As someone who works in the film industry in camera department, It seems like nobody knows the real reason why Alec Baldwin is being charged with manslaughter, so I made a video explaining it.
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Was it because he discharged a firearm at someone and the bullet exiting the gun resulted in their death?
So I have a related question.
Is it common, or even necessary, to have live ammunition available for firearms during a movie production?
If I were to check out any given movie set that’s filming currently would I find 100% functioning weapons and live ammunition are common to them all?
It seems to me that filming wouldn’t require working firearms and live ammunition very often and, if it did, would use them in a very controlled environment.
I’m not too familiar with the film industry, but I’ve always heard about prop guns, guns with the firing pin removed, etc. I do understand that any weapon that fires a blank can also fire a live round, though.
is there a tldr?
Very informative video. Thank you.
I’ll be honest, most of this is irrelevant to the charges levied against him. Okay, so nepotism happened with the armorer. Well, she wasn’t even there when it went down so firing her and then hiring someone else doesn’t magically mean the other person would have been there and thereby avoided the incident.
Yeah, there was definitely a persistent culture of no fucks on set, but at the end of the day, the charges stem from an unlawful death. Because the DA chose to run with involuntary manslaughter, the crux of this is whether or not Baldwin expressed the level of caution he’s accountable for. He appointed an armorer, he didn’t handle the firearm until he was told it was cold, etc etc etc.
Unfortunately for Baldwin, most of American society intuitively understands that “I was just doing as I was told” isn’t really a valid form of defense unless your back is against the wall. Well… his life wasn’t being threatened, nobody was twisting his arm. However you might want to phrase that idea. *That’s* why he’s being charged.
This video’s entire thesis is that Alec Baldwin is responsible because he’s a producer on the film, and doesn’t try to make any sort of case of what sort of producer he is. Which is entirely the main question behind this. It’s well known that there are “vanity producers” on film productions, particularly for actors, and if the author really works in film, he already knows this. The only evidence he offers that Baldwin was a producer with production responsibility is that Baldwin apparently retweeted some stuff about defending the film’s safety practices. The legal case is going to need a higher standard of proof than that.
Whoever the video author is, you’ve got a good delivery and a reasonable-sounding way of speaking, but you’re clearly part of the crowd that has a pre existing bias against Baldwin, and it shows. This entire case is going to come down to whether Baldwin was liable in any case, and “he’s a producer!”isn’t even close to a convincing argument. Show evidence that Baldwin was directly involved in hiring the armorer or in strong-arming the production past safety concerns, anything beyond behaving as an actual actor on set, and maybe you’d have some meat.
I’ve been saying the same thing since day 1. I’m a doc DOP and I’ve been put into some pretty crazy positions and no matter how much you try to get a bad production to start to care about your safety, it’s ultimately the producers responsible and the only thing you can do to save yourself is quit and let the next person assume that responsibility.
The crazy part is that once you leave your country, then there is no protection for you from a labor board. It all becomes local labor board problems which is awesome when you go to Nicaragua.
Not a single person has mentioned the ***real issues*** here. It’s baffling how little the American public know about civics and law – the ***civil liability*** vs ***criminal liability***.
The criminal statute for Involuntary Manslaughter in New Mexico boils down to unintentionally killing someone without due caution. It doesn’t matter what he knew about people working on the set, or the fact he didn’t intend to kill, etc. It’s simply that someone died accidentally, and the killer wasn’t cautious. The discussion of caution may dip into negligence. That’s why they are being charged – it’s not hard to prove! Criminal charges are brought by the state, and have criminal penalties (felony).
Civil liability is about monetary compensation claims by other people for wrongful death, negligence, recklessness, and lack of reasonable care on the set, among many other possible torts (harms). These are civil claims and are handled in a different court system. Baldwin has apparently already settled some of these claims with the family of the director, which was smart on his part. This is things like would a reasonable person have checked the gun? Was the armorer qualified? Were they warned about dangers on the set? Many different angles.
When someone starts talking about the criminal charges, and then goes into civil liability discussions, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between these systems and the outcomes.
I’m betting Baldwin takes a plea deal for something like 18 months of house arrest, and pays $5000 in fines for the criminal side. He’ll get a fourth degree felony and finish the film while waiting for trial.
The civil side will be millions in different claims, and likely multiple parties will be liable, including the armorer.
IANAL, not legal advice.
If you pick up a firearm, the responsibility of what you do with that firearm cannot be transferred to another person. That’s why he’s being charged with manslaughter.
“Safety is our number one priority”. Yeah, but someone died, so no.
I’ve got no movie set experience, but I’m an attorney and a firearm instructor, so I do have legal and firearm experience in spades.
That being said, I won’t opine on the criminal charges *per se* as I’m not a New Mexico attorney and don’t profess to know the nuance of that state’s criminal statutes.
Still, certain things jumped out at me while watching this video, putting myself in the shoes of someone looking for ways to argue a case:
1. The statement by the producers that the camera head who quit had “no knowledge of and nothing to do with safety protocols” is incredulous to me, and something I would latch onto in a deposition or witness cross examination. So they’re saying that there are people working on set who have no knowledge of the safety protocols? Wouldn’t proper set safety involve EVERYONE being adequately informed of the safety protocols? This could be something that is just a “word choice” problem that they could explain away, but considering that’s the statement they had time to prepare in advance, it doesn’t sound great if that’s the best they can do.
2. I also just can’t wrap my brain around how live ammo could be ANYWHERE on a movie set. Boggles my mind. As a firearm instructor, the most *basic* gun training courses practice a strict quarantine of live ammo in any part of the training that isn’t live fire. For example, in basic pistol classes we do lots of demonstrations using real guns – how to do a proper grip and stance, etc, as well as how to operate the firearm. This involves hitting all of the controls, including the trigger (dry firing). We use dummy rounds (we can use brightly colored plastic ones when it doesn’t need to look real on camera), but the important part is that there is a strict “no live ammunition allowed in the classroom.” Not only do we safety check a gun EVERY TIME IT IS PICKED UP (doing like the video suggests – visually confirming it is clear and having a second person also visually confirming it is clear), but we also don’t allow any ammo in the entire room.
I do think that the case could be made that if Baldwin knew or should have known about the lax safety protocols and past issues, that he may have had the requisite criminal negligence if he pointed a gun at a person and pulled the trigger without due diligence.
I think, absolutely, Alec Baldwin should be at ZERO FAULT here.
When there’s an accident onset with let’s say, a stunt man, there are certain precautions that are taken. But producers on the film like John favreau or anybody else from marvel wouldn’t be tried for any type of manslaughter just because they’re a producer and someone lost their life or limb due to a motorcycle accident, for example.
Of course the producers are partially responsible for who they hire, but it is not their expertise for planning and for conducting those types of activities. They rely on someone else’s knowledge to deliver safe results.
This whole situation is fucked.