Alec Baldwin accidentally kills DOP with prop gun!

[Count Steer]

I did some props/scenery stuff at The People's Theatre in Newcastle years ago and one rule us grunts behind the scenes had was 'Don't give an actor anything sharp'.

Then we did a play that had guns in*... The guns only fired blanks but they were pretty realistic and you could have someone's eye/eardrum out with them. They got handed them as they went on and removed immediately they came off.

Done things since with guns in for am dram but we did the bangs from the sound desk.

*'Juno and the Paycock'

[MrLongbeard]

He shouldn't have accepted a gun from an assistant director in the first place, although by the sounds of it the systems in place would have still failed him, and he most certainly should have been aware of the 2 previous discharges from 'cold' guns before his incident.

[Greenman]

None of those examples equates to YOU making a decision on something that could kill someone else, they are daily risks that me and you and everyone else has to take on a daily basis as we don't have any other choice, a normal part of society as you say.

Making a decision PERSONALLY to act on something for a laugh that could cause end of life is something YOU should question daily. YOU have to take responsibility for your own actions, others incompetence is not your responsibility to police, as, well, you just can't.

If something is risky enough to cause harm then someone will have written a procedure and assigned responsibilities. So, in weeksy's examples, process / responsibility is likely to be assigned to AirlinePilot / ForecourtManagerGuy / WaterboardGuy respectively. End users have to have some expectation that the members of the process have acted responsibly. This is for controllable scenarios anyway

So, it depends whether there was a controlled process to follow and what Baldwin's part was in the process and what was expected of him having being handed a gun on set.

Probably they'll determine that the process was non existent, shit or someone winged it because they knew best.

I agree that they would of been risk assessed, that why i agreed with his point that it's just part of society, but bespoke one off random acts of stupidity are a different story altogether.

[Saga Lout]

If something is risky enough to cause harm then someone will have written a procedure and assigned responsibilities.

That sounds like some namby pamby Elfin Safety bollocks. Real men don't do Elfin Safety.

[DefTrap]

That sounds like some namby pamby Elfin Safety bollocks. Real men don't do Elfin Safety.

Which is why they get unnecessarily shot I imagine.

I have to deal with RiskAssessment all day long - 99% of folk who tell me "it doesn't matter" end up telling me exactly why it does matter within 60 seconds of starting the resulting interview.

[JackyJoll]

They could put an end to this sort of thing by just making nicer films, where everyone is good and kind to each other.

[Mr. Dazzle]

That sounds like some namby pamby Elfin Safety bollocks. Real men don't do Elfin Safety.

Which is why they get unnecessarily shot I imagine.

I have to deal with RiskAssessment all day long - 99% of folk who tell me "it doesn't matter" end up telling me exactly why it does matter within 60 seconds of starting the resulting interview.

Or they try and sue you cause they cut their fingers off / blinded themselves / lost all their hair after doing something the RA (which they've read, understood and signed) explicitly says not to do.

[David]

My experience in telly tells me that 90% of the "creatives" have no fucking idea of what actually happens in reality.
We did a Miss Marple using a Morgan, in which the bad girl was supposed to die having flipped the car escaping from the Hotel....we did the moving shots, and got to the bit where the car got inverted. I had prepped it by draining fluids and sealing holes etc. The producer turns up and sez"it don't look very crashed" I had changed the wings, bonnet and screen which I had sorted earlier...so, ok, you are paying...here are some hammers..off you go.

They knocked 7 bells off this poor '50's Moggy.....thgen took the shot of the actress, through the (uncracked) part of the screen with a smudge of fake blood....at which point I mentioned that I could smell petrol (porous tank top {not the one on the actress}) and that they had a minute to finish and then the actress was out of the car....thirty or so grips/sound/light/camera/ guys etc dissapeared (some smoking) and we got the shot shot.
The damage inflicted wrote the car off....we had to buy it from the owner.

I watched the program unusually...and yes, you could not see anything of the car....there were more examples of this sort of thinking, or lack of it ....

[irie]

That sounds like some namby pamby Elfin Safety bollocks. Real men don't do Elfin Safety.

Which is why they get unnecessarily shot I imagine.

I have to deal with RiskAssessment all day long - 99% of folk who tell me "it doesn't matter" end up telling me exactly why it does matter within 60 seconds of starting the resulting interview.

Most (?) people believe that when something goes wrong it's just "bad luck" - in other words, risk probabilities just don't apply to them.

[Cousin Jack]

Most (?) people believe that when something goes wrong it's just "bad luck" - in other words, risk probabilities just don't apply to them.

Most people just do not understand statistics, ie that if something is a 1 in 1000 chance, and you have 10,000 people, not only is it likely to happen but it is likely to happen to about 10 people. And really rare events are just as likely to happen twice in a short time as to wait forever for the next one.

[David]

My experience in telly tells me that 90% of the "creatives" have no fucking idea of what actually happens in reality.
We did a Miss Marple using a Morgan, in which the bad girl was supposed to die having flipped the car escaping from the Hotel....we did the moving shots, and got to the bit where the car got inverted. I had prepped it by draining fluids and sealing holes etc. The producer turns up and sez"it don't look very crashed" I had changed the wings, bonnet and screen which I had sorted earlier...so, ok, you are paying...here are some hammers..off you go.

They knocked 7 bells off this poor '50's Moggy.....thgen took the shot of the actress, through the (uncracked) part of the screen with a smudge of fake blood....at which point I mentioned that I could smell petrol (porous tank top {not the one on the actress}) and that they had a minute to finish and then the actress was out of the car....thirty or so grips/sound/light/camera/ guys etc dissapeared (some smoking) and we got the shot shot.
The damage inflicted wrote the car off....we had to buy it from the owner.

I watched the program unusually...and yes, you could not see anything of the car....there were more examples of this sort of thinking, or lack of it ....

Don't get me going on the Lotus.

[ZRX61]

My experience in telly tells me that 90% of the "creatives" have no fucking idea of what actually happens in reality.
We did a Miss Marple using a Morgan, in which the bad girl was supposed to die having flipped the car escaping from the Hotel....we did the moving shots, and got to the bit where the car got inverted. I had prepped it by draining fluids and sealing holes etc. The producer turns up and sez"it don't look very crashed" I had changed the wings, bonnet and screen which I had sorted earlier...so, ok, you are paying...here are some hammers..off you go.

They knocked 7 bells off this poor '50's Moggy.....thgen took the shot of the actress, through the (uncracked) part of the screen with a smudge of fake blood....at which point I mentioned that I could smell petrol (porous tank top {not the one on the actress}) and that they had a minute to finish and then the actress was out of the car....thirty or so grips/sound/light/camera/ guys etc dissapeared (some smoking) and we got the shot shot.
The damage inflicted wrote the car off....we had to buy it from the owner.

I watched the program unusually...and yes, you could not see anything of the car....there were more examples of this sort of thinking, or lack of it ....

There were more than a few instances during the filming of Pearl Harbor where aircraft owners had to be kept away from Ben Affleck lest they beat the moron to death. After a couple of near disasters they started disconnecting the batteries before he was allowed near an aircraft.
There was one rule & he couldn't/wouldn't follow it: Don't fucking touch ANY switches, levers, buttons, controls or breakers etc.

Word got around the warbird industry PDQ & it's doubtful he'll ever be allowed to sit in a live aircraft for a movie again.

[DefTrap]

There were more than a few instances during the filming of Pearl Harbor where aircraft owners had to be kept away from Ben Affleck lest they beat the moron to death. After a couple of near disasters they started disconnecting the batteries before he was allowed near an aircraft.
There was one rule & he couldn't/wouldn't follow it: Don't fucking touch ANY switches, levers, buttons, controls or breakers etc.

Word got around the warbird industry PDQ & it's doubtful he'll ever be allowed to sit in a live aircraft for a movie again.

The moronic thing to do is not have a set of written down procedures, and allow "hope for the best" rules to apply. Maybe disconnecting the battery is the safe and proper thing to do if you stick some random unqualified person in the cockpit. You can't assume they're all Tom Cruise or warbird industry nerds.

[Horse]

Don't get me going on the Lotus.

Which Lotus?


I used to have to create risk assessments, study plans, impact assessments. On one site we were hiring, a disaster plan.

Then get insurance. Mention certain key words - which meant something very different to 'them' - and there would be no chance.

I'd like to see some of the RAs for old Top Gear stunts. "It'll be fine"?

[DefTrap]

I'd like to see some of the RAs for old Top Gear stunts. "It'll be fine"?

Ultimately - once you've done the RA, covered all the bases regarding training, insurance, triple-safety-checks, emergency services on standby etc. and everyone has grudgingly agreed that the level of risk is acceptable considering the mitigations - then what more can you do?

[Count Steer]

With some actors they need a stunt double to pour boiling water out of a kettle, never mind sit at the controls of an aircraft.

(Probably explains why some Merkins think you make tea in a microwave ).

[Buckaroo]

Most (?) people believe that when something goes wrong it's just "bad luck" - in other words, risk probabilities just don't apply to them.

Most people just do not understand statistics, ie that if something is a 1 in 1000 chance, and you have 10,000 people, not only is it likely to happen but it is likely to happen to about 10 people. And really rare events are just as likely to happen twice in a short time as to wait forever for the next one.

There's a 95% probability that 100% of a sample population of 5 will have a statistically equal chance of not understanding probability, probably. + - 75% STP.

[Horse]

I'd like to see some of the RAs for old Top Gear stunts. "It'll be fine"?

Ultimately - once you've done the RA, covered all the bases regarding training, insurance, triple-safety-checks, emergency services on standby etc. and everyone has grudgingly agreed that the level of risk is acceptable considering the mitigations - then what more can you do?

I took the view (aka professional pessimist) that I would identify where things might go wrong, then either prevent it or (if necessary to do the activity) mitigate the risk of injury.

But you've used the word 'acceptable'. That's the kicker ('practicable' is another).

For me, my colleagues, my employer and clients and, often, members of the public, 'acceptable' was a much lower threshold.

Perhaps what I actually meant was seeing their justification of acceptable.

[ZRX61]

The moronic thing to do is not have a set of written down procedures, and allow "hope for the best" rules to apply. Maybe disconnecting the battery is the safe and proper thing to do if you stick some random unqualified person in the cockpit. You can't assume they're all Tom Cruise or warbird industry nerds.

Disconnecting the battery only prevented him fucking the aircraft up while he was sat in it. The owners still had to go through the entire cockpit & reset all the switches & breakers etc after he got out of it.

[Mr. Dazzle]

There were more than a few instances during the filming of Pearl Harbor where aircraft owners had to be kept away from Ben Affleck lest they beat the moron to death. After a couple of near disasters they started disconnecting the batteries before he was allowed near an aircraft.
There was one rule & he couldn't/wouldn't follow it: Don't fucking touch ANY switches, levers, buttons, controls or breakers etc.

Word got around the warbird industry PDQ & it's doubtful he'll ever be allowed to sit in a live aircraft for a movie again.

The moronic thing to do is not have a set of written down procedures, and allow "hope for the best" rules to apply. Maybe disconnecting the battery is the safe and proper thing to do if you stick some random unqualified person in the cockpit. You can't assume they're all Tom Cruise or warbird industry nerds.

Surely all qualified pilots go through a switch checklist anyway before they fly away. Even someone fully qualified could have accidentally knocked something, or made a mistake. Sounds like a BS story TBH.

Seems like exactly the sort of mitigation which a good RA would have suggested

If you get into an plane which "someone else" has been sat in and expect it to be fully airworthy without checking I'd say you're the moron, not the other person. Even if that other person is a pilot.