Production crew walked off Alec Baldwin movie set hours before tragic shooting in row over conditions and were replaced ‘on the fly’ by locals: Workers feared for gun safety after ‘TWO separate misfires’ in days before cinematographer was shot dead

  • The production crew on the set of Rust walked on Thursday morning in a heat over hotel rooms and long hours
  • They had wanted to be put up in Sante Fe, near the ranch where the movie was being shot, but instead were staying in Albuquerque, an hour away, and were too tired to drive every night after long shifts 
  • On Thursday, when they arrived to pack up, they found a team of local workers waiting to replace them
  • Halyna Hutchins decided to stay on the set and film with Alec Baldwin and the film producer Joel Souza 
  • She had been advocating on behalf of her team for better working conditions for them 
  • At 1.50pm, Baldwin fired a prop gun with what he thought contained blank rounds
  • A single bullet pierced through Hutchins and also struck the movie’s director, who survived 
  • Hutchins was airlifted to the hospital but she was pronounced dead; there are now claims there were two other incidents earlier in shooting
  • Deadline cites an unnamed source who says a gun fired while someone was holding it in a cabin 
  • Union rules stipulate that no live rounds are ever to be used on a film set – the replacement crew are not believed to be union members 

Union members vented on social media before the tragedy about the poor conditions on the set of the film. They talked about having to sleep in their cars at the set rather than make the drive back to Albuquerque because they were too exhausted