Screen world ponders future of guns on sets after ‘Rust’ shooting

Thursday’s shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by a prop revolver during filming for the Alec Baldwin Western “Rust” has the screen industry pondering the future of guns on sets.

Toronto producer Martin Katz of Prospero Pictures says the tragedy near Santa Fe,

N.M., raises the question of whether the industry should start using more non-functioning firearms.

Summerland, B.C.-based motion picture and TV property master Dean Goodine predicts the industry will step up gun safety measures, like it did when Brandon Lee was killed by a bullet left in a prop gun on the set of “The Crow” in 1993.

Court records say Baldwin pulled the trigger on the revolver that also wounded director Joel Souza during a rehearsal in Santa Fe after an assistant director told him it was “cold” — an industry term for a gun that can’t fire.

Experts say they’re baffled by what Baldwin has called a “tragic accident,” since sets typically have strict and sufficient protocols in place for handling prop firearms, which should never go off near people or be pointed directly at anyone on set.

Katz wonders if the industry should use more realistic replicas, like 3D-printed models, and avoid showing them in extreme close-ups so audiences can’t tell the difference.

“So much of what we use in practical effects is not what it appears to be. When we make it snow, it’s not actually snow, it’s soap flakes or some product that was created to look like snow. Why, when we use guns on set, do we actually use real guns?” says Katz, whose credits include the films “Cosmopolis” and “Akilla’s Escape.”

“Maybe this is the time towards saying: ‘We don’t need to shoot movies with actual real guns. We can shoot them with models.”’

As Goodine describes it, prop guns are often real weapons that could fire a live round but instead are often loaded with “blanks” — cartridges with gun powder and other material to ignite a flame and sound but no projectile bullet.

On-set guns can also include electric revolvers and CO2-powered versions, similar to pellet guns.