Alec Baldwin & Hannah Gutierrez-Reed charged with involuntary manslaughter following the death of Halyna Hutchins- FL1 News Now speaks with CEO of VIP StarNetwork & looks at Bonanza Creek Ranch
But what's going on with the filming location, and why does it seem to have a pattern when it comes to dangerous filming and on-set production?
Just last week it was announced that actor and producer for the movie Rust, Alec Baldwin, and amorer-props assistant Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will be the ones facing charges in the death of a 42-year-old cinematographer who was on the set filming the movie.
Hutchins was a successful cinematogropher that had worked on more than 30 feature films as well as short films and series. She was born and raised in Ukraine where she obtained an education in journalism and worked on documentaries in Europe. She met her husband, who is an American, and had one son with him. She moved to America but kept her Ukraine citizenship. Once she was in America she continued to thrive in her career, and landed the gig on the set of Rust.
On October 21, 2021, Halyna was killed on set when Alec Baldwin fired what he said he believed was an empty gun used as a prop, hitting her and another person on set, killing her and injuring the other.
From there, the details get murky. The armorer, the person responsible for the management of any weapons used on set, claims that she was fulfilling two positions on set, not just one, causing her to struggle to be able to give the job of armorer her full attention.
Her attorneys, Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, released the following details regarding Hannah’s experience on set and how she felt things went:
Hannah claimed that this death never would have occurred had live ammo not been introduced onto the set. She claims that she and the prop master had control of the guns and she never witnessed anyone shooting the guns
She said the guns were always locked up overnight and at lunch. She added that all of them were accounted for and nobody was shooting them
She said she fought to have proper training, days to maintain the weapons on set, and time to prepare for gunfire but was overruled by production as well as her department, resulting in the death on set
She added that the entire set was unsafe and there was a lack of safety meetings among staff and everyone involved on set
Ultimately, Halyna’s husband was able to reach a settlement with production after suing for the death of his wife
The only assets Rust seemed to have were for the rights of the movie. The agreement reached made Matt Hutchins the executive producer for the movie, which was set to continue filming after the settlement was reached.
According to Hollywood Reporter, Hutchins did in fact hold Baldwin responsible as the one who discharged the weapon, killing his wife, but he held the entire production team equally responsible. He blamed budgeting and cutting corners for the whole ordeal, but insisted he just wanted to move on and honor his wife by finishing her last piece of work before her untimely death.
So what actually happened on the set of Rust that caused this death to happen?
FL1 News Now was able to speak with Johonniuss Chemweno, CEO of VIP StarNetwork, who has experience in the industry when it comes to providing medical care and safety on sets during filming.
“It starts going at the planning stage,” Chemweno said, when discussing how this could have happened. “The budgeting stage of knowing how much it's going to cost to film safely, a production, a movie, a film, a commercial, whatever it might be.”
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So in short, Gutierrez-Reed had stated that she did request the training and extra days to maintain the safety of weapons on set, but was shot down by production. One of the reasons this may have happened was due to the budgeting constraints put on the crew.
Unfortunately for producers Ryan Smith and Allen Cheney, this doesn’t appear to be the first time they’ve had issues like this with budgets and appropriately allocating funding for their productions on-set.
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