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Unsecured ammo, failed safety checks, and cut corners: What went wrong on the set of 'Rust'
The script supervisor, on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, cursed out the assistant director.
"This










," she said. "He's supposed to check the guns. He's responsible for what happened."
1.) Just before filming a scene with a gun, the armorer brings the gun to the first assistant director to demonstrate that it's a "cold gun" - meaning it does not contain live ammunition.
2.) The first assistant director then visually inspects the weapon, agrees that it's a cold gun, and announces "cold gun on set," repeating it over the radio for crew members out of earshot. (A lawyer representing Halls told Fox News her client was "not responsible" for checking the gun).
3.) Importantly, whenever the gun is aimed into a camera lens, or near a member of the cast or crew, any person has the right to request that they also be shown the gun is cold, according to Zanoff.
Halls told deputies his normal firearms-handling practice was to "check the barrel for obstructions, most of the time there's no live fire, [Gutierrez-Reed] opens the hatch and spins the drum, and I say 'cold gun on set.'"
But Zanoff told Insider that Halls and Gutierrez-Reed's descriptions of their actions when they checked the gun before the scene appear to violate industry standards.
First responders airlifted Hutchins to an Albuquerque hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Baldwin, who was in shock and didn't yet know he had just killed a woman, was also taken to hospital.
"In all my years, I've never been handed a hot gun," he kept repeating.
According to Tom Nunan, a lecturer at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television and an executive producer of the Oscar-winning film "Crash," Gutierrez-Reed was impossibly young and inexperienced for the job. The position of armorer is normally reserved for Hollywood veterans with previous military or police experience, he said.
Despite being both a Western and an action movie, "Rust" was being produced on a budget of just $6-7 million.
"What I suspect is that this movie was profoundly under-budgeted, meaning people were getting hired at a lower cost because they just didn't have enough money to make this movie look handsome and be what it wanted to be," he said. "As a result, you hire crew that are less experienced, and probably doing not just their job, but two or three jobs at a time."
The script supervisor, on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, cursed out the assistant director.
"This












1.) Just before filming a scene with a gun, the armorer brings the gun to the first assistant director to demonstrate that it's a "cold gun" - meaning it does not contain live ammunition.
2.) The first assistant director then visually inspects the weapon, agrees that it's a cold gun, and announces "cold gun on set," repeating it over the radio for crew members out of earshot. (A lawyer representing Halls told Fox News her client was "not responsible" for checking the gun).
3.) Importantly, whenever the gun is aimed into a camera lens, or near a member of the cast or crew, any person has the right to request that they also be shown the gun is cold, according to Zanoff.

Halls told deputies his normal firearms-handling practice was to "check the barrel for obstructions, most of the time there's no live fire, [Gutierrez-Reed] opens the hatch and spins the drum, and I say 'cold gun on set.'"
But Zanoff told Insider that Halls and Gutierrez-Reed's descriptions of their actions when they checked the gun before the scene appear to violate industry standards.
First responders airlifted Hutchins to an Albuquerque hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Baldwin, who was in shock and didn't yet know he had just killed a woman, was also taken to hospital.
"In all my years, I've never been handed a hot gun," he kept repeating.
According to Tom Nunan, a lecturer at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television and an executive producer of the Oscar-winning film "Crash," Gutierrez-Reed was impossibly young and inexperienced for the job. The position of armorer is normally reserved for Hollywood veterans with previous military or police experience, he said.
Despite being both a Western and an action movie, "Rust" was being produced on a budget of just $6-7 million.
"What I suspect is that this movie was profoundly under-budgeted, meaning people were getting hired at a lower cost because they just didn't have enough money to make this movie look handsome and be what it wanted to be," he said. "As a result, you hire crew that are less experienced, and probably doing not just their job, but two or three jobs at a time."
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