It’s been 15 months since cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed on the set of the Western film Rust by actor Alec Baldwin.
Case Recap
Following the investigation, completed in October 2022, Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and special prosecutor Andrea Reebs filed charges focusing on the lack of safety protocols on the set.
Carmack-Altwies announced last Thursday that Baldwin, 64, would be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Also charged with the same counts as the 30 Rock star: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on the set, and 24 years old at the time of the incident.
While rehearsing a scene from the movie in October 2021, Baldwin, a Massapequa native, had a loaded gun in hand when it went off, killing Hutchins and non-fatally injuring the film’s director, Joel Souza.
If found guilty, Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed are facing separate penalties of up to 5 years in prison.
“This decision distorts Halyna Hutchins’ tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice,” Baldwin’s attorney Luke Nikas said in a statement. “Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun – or anywhere on the movie set. He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win.”
In November 2022, after a year-long investigation, Baldwin filed a negligence lawsuit against Gutierrez-Reed, first assistant director David Halls, property master Sarah Zachry and weapons supplier Seth Kenny. According to Deadline, Baldwin sought to clear his name after losing job and career opportunities due to the incident.
In an earlier interview with ABC, Baldwin responded to actors like George Clooney who claimed they habitually check their prop guns, and don’t rely exclusively on armorers and assistant directors for “cold gun” confirmation. “If your protocol is you checking the gun every time, well, good for you. Good for you,” Baldwin said. “My protocol was to trust the person that had the job, and it worked up until this point.”
Industry Vet Weights in on Rust Crew’s ‘Gross Negligence’
Hollywood prop master Matthew Cavaliero, of Boston, has worked in film since 1994, and has been in the property master union for the past 25 years. He has overseen the prop departments on various high-profile films, such as the Oscar-nominated films Her (2013), Inherent Vice (2014), La La Land (2016) and Vice (2018), and Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon for Apple TV+ starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro. He also previously worked on the final season of The Sopranos and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
The industry veteran, like the rest of the world, asked, “how could this happen?” in devastation after hearing of Huthchins’ passing. In an interview with The Messenger on Tuesday, Cavaliero assured those following the case and movie lovers the world over that “very effective, specific, and well-practiced” safety protocols are just that: vehemently-followed across the board, and never violated on movie sets.
Except on Rust’s.
Cavaliero agrees with the formulated consensus, that the independently-financed film now and forever woven in tragedy-spawned controversy essentially ignored “every single one” of the standard weaponry preparation protocols outlined.
“When we’re dealing with weapons, sets are very safe places,” Cavaliero told The Messenger. “People take extra care, and respect the process and the danger involved. They go out of their way to be safe, routine and methodical. And this event just violated all of that. It was gross negligence on their [the Rust production’s] part.”
Keeping Hutchins’ Memory Alive
Halyna Hutchins was 42 when she was killed.
The Ukraine native had a burning passion for journalism. She obtained her graduate degree in International Journalism from Kyiv National University.
Hutchins worked as an investigative journalist with BBC and Discovery documentary productions before moving to New York City. But in the midst of all the reporting, she found a new passion in a related field.
“My transition from journalism began when I was working on British film productions in Eastern Europe, traveling with crews to remote locations and seeing how the cinematographer worked.
I was fascinated with storytelling based on real characters,” Hutchins told American Cinematographer, who named her one of “10 up-and-coming directors of photography who are making their mark,” in 2019.
That same year, Hutchins won an award for Best Cinematography at the English Riviera Film Festival for her contributions to the short film, Treacle.
“In New York I really took on photography,” Hutchins said in an interview for “Why Women Are Excelling in Hollywood” in June 2021. “Fashion photography, I did a lot and just wanted to make art films, actually. Just something really big, beautiful, just art house cinema.”
Her dreams would further come true, working as cinematographer and director of photography in a number of feature films, including Blindfire (2020) and The Mad Hatter (2021).
Hutchins’ husband and widower, Matthew, filed the wrongful-death lawsuit in 2021. Together, they have a 9-year-old son, Andros. Matthew shared details about their family and recovery in February 2022 on the Today Show.
Andros fell silent for nearly two days after his mother passed away. Matthew said he “needed to be with” Andros after learning his wife had been shot.
“He didn’t believe it right away. He didn’t want to believe it,” Matthew said.
To Conclude
While Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed gear up for presumably lengthy legal battles, it’s important to remember: though the number of instantly recallable on-set casualties due to crew error can probably be counted on one hand, the number should obviously be zero.
But, thankfully, the number is not worse thanks to the tireless efforts of most production teams— crews that responsibly complete their craft, heed every caution and honor every code.
Whereas, reported by Variety, and based on revelations in the 551-page sheriff’s report of the Rust incident, “FBI testing uncovered a total of five live rounds of ammunition among the movie’s prop weapons—six if you count the bullet that actually went off.”
Equally alarming: Immediately after Hutchins’ death, sources told media outlets the gun Baldwin was brandishing, and that delivered the fatal blow, was used by crewmembers as beer can target practice mere hours earlier.
Due to this outlandish heap of oversights, a mother, wife and artist-on-the-rise is now dead.
“You’re not allowed to have live ammunition anywhere on a set,” Cavaliero confirms, calling to mind experiences hiring impressive, former SWAT members to run point on set armory under his department, and even clearing out an entire gun store once on a production shoot “because it’s what’s required.”
“We had to clear out all the ammo boxes, even though no one was touching them, no one was dealing them, and no one would see them on camera. Once it becomes a set, there is no live ammunition, and everyone knows that.”
“Every time I deal with an actor,” Cavaliero adds, “or any conversation about a prop, whether it’s weapons or food, or if you have a technical consultant that helps you with medical equipment or similar needs— all of these things are a part of that, and very important that it includes the property master. So the idea that somebody would have just left that armorer [Gutierrez-Reed] on their own, is a very sad part of a very sad story.”
