\n<\/p>\n
The fatal \u201cRust\u201d shooting offered a vivid reminder that many of the guns used on film sets are real. Sometimes they are loaded with inert dummy rounds that resemble real bullets but cannot be fired; that was supposed to be the case in the scene Mr. Baldwin was filming. Sometimes they are loaded with blanks \u2014 cartridges with gunpowder but no projectiles \u2014 that produce a loud bang and a flash when fired. But while live ammunition is almost always banned on sets, real guns can of course also be loaded with real bullets, which is what happened in 2021 on the day Ms. Hutchins was killed.<\/p>\n
That is why, in the days after the \u201cRust\u201d shooting, the Santa Fe County district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, took issue with news reports that had described the weapon that killed Ms. Hutchins as a prop gun. \u201cIt was a legit gun,\u201d she said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Blank fire is far from extinct onscreen. In theaters now, moviegoers are watching the female lead of \u201cPriscilla,\u201d about the marriage of Priscilla and Elvis Presley, shoot blanks in a scene where her character is practicing with a pistol, and in \u201cNapoleon,\u201d about the 19th-century French emperor, actors fire blanks out of period-style muskets.<\/p>\n But since \u201cRust,\u201d many armorers, who are responsible for firearms safety on sets, have seen opportunities dwindle, several said in interviews. And demand has increased for alternatives to real guns. Steven Leek, the co-director of an armory<\/a> in Britain that specializes in gas-powered guns, said that he was getting more requests for them \u2014 though there had been a growing interest before \u201cRust\u201d as well \u2014 and that they were used in \u201cGolda,\u201d the recent Helen Mirren film about Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur War.<\/p>\n Dwayne Johnson, whose production company has produced gun-heavy action titles such as \u201cRed Notice,\u201d has pledged to stop using operable guns, saying \u201cwe won\u2019t worry\u201d about how it might affect visual effects costs. The director Guy Ritchie released a movie this year about the war in Afghanistan, called \u201cThe Covenant,\u201d in which he said he used no real guns, telling Newsweek<\/a> that Airsofts \u201clook as good as real weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is absolutely no reason for anyone to be using real guns on sets,\u201d said Rebecca West, a visual effects producer who has worked on action movies such as this year\u2019s Ben Affleck thriller \u201cHypnotic,\u201d which included a final shootout scene with gunfire that was entirely computer generated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n