I have to admit, I’ve been leaning toward “no charges” on this one. My view is that an actor, especially an anti-gun actor, may not know the 4 rules of gun safety like everyone here. The production company hires experts and he expects them to do their job. There are also a number of people between him and the preparation of the firearm. It seems difficult to prove he was negligent by trusting the processes that have been successful in the past, especially when he was rehearsing the scene as written and directed. It sounds like the deceased was likely involved in setting up that exact scene. But after the expert insider description above, it seems murkier. It sounds like even without any gun knowledge he should have seen numerous red flags from his own substantial experience in the industry. It’s a coin flip for me at this point.As I am not a lawyer nor familiar with NM laws nor privy to the contracts any of these people signed with their start paperwork I would not give any kind of legal opinion, BUT
Baldwin as an actor handling the gun had a responsibility to himself and the rest of the crew to follow the established film gun rules
He had far and away much more film firearm experience than the rest of the crew combined and had been through the proper procedures on numerous other movies and TV.
As executive producer he should have known and made sure all the rules were executed properly, The armor if felt unsafe could called the studio or money people and had gun related filming stopped until she felt proper measures were being followed and Baldwin would have had to follow her gun related shutdown.
Baldwin as actor and executive producer knew the 1st AD was not in the proper chain of custody and should have not allowed him to handle the weapon, he should not have accepted it from him.
There had already been at least one rehearsal without a round going off, was that because some rounds were dummy, there were empty chambers, or because he did not pull the trigger in previous rehearsal just moments before the live round discharge.......or what, this is meant to be rhetorical.
I think the 1st is in almost as deep as Baldwin. He had the 2nd most firearm experience on the set and knew he was not supposed to be in the chain of custody and did not have the authority to touch, hand off, or declare the gun cold. He had many years in his position.
I don't feel that either one of them have any reasonable defense at all, except pointing fingers at each other
I think the girls lawyer can give a lot of excuses for her part in this to try to save her neck blaming everyone else around her and even those who put her in her job because she worked cheap and was given a department head position due to her gender and probably gave them a sweetheart deal on the firearms rentals.
This all stems from money and wokeness. If Tier 1 goes over a predetermined Budget then the crew must get back pay and benefits to tier 2 status. Both Baldwins and the AD's saleries were probably based on the budget numbers. They were behind on schedule, running very late that day and they saw production possibly being stopped for good when they got almost up to the next budget line.
Based on everything I have read I thought that this was a union movie, someone today at work said that some union members from NM were working on it but that was not a union show I do not know the real story.
The camera crew that walked off was union and hired by the DP who was also union. When her crew found the conditions intolerable she should have left with them, she paid a big price.
Some shows no matter the budget are an absolute pleasure to work on, some are angry, ugly, and mean. From what I have heard of Baldwin in the past and read about this AD recently, two of the people most responsible for setting the tone of the show this was probably a tense angry way to spend 14 to 15 hours a day. Probably lots of yelling, threats, dirty looks, intimidation, disorganization, missing proper resources, equipment and staff.
I have been on a handful of shows like that in the past 30 years one of them fired thousands of blank rounds but I don't remember any dummy rounds. No one was injured.
People were late in getting paychecks, missing paychecks, and having their timecards disputed. That must have added another level of anger on the crew.
People were sleeping in their cars because there was not enough time to drive and get enough sleep
Executive producer or his lawyer lol should be asked to answer for it all.
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