; This was supposed to be the case in the scene Mr. Baldwin was filming. Sometimes they are loaded with blanks—powder cartridges but without projectiles—that produce a loud bang and flash when fired. But while live ammunition is almost always banned on film sets, real guns can of course also be loaded with real bullets, which is what happened in 2021 on the day Ms Hutchins was murdered.
That’s why, in the days after the “Rust” shooting, Santa Fe County District Attorney Mary Carmack Altwiss took issue with news reports that described the weapon that killed Ms. Hutchins as a propaganda gun. “It was a legitimate weapon,” she said.
Empty fire is far from extinct on screen. In theaters now, moviegoers see the heroine of the movie “Priscilla,” which revolves around the marriage of Priscilla and Elvis Presley, firing blank bullets in a scene in which her character practices with a gun, and in the movie “Napoleon,” which revolves around the French in the nineteenth century. Emperor, the actors fire blanks from old-fashioned rifles.
But since Rust, gunsmiths, who are responsible for firearm safety on film sets, have seen opportunities diminish, several said in interviews. The demand for alternatives to real weapons is increasing. Stephen Lake, co-director of an armory in Britain that specializes in gas-operated weapons, said he was getting more orders for them — though there was growing interest in them before “Rust,” too — and that they were used in “Golda,” Helen Mirren’s final film about Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur War.
Dwayne Johnson, whose production company has produced gun-heavy titles such as Red Notice, has pledged to stop using operable weapons, saying “we won’t worry” about how it will affect visual effects costs. Director Guy Ritchie released a film this year about the war in Afghanistan called “The Covenant,” in which he said he did not use real weapons, telling Newsweek that Airsofts “look as good as real weapons.”
“There is absolutely no reason for anyone to use real guns on sets,” said Rebecca West, a visual effects producer who has worked on action films such as this year’s Ben Affleck thriller “Hypnotic,” which included a final shootout scene with gunfire. . It was completely computer generated.
