Aapo Lettinen

personally I would not bother sending the Krasnogorsk cameras in if they have issues, they are such a low cost mediocre quality cameras that it would be, by my opinion, worth trying to repair them by yourself and if that does not work out then just purchasing another one. The Krasnogorsk cameras are much easier to open and lubricate than Western cameras like Bolexes and such and there is not much which can go wrong with them. probably there would be someone fellow Krasnogorsk shooter in the UK who would help servicing the camera without it costing more than the camera is worth. 700 pounds sounds indeed a way too much for servicing this type of camera which has pretty limited uses

or did they mean rubber BAND guns? these would be a great alternative too! though one would still need an armorer for these because someone has to make sure that they are not loaded before use

Oh I see, YOU CAN definitely get real enough looking rubber guns for movie use! Just a little bit of post work and that would do the job perfectly!

"Rubber guns" is a perfect analogy for how guns are handled and used in most Hollywood films. "In the city where nothing is real, even the guns are made of rubber! Fake boobs, fake teeth, fake guns, fake xplosions! Supa action!" Well, they make replicas out of metal too if you pay couple of dimes more. And one can always deactivate real guns so that they don't shoot anything but still look real. Additionally, a skilled gunsmith could make replicas which are exactly similar than real but are either only able to shoot blanks or are completely inert. But I am sure that rubber ones will look great too... compared to how fake the rest of the movie is. At least you can't break them if accidentally dropping them, they just bounce back to your hand :D

Have you watched the show Mayday (Air Crash Investigation) ? If you haven't seen it, do watch couple of episodes and you'll understand completely what I'm talking about. Most mission critical industries have learned from aviation industry practices and analysis and greatly enhanced safety but in film industry it is still all over the place because of the outdated work culture, ill power dynamics and the lack of "just culture" where the mistakes would be possible to detect early on and correct them rather than trying to hide them which just lets them to escalate to more serious incidents and accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_culture In film industry we DON'T have a "Just Culture". The whole film industry is based on "Blame Culture" where witchhunts are more preferable than openly discussing from mistakes and learning from them

a competent professional armorer would have noticed this type of sabotage immediately and prevented the tragedy from happening. It is generally the arrogant and complacent people with not too much experience who trust their luck too much and don't double check things when they really should to. Add some ill power dynamics, bad communication, time pressures and taking shortcuts on routine checklists and you have an accident just waiting for happening no matter what industry you are working in

additionally the arduino input pin would need a pulldown resistor if one would connect the power supply through the switch to the input pin... because when the switch is opened again there is enough capacitance in the circuit to leave the arduino input pin floating high for many seconds, maybe for minutes. One needs to pull it down to 0v intentionally to prevent it from floating, most commonly using a pulldown resistor (for example a 20K resistor between the pin and the ground)

in most cases it is safest to connect external switches to the power input by using a pullup resistor so that the whole system does not short circuit if there would be a problem with the external switch or cables/connectors. Additionally it is easier to arrange multiple remote switches this way because you only need one signal cable per switch and one single common ground wire, NOT two wires per switch. So this way arranged it would be 3.3V input ---> pullup resistor from 2K to 20K depending on what you do ---> arduino pin input AND the outgoing wire to the switch ----> the switch ----> ground. When the switch is open the arduino pin is pulled to 3.3v by the pullup resistor and when the switch is closed the switch shorts the arduino pin to the ground and the pin reads 0v. The resistor limits the current so that nothing heats or uses too much current and capacitance is still successfully countered. It might be useful to test with a oscilloscope if the switch needs a debounce capacitor to avoid multiple "switch pushes" when the camera is started and stopped (the arduino can detect every one of the bounces and may count from 3 to 10 "button pushes" per single mechanical operation of the switch. ) This may not be a problem if the Zoom recorder is not able to start and stop recording for millisecond long durations but it may still be worth checking out and can be corrected either by using a capacitor or in the arduino code if cap is not used

Someone should have said to mr. Baldwin before the conference that the typical producer BS talk does not get his out of the hole this time and this time it would be better to just shut up than to try to explain himself in public... He is a producer trying to save the movie project now when it was revealed that the working conditions and on-set safety was all over the place. It looks like they are planning on resuming shooting the film sometime later. The movies always have the announcement in the end that "animals were not harmed during the making of this movie" but it seems that movies would need another "Human beings were not harmed during the making of this movie" certification because hurting human beings is still considered being OK in the film industry even when it is a relatively safe working environment for animals nowadays.

I have actually met relatively few film industry people, production people included, who have great people management skills. It is much more common that they are in their position because they are able to stay strictly on schedule and budget and they have advanced to their position because they are good talking to people (meaning they talk A LOT most of the time which is why it is easy for them to make new friends and get funding or get hired to the next job because they know everybody). It causes lots of conflicts when they are good at the "technical skills" of their job but they have no idea how to lead a group of people without causing lots of unnecessary friction. There is no way to know how they react to unexpected situations or situations where their view is challenged for for example safety reasons

the news reports say it being a single .45 cal lead bullet from the Colt revolver which they later found from the director's shoulder when treating him in the hospital

- people not affording hiring a real pyrotechnician and thus making their own pyros with GASOLINE without realising that the gasoline vapours travel many meters away from the pouring point very quickly and it will make a very respectable giant flash / fireball when one finally tries to ignite it. Luckily the actors did not burn much at all... I insisted them using diesel fuel for all the rest of their diy pyros and hiring a professional next time (the building was lined with asbestos("minerite") tiling so there was not much of a fire hazard at all except the actors getting on fire if them standing too close to the gasoline nightmare)

It is devastating on low budget shoots to see people getting bashed for trying to maintain a safe working environment for everybody. This encourages the shortcuts being made because the HODs don't dare to speak up or walk off the set in the fear of losing their reputation and further work. I really hope it would be possible to discuss openly about safety issues in this industry without the fear of being stigmatised as a "very difficult person which will not be hired again". I collected just couple of the bad stuff I have came by so far: - indie film where the director wanted to use real .22LR rounds in a gun when shooting a complex dialog scene where the gun is handled by multiple actors pointing it to various directions and towards people and finally shooting with it to a target which was just a feet next to the Cinematographer. I was the only one insisting using blanks or an empty gun for the scene instead of loading the gun with real bullets. Luckily they finally agreed to load their self made blanks instead but they still whined that "the .22LR round is just like a BB gun. it is not lethally dangerous" ? (most of the Finnish school shootings have been done with .22LR guns so yes it IS dangerous and NOT a bb gun) - working on long ladders without any safety measures to prevent falling from 10ft up to about 25ft. I have risked my own life dozens of times in these situations because the alternative has been that the producer would have made a trainee with fear of heights to do the same job and he/she would have had much higher risk of falling down and paralysing or dying than me because of the fear and inexperience - shooting in old industrial buildings with tons of black mould and chemical waste in the air. On one instance the whole crew was sick about two days after it. I would have taken my own gas mask with me if they would have said where we are going to shoot... on the second day I noticed used gas mask filters in that building been left behind by the previous film crew. Go figure. - shooting in places where there is a high risk of stuff falling from the ceiling on people. It is funny when all the crew has safety helmets except the actors because it does not fit their character - people almost driving over persons or equipment in the dark when being close to wrap and everyone is tired. One example is the runner almost driving over the A camera when it was in the middle of the gravel road in the dark after shooting the scene and the AC just walking back toward it to move it - the catering not being careful enough and serving expired food. The worst I have seen is sandwiches which had somehow circulated for days in the catering dept without being thrown away and then the Cinematographer getting a food poisoning when eating one. I gave the catering a talking to even when it was not my job, then they improved a lot - pyrotechnics leaving primed stand-by pyrotechnics stuff behind when leaving hastily. it was not super dangerous stuff so I just let them correct their mistake and be more careful in the future - people doing crazy stuff with snowmobiles, 4-wheelers or motorcycles on set without needing to by the script (mostly because it is fun to show how many horsepowers the thing has) - super low budget film where the script calls the bad guy being hit to the head with an axe. when really thinking it through, the whole crew finally realised that it is not possible to reliably stop the (real, weighting couple of kilos) swinging axe from 1cm before it hitting the actor's head so the action was shot in reverse (looked fun in the end result and was safe to make) - poor safety when working around / on vehicles . Risk of falling down or being crushed by the vehicle - grip dept not being competent enough and messing up with camera cranes, dollies and tracks, etc. heavy equipment which can seriously hurt people if mishandled - electrical safety being all over the place. people accidentally cutting connected extension cords with equipment. Also the typical stuff where people can't figure out wattage vs. fuse amperage relationship or to which circuit they connected the power hungry equipment without asking. One time the DIT almost lost all the day's materials because the Catering connecting the coffee making to the same generator without asking for permission - COVID safety rules being followed strictly when the press is on set but otherwise it is all over the place - driving when tired or extremely tired or insanely tired. Very, very common and I can't even count how many times I have been close to death because of this

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/rust-shooting-alec-baldwin-active-part-investigation-district-attorney-170600019.html A mix of live rounds and dummy rounds on the same set sounds very scary. It would be way way easier to mistake a live round being a dummy round than to mistake a blank being dummy round or a live round being a blank. First bringing dummy rounds on set because they look like live rounds close enough but then bringing live rounds as well which are similar enough to dummy rounds that someone could mix them up with deadly results

technical diving community has improved all the safety aspects a lot when adopting experiences from other industries, especially aviation and analysing how aviation accidents are investigated and learned from. This has improved the overall safety a lot and prevented thousands of life threatening scuba accidents from happening. The film industry has not adapted this approach yet and thus the film industry relies only on the reputation of people to try to prevent accidents from happening (never hiring a person again if he/she has made a mistake in the past) instead of preventing the conditions and procedures in the workplace which promote the accidents being more likely in the first place (for example power dynamics, bad communication, trying to hide small mistakes instead of correcting them, taking shortcuts on checklists and safety checks, wrong or lazy maintenance procedures, etc). Simply determining that the root cause of an accident was a "human error" does not improve safety any further nor prevent consequent accidents from happening... it just promotes culture where people are trying to hide their mistakes rather than correcting them and learning from them as a group

most productions nowadays seem to fake them in post because it is much cheaper than arranging safe shooting conditions for using blanks. CGI muzzle flashes and airsoft guns differ a lot from blanks and real guns in the end result but it is so much cheaper and easier to shoot the scene with them that they are used anyway. most of the flicks using guns are not using them in a realistic way anyway (more of a shoot em up, bang bang, big explosion style) so the cgi muzzle flashes and unrealistic bb/airsoft guns fit those productions perfectly

blanks should have more pronounced muzzle flash so if wanting to have a cinematic flash it would be much more practical to use blanks for that purpose in any case. I was talking about corner cutting indie productions using real rounds for closeup shots where it is shown how the rounds are loaded into the magazine/gun (so that if using a blank for this the viewer would see immediately they are blanks because they don't have bullets in place and/or are crimped. Real productions would have possibility to make special rounds which have the casing and bullet in place but which don't contain any gunpowder or the primer

My reasoning is that NO ONE should handle any kind of firearm or prop (whether it being empty OR containing blanks OR containing live rounds) without having proper extensive safety training for handling and using real firearms first. I would not entrust an actor with a firearm containing blanks if he does not know how to safely handle a similar weapon containing live rounds. Just take the freaking actors and crew to a shooting range for couple of hours and teach them to use the weapons safely with actual real rounds... ONLY THEN they could be even theoretically entrusted with the unloaded prop guns or guns with blanks inside. People have to respect the weapons first before starting to handle them by themselves. and only getting them used to handle "toy guns which are not lethally dangerous and which don't need to be handled carefully" is the exact opposite of the safe handling culture we are trying to emphasise here.

I can see why a corner cutting indie production would use real rounds for close ups: no need to specifically get non operational but real looking props rounds made which would cost more than use the same rounds the gun's owner already has. I never said this was OK, I just said that it is easy to see why this could happen in a small production when corners are cut enough to make things difficult to do safely. Using live rounds would be possible if shooting content where the guns are used on a shooting range and handled just the same way than when used for normal target practicing (not pointing them at people, treating them with respect, no one touches any guns when there is people in the target zone, etc.) . That would work for a documentary style content but for a full scale feature film it is not practical and not safe enough whether shooting on a shooting range or not

most of the media sources specifically stated them being actual rounds, NOT blanks. the most probable explanation for that (if it not being intentional sabotage) is that someone used the gun for target practice (aka playing with it) and just left in laying around when getting bored to it and then the AD just grabbed the nearest gun when it got hasty to shoot the next scene. It tells a lot about the safety culture of the production that there is just random guns laying around with unknown contents and NO ONE checks what is in them before starting using them as props. that is insane on so many levels

I think that all guns should be treated as loaded and lethal weapons at all times unless it is proved every time immediately before using it that it does not contain any live ammunition or other dangerous like a blockage in the barrel when using blanks etc. I see it very problematic that people handle and use guns carelessly, even playing with them, and that action flicks and other media encourage this attitude too. they are not freaking Legos or something even when you can buy them from the same store than the children's toys

Dummy rounds can still lose the bullet and one can then have another brandon lee incident if using blanks after the loose bullet got stuck into the barrel. People playing with guns and ignoring any safety considerations is the issue here which causes accidents to happen no matter where the guns are used or handled. Some idiot could put a rock or a piece of metal in the barrel of a props gun just as a joke and then accidentally kill somebody with it just like there would be a normal bullet

maybe the Americans should have some kind of mandatory gun safety training for everybody if gun carry is allowed by the Constitution. they should teach proper handling in elementary schools for everybody if everybody is allowed to carry a gun by default... and maybe a refresher course for every 5 years or so?

And Baldwin was also the producer on this film so it is absolutely mandatory for him to burn for this accident. As a producer he is directly responsible for the safety issues on set especially when he was the lead actor too and saw all the issues first hand without doing anything to correct them

The only reason i can think of is if they shot a scene previously where someone loaded more rounds in the gun in closeup. But it is incredibly stupid to leave that kind of gun laying around unattended without even removing the live rounds from it. If the live rounds were for somekind of target practice for entertaining the actors during breaks, then it is even less understandable that an accident like this happened. I mean, all the Americans are supposed to know how to handle guns safely by default (and if not knowing then it is not a good idea to touch them at all for any reason)