January 17, 2025 • 41 mins
It’s the final Rust down! Do do do, do! It’s finally time to tie a bow on our Rust series. We cover the outcome of the Baldwin trial and where all of this leaves us. Please enjoy and don’t worry because we would never curse you to a window without opening a car hole….wait. How does that expression go? Anyhoo, new segment coming soon! Woohoo!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Rust, the final episode. These are the recordings of the Film Folklore Podcast. Its mission?
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To explore topics rarely or never covered by other film podcasts, to seek out willing
guests to relive their work experiences for better or worse, and to boldly uncover often
lost and forgotten issues of the entertainment industry.
And hello film friends, friends of film and everyone in between. Welcome to the Film Folklore
Podcast. I am Jed Props and I am joined today by Zoe Props.
(00:44):
Hello.
And Justin Sound.
Hello.
Joe could not be with us today because he went to see the Parthenon in Athens with a
woman named Anne Tickwitty. Zoe, where's Chris?
Chris is with him. He's Anne Tickwitty.
Oh, that explains the cross dressing.
Yeah, that's his thing now.
(01:05):
Oh yeah.
So, give him a break.
He had Ebola, right? And then he doesn't have Ebola. But he does love women's clothes.
Yes.
Yeah, Ebola does weird things.
Okay, cool.
So continuing with my nerdy Star Trek thing. So co-host log, 2025 on the Gregorian calendar.
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Star date.
Star date.
Well, that's 2025 on the Gregorian calendar.
We don't have a star date.
All right.
I don't know star dates. Like what am I a star date?
I don't know. That's what Captain whatever Picard says.
You think I got my education in the academy?
Our destination is whatever road gets us off of this topic. That's right. It's our final
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Rust episode. You can't see it, but I put that in quotes with my fingers. I want to
save some extra time for the end of the episode for a big announcement and it'll make sense
when we get there. So before we go any further, reference for today's episode comes from Deadline,
NBC News, BBC News, CNN, Variety, Yahoo Entertainment, The Wrap, and basically the whole internet.
(02:16):
Yes, all of the internet.
Can't believe a word of it.
Can't trust any of it. It's all fake news. So where we're going to start here is the
pre-trial of Alec Baldwin. And I guess the question for y'all first is, do you feel we
need a recap? And does anyone feel we need a recap? Or anyone want to summarize what's
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been going on?
I guess where do we leave off?
We left off with the HDR, the Hannah Gutierrez read, and Alex pre-trial was happening soon,
but it was while we were off for the summer months.
Okay. And she went to jail for her full 18 months. That was the max.
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18 months. Gotcha.
The max she could have.
Fair.
Yeah. And yeah, this is about the unfortunate death of Helena Hutchins, the DP from the show
Rust, and how what's kind of gotten to the wayside and all this, as you'll see, is how
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live ammunition got on set seems to have taken a backseat as to just who to point fingers
at and blame.
So we're going to get into it. Anything else? Oh, well, I guess I sort of mentioned it,
but all this went down while we were on hiatus before we started season two. So some people
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listening might know some of this, some of them they don't. People probably were tuning
out at this point, but it all kind of ends with like a weird anticlimactic apathy. If
you watch the Jake Paul, Mike Tyson match, you probably feel similar.
So what happened? For everyone playing, you may recall that the initial charges filed
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against Alec Baldwin were dropped. The new charges were brought up against Baldwin. And
he of course pleaded not guilty to the new involuntary manslaughter charges, thus setting
up a trial date. A different special prosecutor was brought in to lead the charge. Her name
is Carrie Morrissey, a lot more on her in a bit. And a lot of this period was a lot
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of the legal mumbo jumbo, all of your typical legal moves and proceedings were taking place
leading up to the trial, such as the defense wants the case thrown out because of this
or that. Motions were filed, motions were denied. A plea offer was made to Baldwin's
team at one point. It was very similar to the slap on the wrist given to the first AD,
David Halls, which we've already discussed. A special prosecutor Morrissey said the offer
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was made out of fairness, quote, in the spirit of ensuring that similarly situated defendants
do not receive disparate treatment, end quote. This is interesting considering I could find
no evidence of anything being offered to Hannah Gutierrez Reed. So I don't know what she means
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exactly about ensuring basically an even offer when that's not the case. But anywho's in
the end, it didn't matter because the prosecution retracted their offer. And the only explanation
of any kind that was kind of given was a vague comment from Morrissey claiming that she withdrew
the offer after learning of, quote, Mr. Baldwin's ongoing conduct that will continue to cause
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harm to the victims and their families, end quote. We get a small peek into what that
could mean, which we'll get into in a sec. But whatever it means, we will likely never
know the full story because it never really got fully elaborated on. No one questioned
it really. There are some clues, like I mentioned. And there's a lot of accusations, proposed
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sanctions, motions, et cetera, by both sides. It very much felt like this got very personal.
When you see a lot of as we start reading into some of these quotes, there's a lot of
passive aggressive commentary going on. It's kind of funny in some ways, despite it being
about such a sad circumstances. So Morrissey's behavior after the trial ended is especially
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showing, which we'll of course get into. But just a lot of mudslinging. Zoe, this next
thing, would you read? This sort of gets into a little bit of highlighting certain things.
Yeah. So the following highlights are some of the accusations made between the two sides.
In the same aforementioned plea withdrawal, prosecutors accused Baldwin of attempting
(07:00):
to persuade witnesses to the killing to participate in a documentary about Hutchinson's death
in the hopes of improving his long tarnished public image. Other accusations from the state
side include, and I quote, Baldwin using his celebrity status to sway public opinion. Fair
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enough. Baldwin having a history of manipulating public opinion from his previous public run-ins
and various bullying tactics from his legal team led by Alex Spiro and Luke Nikas. Meanwhile,
Team Alec made all kinds of amazing allegations, most interesting of which began, claiming
that Morrissey repeatedly leaked confidential information about the grand jury proceedings
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to an NBC reporter, trying to get her and co-counsel Jason Lewis removed from the case
while requesting monetary penalties be imposed against Morrissey. The same day as the allegations
were made by Nikas, NBC reported an unnamed source as saying that prosecutors hoped a
trial would humble Baldwin and serve as a teachable moment. Okay. Morrissey denied the
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accusations but did not deny speaking with an NBC reporter, nor saying that a trial would
humble Baldwin, though she did go on to say, charges against Mr. Baldwin are not being
pursued because of his criminal history, his impressive level of arrogance, or to teach
him a lesson, so do with that as you will, et cetera, et cetera. So it's clear that things
(08:28):
were getting ugly between both sides more on this.
So you can see that it's getting spicy. It's still a lot of stuff is being presented in
legalese in these things, but it's that kind of reading between the lines. Like the fact
that she still, she refers, she not only calls him arrogant, but says impressive level of
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arrogance. And I will say, I mean, I've never worked with Alec Baldwin. No, I don't think
I have. Yeah, I haven't. I feel like I'd remember that. He certainly has, he has come off that
way in certain interviews, certain things. Sometimes it's just roles he plays, you know,
kind of thing. But I, okay, fair. I could see that. And I could see his very well-paid
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lawyers being bullies, but that's what lawyers do. I mean, lawyers are often bullies. That's
just what they are. So it certainly was getting messier leading up to the trial. And then
July 12th of last year, only four days into the trial, Judge Mary Marlowe, summer, dismissed
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the case altogether after a motion to dismiss was filed by his defense team over some bullets
in question from evidence. And, and Justin, if you'd read this here in a second, it's,
it's crazy for all this hype and everything, how it just, it just suddenly was done and,
and we'll get into it now, if you would. Yeah. The decision by Judge summer to dismiss the
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case came four days into Baldwin's trial and at the end of a rocky evidentiary hearing
over a defense motion to dismiss the case, the bullets in question were dropped off to
police in the spring by ex Arizona cop, Troy Teske, a close friend of still incarcerated
rust armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed's legendary gun coach father, Thel Reed. That's wordy.
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So Thel Reed was friends with Troy Teske. Correct. Okay. Um, the prosecution asserted
that the bullets had nothing to do with the case despite the apparent misfiling by the
police, whether an oversight or a lie, the admittance of tainted evidence was the final
straw for the judge to throw out the case. Yeah. So essentially bullets showed up, they
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were delivered by someone not on the case that wasn't even like in that particular law
enforcement jurisdiction and they got submitted into evidence and basically the prosecution
was saying, Oh no, it was a mistake. Those should have never been admitted into evidence.
They have nothing to do with the case. And the defense is going like, well, if they had
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nothing to do in the case, why were they submitted to evidence? Or are we just going to go into
the incompetence of you guys? You know, so it, from the judge's standpoint, it became
kind of like, well, whatever the, the reason cause, whatever the fact is, is that this
is tainted evidence and this taints the case. And so it was enough for a judge summer to
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say I'm done with all of you and case is done. So, um, uh, essentially, um, when it comes
to evidence, there's a chain of command and by having that chain of command broken, that's
what, uh, they start considered tainted cause you can't trust the point a to point B of
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say from crime scene to court, you know, there's a very particular chain that those things
have to fall. Um, when I was putting all this research together and reading different things,
one of the things I read, uh, was in reference to, um, uh, Spiro and, and, uh, and Lucas,
uh, saying brilliant lawyering. And I actually had to stop from memory. Like is lawyering
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a word? I mean, it's in this article. It's gotta be a word. Like, but that's happened
this.
There's a lot talking.
Exactly. That's exactly what I was thinking. I was like, Hey, sweet lawyering. Um, so anyway,
as you'd imagine lead prosecutor, Carrie Morrissey did not take this lightly. She will go on,
uh, go on to file multiple appeals to salvage the case, each looking increasingly desperate
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and rejected equally by judge summer. And as of the present, the state of New Mexico
is seeking no new charges against Alec Baldwin and his case stays dismissed. But for anyone
believing Baldwin holds culpability, fear not, as there are a copious amount of civil
suits he's tied to of which we will not cover. Um, I for, I just don't want to. Um, uh, and
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then some suits I learned are ones he's actually filed against, uh, some of the former crew
where his team's pointing fingers. So that'll be a nice soup of a legal mess for years to
come, unfortunately. Um, but what gets comically bad is how awful the prosecution looked at
the end of the saga and the desperation filings didn't help anything. Uh, Justin, if you'd
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read the next, uh, piece. Yep. Because the state's amended motion raises arguments previously
made and arguments that the state elected not to raise earlier, the court does not find
the amended motion well taken. The filing was also made outside of the time limit for
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such filings to which judge summer later continued the amended motion is untimely. Therefore
the court does not find the amended motion well taken due to its untimeliness. Yes. Well,
if only we could speak this way in real life. Um, you know, I understand you want to go
out, but, uh, your request is just not well received at this time. Um, but if you want
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to file your request to go out later, we can do that. It's very untimely for me. Um, yeah,
it's I mean, that's basically a polite way of saying, uh, this is, uh, poor and incorrect
and get out of here. Yeah. It's a waste of my time. Yeah. Um, so, uh, now we'll get into
the aftermath of the trial, uh, conclusion, some interesting asides. There's a lot more
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detail that we glossed over and I mean, anyone listening, you're more than welcome to go
down that rabbit hole. Um, but a lot of it is just like being a dead horse. The appeals
got more desperate, like we said, and until very likely Morrissey was instructed to just
give it up. I mean, that's my opinion, but the way it played out, I just don't know what
boss would have not pulled her off the case and closed it because it was just becoming
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a bad look. Um, I don't know if it was the final filing, but one of the filings I remember
reading for example, that it was like an absurd, like 30 pages longer than it should have been.
And I guess there's like a maximum size to these kinds of things. And so the judge was
pissed cause it was extra reading. There was that part of it. And then also in that same
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filing they were only repeating things. There wasn't anything new, which is sort of what
the judge was saying in that comment, but it was like, you brought us all here with
not only did you not even father followed the procedure correctly, but you're not putting
anything in here that's new or different. You're just kind of regurgitating the same
thing over. So no, this is done. Like unless you got something new, like, you know, get
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the fuck out of it. That's it. Also, like, I don't know. I'm, I'm not celebrity obsessed.
I get celebrity obsession, whatever, but the whole like, we got to teach them a lesson
is so like, actors aren't above the law. And like, no, no, nobody's, nobody's thinking
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that it's, you know what I mean? It's complicated. It's weird, but like, why, why do we have
to do this? We got to teach him a lesson. Like I'll be the first to say who a lot of
actors do not live in our universe. No, I'll be the first to agree with that. It's almost
impressive sometimes about how out of touch they can be with the universe that we live
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in. That said, I don't feel like they're somehow people that are on some plane that because
of their public status or something like that, that there they need to be beholden to laws
differently or something like that. I think it's the same process we all go through. I
don't see any need to teach a lesson differently. I mean, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Then I'm like,
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sure maybe if we're talking about like top politicians or something like that, that I
do feel are above the law. Okay, fine. But actors aren't that far. I mean, the worst
thing I can think about actors is right now with the fires, which, you know, we haven't
really talked about, but you know, obviously our hearts go out to those that have been
in it for one or worse reasons. But they, you know, I've read some stories about them
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using private firefighter services to, you know, keep their properties. Okay. And that's
a whole other debate and conversation, but you know, you can judge that one way or another,
a they have the money to do it or B morally, maybe it's wrong, you know, whatever. But
also do that's anybody that top 1% money. Like it's all, it's all, it's all about money.
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Exactly. It's all about money. And that doesn't, that's not looking like they're above the
law. It's just looking like they have means that, you know, y'all we don't have, you know,
cutting anyway. Yeah. So as Morrissey was told to give up the case, basically it's,
it's, it basically put an end to as far as the criminal charges aspect go, makes Baldwin
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clear. But there are some interesting asides worth mentioning, and we're going to get to
it in a second. But as far as like the, the kind of anticlimactic into this tragedy on
the criminal side, how do y'all feel about the way this played out? I guess in terms
of do you feel like any justice was served? Do you feel like, you know, poorly handled
(18:51):
in hindsight? Is there an alternative you would have preferred? You know, how do y'all
feel after, after seeing this from point A to point B?
I feel like it was just always a, it was a safety issue. It was a safety issue that is
in multiple people's hands. That's hard. It's hard to bring that in front of a jury. And
personally, I don't, I don't think that Alec Baldwin should have had criminal charges against
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him. I've, I've seen actors get handed stuff and you know, normally we, we have safety
meetings about guns on set and all those things that we've talked about. But like, at the
end of the day, like, I don't know, he held it. He thought it was clear. Oopsie daisy.
Yeah. I think the people handing him that and you know, all the ammunition stuff, but
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I'm like, at the end of the day, I'm like 18 months is a long time. That was a young
woman too. Like that sucks. I feel bad. Yeah. I feel bad for her. I do. It sounds like I
heard nothing but lovely things about her. And yeah, I mean, I've been put in situations
where like my boss has told me to do something that I'm like, I don't really, I don't necessarily
think that that's safe or I don't feel comfortable with doing that. But for the sake of just
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moving on with my life and my day and saving faith, all those things, like you do it and
it ends up being fine. So I feel, I do feel bad. I feel bad for her. 18 months doesn't
seem like a long time compared to 10 years or whatever. But I think that we discredit
how long that actually is to be away from your friends and family and sitting in a cell.
Like that sucks. 18 months is a long time. So I don't know. This is, this has always
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been a tricky one for me. I feel, I feel kind of bad for everybody. It's feels just icky
and sad and it feels like the people that were actually guilty kind of, I don't know,
feels like they kind of found a scapegoat and were able to be like, eh, whatever. Yeah.
You know, how didn't, why didn't she get out whenever that same evidence was brought up?
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So because that's even closer of a conflict of interest to her case. They don't want to
take her family. Yeah. So that's actually the first thing I have in the asides because
yeah, Hannah's legal team lost an appeal using the same faulty evidence as a reason to have
her case thrown out. And that doesn't make any damn sense. Same judge, Judge Sommer is
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the one who denied it. So it is interesting. The only thing I can think of, which this
doesn't make it right, but it kind of going back to when we talked about what manslaughter
is, you know, as a, as a charge that states, and by that, I mean, just like the legal side
of things of, of governments, they, they feel that if somebody dies, there has to be culpability.
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That's that's just the bottom line. Yeah. Someone went to jail and they don't want to
release someone from jail because it makes it, I mean, because David Hall's got the,
he's got the immunity and the slap on the wrist and all that, because he made the plea
deal early on. I think it was the first to make a plea deal. That put him in the clear
and absolved his culpability. And then by not having Alec, that kind of leaves Hannah
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because they never charged the prop master. They never charged the ammo supplier or anything.
But that's all other litigation y'all are welcome to read about that we're not going
to, but there's so much finger pointing and it's such a mess. It was not well handled
by the police at certain points. The prosecution, I think in hindsight had regrets about making
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the plea deal with halls because they didn't have all the information yet. And you know,
once you make that deal and the paperwork signed, you can't undo it. Yeah. No takes
backs. Yeah. No take you back. So much of like the legal system and like prison is like,
no takes backs. Yeah. So you're innocent. Sorry. That's where you leave Hannah. And
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this is kind of just my opinion of it, but I think she just kind of becomes the figure
head of, of the finale of the crime. She's the only one that they could meet out of punishment.
So the fact that it's 18 months also, I could see where the judge is like by the time, even
if I said yes to this and it went through its process, you're probably almost out anyway.
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Yeah. Yeah. And one thing I will say about, then she could sue the city if it eventually
she could turn it. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, appeals appeals are a whole thing, man. It's
yeah. Yeah. Her, her jail, they would drag it out purposefully. Yeah. Yeah. Her jail
calls, which I have, I would say of all this reading, I, I have ascertained that she might
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not be the brightest crayon in the box of certain things. She definitely, her youthfulness
shows in a lot of comments and stuff that she's made. But when she was in jail, her,
her phone conversations, which my God, anyone, if you don't listen or watch true crime, maybe
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you don't know this is common knowledge, but don't just talk casually on a jailhouse phone.
They're always listening and they're always recording and you're an idiot. So of course,
she said things about how she shouldn't be there. She had no culpability, didn't have
any signs of remorse or anything like that. It was just, I shouldn't be here. This is
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bullshit. Blah, blah, blah. And that was kind of it. So, I mean, take that for what you
will, you know, in her own, I mean, I, I, yeah, she has a hand in it. I mean, for sure. But
she also, as we've already talked about young and experience, you know, the movie was poorly
handled all around the fact that also people love to throw around that they didn't show
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any remorse. I'm like, they can't show remorse every second of the day. Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know. You know, her, uh, pissed too. Yeah, I would too. Like you can, I don't know,
you can feel bad about something and yeah, but also, yeah, that shit's recorded bitch.
Her being the, I mean, I certainly would be in her shoes of anger of like, like I'm the
(25:08):
fall person on this because no one else has taken a blame, you know, kind of thing. And,
and the way it played out, she was kind of the only person to go after just because the
way the prosecution handled it. Yeah. So you left her and Alec as the only viable options
to, you know, cause you had already worked your way out of these other people. Yeah.
And, and again, all of this is sort of going past the whole issue of there was real ammo
(25:37):
on a film set and still don't know how it got there. Probably will never be clear how
it got there. And to me that should have been the core of the investigation is trying to
figure out how on earth this could have, like, what are the, what are the possibilities?
There can only be a handful. So what are the possibilities and explore each one of those.
But I think also our film universe is such a weird universe to an outside person. Yeah.
(26:02):
Which again, we've already talked about, but it makes it hard for, it makes it hard for
our stuff to translate back into, I'll just call it real world stuff. Sometimes when we're
looking for work, cause there is no work, it's hard to translate our normal film jobs
into regular world. It's not, it's not an assembly line. It's always kind of different.
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Even if it's the same, it's not, it's not, you know what I mean? Based on even just,
yeah, location, the script, things like that, that it's hard to really, I imagine like a
detective investigator, lawyer, whatever would have a kind of a hard time. Well, they didn't,
they didn't know who, like who's an expert we should be talking to. They didn't know
(26:46):
the right people they should be talking to. And they talked to a lot of people they shouldn't
have been talking to. A lot of people that just wanted to be in the spotlight for, you
know, their 15 minutes of fame or whatever you say. And, and it's what it is at this
point. But as an industry, we do follow OSHA, which is the occupational health and safety
(27:07):
administration for anyone that doesn't know that. And anytime an industry, and this is,
this could be auto workers, this could be glass factory, it could be, you know, whatever.
We all follow the same OSHA, you know, coast to coast in the US. And OSHA as a standard
(27:28):
did their own investigation, which they always do when a safety accident happens. And the
very first thing they did was wipe the number of days since last accident and they reset
it to zero. I'm kidding. They always make sure that thing's correct. But no, they, they
did their own investigation and they had concluded that quote, Baldwin, though he was a producer
(27:51):
on the film was not in a position of management authority and was not culpable for the lack
of oversight, end quote. And I thought it was worth mention because this is coming from
OSHA. It's the same group that would investigate any safety accident. And they're probably
more film aware just because we follow their standards and agreements and things than say,
(28:16):
the prosecution or Johnny Cupp, Johnny La. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so a couple other
sides. So had the case gone to full trial, the Colt replica. And just to be clear, I'm
saying replica in terms of it's a remake of a 19th century handgun, not that it's what
(28:39):
we also in the industry call a replica, which is just a hunk of metal that looks like a
real gun and doesn't fire. Yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of issues that were not well reported
on. So like to give an example, it's commonly reported that that particular Colton question
was tested by the FBI. And the conclusion was that it could not fire without a trigger
(29:00):
pull. And Baldwin repeatedly denied he ever pulled the trigger. That part got a lot of
press. But what got less press is that the weapon had apparently been modified before
it was used. It's never been clear what the modifications were. But when they were doing
testing, the weapon also got damaged during testing, had to be rebuilt. So whatever damage
(29:23):
happened to it, they had to rebuild the gun. And we don't know what degree of damage and
repair because it's never been made clear. But that all seems to me to muddy the, and
this might be why they were being sensitive about it because you start putting in those
little details in the FBI report, starts having holes in it because of all these other things
(29:46):
that are getting less mentioned. And I think it's safe to say that had Baldwin's trial
gone full length, that probably would have been one of the center points about it would
have been a myriad of experts parading in for both sides saying this and that. And you
would have gotten into all this extremely boring stuff about the makings of this gun.
(30:06):
So we'll just never know at this point. And then lastly, I want to throw in Alec himself
has recently made claims that a lot of new information will soon be revealed about the
shooting and he claimed to be the victim of a smear campaign. For a man that hates Trump,
(30:27):
it sure reeks of the same shitty ilk. They're all out to get him. So that my friends is
the conclusion of the rust tragedy and the extremely avoidable and senseless death of
Helena Hutchins, who we don't want to lose sight of in this entire thing. She is the
tragic victim in this quagmire. So any, I guess, final thoughts before I get to our
(30:55):
big announcement? Any rust closing comments? No, that's the crest of it. Are your mouths
rusted shut? Am I right? No, it's just sad. It's a sad drag. And it's sad that a woman
died just doing her job, man. You know, she's a freak. Over under that Hannah will be a
(31:24):
armor on a film set again. Now one, I'm going to say the over under is at one. Well, actually,
no felons can work in film. Never mind. Forget it. She'll be back. She'll be back. Forget
it. I was like, oh, finding a job as a felon. But I'm like, oh, yeah, no. Yeah. All right.
(31:45):
So yeah, I mean, if there's something interesting that crops up in the news, we might mention
it, but we're certainly not going to do any more episode covers on it. We have beaten
that dead horse. But we hope that you all enjoyed the series. And we kind of got the
idea that we could use this to branch into maybe a new series that we're going to start.
(32:09):
So the big announcement is that we're going to have a new segment that's going to highlight
other kind of senseless and avoidable deaths from previous projects. And the hope is in
doing this is to not only remember the those that lost their lives and keep names in memory,
but also to do our part to kind of keep safety in perspective in hopes of better working
conditions for crew and actors. That's something that I think we're off mic talking earlier.
(32:36):
But it was never really the full intention of this podcast to be so safety oriented.
But it's a theme that we keep coming back to in a lot of these things. And basically
to separate this from, say, the legendary lures, the legendary lures, you know, I'm
going to keep those at like, this is crazy. This is, you know, it's almost shocking. No
(32:57):
one died on Super Mario Brothers kind of thing. And then say for this installment, you know,
we'll cover things like Brandon Lee, the crow, the helicopter crash in the Twilight Zone
movie, camera assistant Sarah Jones, both the 1925 and 59 been her movies, although
(33:18):
the 59, 1959 one might be a legendary lore. Anywho's camera assistant, Brent Hirschman,
special effects tech Clifford Wenger, if I hope I didn't mispronounce that. And there's,
I mean, sadly, there's a lot. And what I didn't put on the shortlist is a stunt person because
(33:39):
as you could probably imagine, they're way above everyone else in the death category.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuntmen that die, even contemporary that just don't really
get a lot of reporting and stuff. There's a lot of injury and death. I've definitely
been on some shows where stuntmen have gotten severely injured. Luckily, no one died. But
(34:02):
yeah, they still even with today's technology and everything else, it's still a very dangerous
world for stuntmen and women. Stunt people. There we go. So stunt people are people too.
So I think one of the things that we're lacking for this at the moment, and I invite Zoe and
(34:23):
Justin and the ghosts of Chris and Joe and as well as people listening, we need to come
up with a good title for this new segment. And so that's something I've been wrestling
with. But if anyone has any good ideas, feel free to email us. I think that would be fun
to come up with something. So I think the way I'm going to say we're closing a window,
(34:45):
but we're opening a door. So with that said, well, I guess before that one last thing.
Closing a door, opening a window. Yeah, sure. Whatever.
Climbing out the window, going back through the door. Yeah. Yeah. Getting out of the basement.
Going in the attic. I don't know. We've got an elevator.
(35:11):
Going from the first floor to the... Whatever. So any comments as far as our new segment
or anything like that? Justin, you already knew. Zoe, it's kind of news for you. What
do you think? I like it. Everything comes back to safety.
Yeah. And I mean, even just, I don't know, things.
(35:32):
I kind of feel like we're inherently unsafe, but try to be safe. And there are, I don't
know, I got a whole nuanced opinion on safety. I will say after taking the OSHA, we call
it the OSHA 10 class. When I took the OSHA 10 class, I think everyone has a similar thing
experience, but there's about somewhere between like five days to a week kind of period where
(36:01):
you immediately get out of that class. And for that first, say five-ish days.
You're an expert on all the safety things. You notice everything. You're an asshole about
it. Yeah. You notice everything. Those stairs have
no rail. Yeah. I think it was like two weeks for me. I was like, well, it's not OSHA approved.
You can't help it. No, you can't. I mean, I think that's why safety issues happen because
(36:24):
that person is fucking annoying. They're annoying. So it's just like, eh, whatever. I've done
it like this before. And then that's how accidents happen. Because you don't want to be that
person even when you do notice. There's one thing, like a big, big safety thing of like,
come on guys. But it's the little things that anytime that person's around, it's like, fuck
off. You're as popular as a COVID compliance officer.
(36:47):
Yeah. Nobody likes the hall monitor. That's the reason why bullies exist. Yeah.
It is weird because what you learn is that a lot of safety is common sense. You just
don't usually think about it because you just kind of do it inherently. But there is a lot
(37:12):
of stuff where it's like, hey, this is a hot stove. If I touch it, I'll burn my hand kind
of concept. Yeah. And then when someone does it, you go, no, why did he do that? He knew
that was hot. Like that's a weird one. So I mean, sometimes it just happens. Yeah. Unfortunately.
So, Justin, any thoughts? Yeah, no, I can, I am a big advocate for safety, but I can
(37:37):
definitely use my own reminders from time to time. So it'll be good. Yeah. Cause you
know, I get in the zone and I just, I let things fly. We all do though. I mean, our
job sometimes calls for being a little bit unsafe in that moment. You have to do something
quickly. That's what the scene is calling for. And nobody's, you know what I mean? Like
(38:00):
we know he's looking, whatever. And it's nothing like something big and insane and dangerous.
It's like a little small thing that's just like, Oh, maybe this isn't, but I might fall
off this ladder and break my ankle, but I probably won't die. Yeah. Like, yeah, nobody
else is going to get hurt. I've hopped off a lift gate being like, it's fine. I'm, you
(38:21):
know, I'm young, I can do this, but I'm like, Oh man, if I were to just kind of lose my
footing a little bit, I might really hurt myself. Why did I slip? Yeah. Yeah. Like,
you know, it's things like that. Yeah. It's not too indifferent about peeing in public
and trying to not get caught. I know I shouldn't do this, but man, do I really need to go right
now? And I don't want to have to go all the way over there. And so anyway, yeah, as far
(38:48):
as P goes, P where you got to P this, that's the safe thing to do. Don't hold it in.
Cause that reminds me of a lot of, we're true Frenchmen here. So I mean, I've been on shows
where there've, there've been like PAs and background extras who have felt like they
(39:08):
needed to hold it in because they couldn't go to a bathroom because a scene was about
to start or something like that. Don't hold it in. They can wait for you. Yeah. Yeah.
Agreed. That's the safe thing. Yeah. The moral, the moral here today is P when you got to
P and respect your hall monitors. Yeah. All right. So yeah, like we said, we're closing
(39:37):
a garage door and opening a safe door. Car window. Car hole. That's the analogy. Car
hole. So thank you. And we hope you keep enjoying the show. Please subscribe, rate and review
all that stuff. It's not just a thing that podcasts ask of listeners. It's actually vital
(40:01):
to us continuing. So if you like what we're doing, take a minute and be like a Suze with
big hair and Libra for justice. I guess that's right. Suze has big hair. Which by the way,
like something, say something. Yeah. It helps us out a lot. And Zoe, you're just itching
(40:23):
to say something over there, aren't you? Yes. Do you like what we're doing here? Do you
have thoughts, comments, questions? Maybe you have an idea or suggestion for topics
you want to hear about? Well, you can find us on the intrawebs. You can email us at filmfoklorpodcast
at gmail.com. You can find us on the social medias. Instagram being Film Folklore Podcast.
(40:48):
We have a Facebook group called Film Folklore. Twitter X, whatever you want to call it at
the Film Folk. And yeah, thanks for joining us today. All right. Thanks everybody. We
look forward to seeing you next time. Bye.
Rust, the final episode. These are the recordings of the Film Folklore Podcast. Its mission?
(00:19):
To explore topics rarely or never covered by other film podcasts, to seek out willing
guests to relive their work experiences for better or worse, and to boldly uncover often
lost and forgotten issues of the entertainment industry.
And hello film friends, friends of film and everyone in between. Welcome to the Film Folklore
Podcast. I am Jed Props and I am joined today by Zoe Props.
(00:44):
Hello.
And Justin Sound.
Hello.
Joe could not be with us today because he went to see the Parthenon in Athens with a
woman named Anne Tickwitty. Zoe, where's Chris?
Chris is with him. He's Anne Tickwitty.
Oh, that explains the cross dressing.
Yeah, that's his thing now.
(01:05):
Oh yeah.
So, give him a break.
He had Ebola, right? And then he doesn't have Ebola. But he does love women's clothes.
Yes.
Yeah, Ebola does weird things.
Okay, cool.
So continuing with my nerdy Star Trek thing. So co-host log, 2025 on the Gregorian calendar.
(01:25):
Star date.
Star date.
Well, that's 2025 on the Gregorian calendar.
We don't have a star date.
All right.
I don't know star dates. Like what am I a star date?
I don't know. That's what Captain whatever Picard says.
You think I got my education in the academy?
Our destination is whatever road gets us off of this topic. That's right. It's our final
(01:50):
Rust episode. You can't see it, but I put that in quotes with my fingers. I want to
save some extra time for the end of the episode for a big announcement and it'll make sense
when we get there. So before we go any further, reference for today's episode comes from Deadline,
NBC News, BBC News, CNN, Variety, Yahoo Entertainment, The Wrap, and basically the whole internet.
(02:16):
Yes, all of the internet.
Can't believe a word of it.
Can't trust any of it. It's all fake news. So where we're going to start here is the
pre-trial of Alec Baldwin. And I guess the question for y'all first is, do you feel we
need a recap? And does anyone feel we need a recap? Or anyone want to summarize what's
(02:40):
been going on?
I guess where do we leave off?
We left off with the HDR, the Hannah Gutierrez read, and Alex pre-trial was happening soon,
but it was while we were off for the summer months.
Okay. And she went to jail for her full 18 months. That was the max.
(03:02):
18 months. Gotcha.
The max she could have.
Fair.
Yeah. And yeah, this is about the unfortunate death of Helena Hutchins, the DP from the show
Rust, and how what's kind of gotten to the wayside and all this, as you'll see, is how
(03:23):
live ammunition got on set seems to have taken a backseat as to just who to point fingers
at and blame.
So we're going to get into it. Anything else? Oh, well, I guess I sort of mentioned it,
but all this went down while we were on hiatus before we started season two. So some people
(03:44):
listening might know some of this, some of them they don't. People probably were tuning
out at this point, but it all kind of ends with like a weird anticlimactic apathy. If
you watch the Jake Paul, Mike Tyson match, you probably feel similar.
So what happened? For everyone playing, you may recall that the initial charges filed
(04:05):
against Alec Baldwin were dropped. The new charges were brought up against Baldwin. And
he of course pleaded not guilty to the new involuntary manslaughter charges, thus setting
up a trial date. A different special prosecutor was brought in to lead the charge. Her name
is Carrie Morrissey, a lot more on her in a bit. And a lot of this period was a lot
(04:29):
of the legal mumbo jumbo, all of your typical legal moves and proceedings were taking place
leading up to the trial, such as the defense wants the case thrown out because of this
or that. Motions were filed, motions were denied. A plea offer was made to Baldwin's
team at one point. It was very similar to the slap on the wrist given to the first AD,
David Halls, which we've already discussed. A special prosecutor Morrissey said the offer
(04:56):
was made out of fairness, quote, in the spirit of ensuring that similarly situated defendants
do not receive disparate treatment, end quote. This is interesting considering I could find
no evidence of anything being offered to Hannah Gutierrez Reed. So I don't know what she means
(05:18):
exactly about ensuring basically an even offer when that's not the case. But anywho's in
the end, it didn't matter because the prosecution retracted their offer. And the only explanation
of any kind that was kind of given was a vague comment from Morrissey claiming that she withdrew
the offer after learning of, quote, Mr. Baldwin's ongoing conduct that will continue to cause
(05:42):
harm to the victims and their families, end quote. We get a small peek into what that
could mean, which we'll get into in a sec. But whatever it means, we will likely never
know the full story because it never really got fully elaborated on. No one questioned
it really. There are some clues, like I mentioned. And there's a lot of accusations, proposed
(06:08):
sanctions, motions, et cetera, by both sides. It very much felt like this got very personal.
When you see a lot of as we start reading into some of these quotes, there's a lot of
passive aggressive commentary going on. It's kind of funny in some ways, despite it being
about such a sad circumstances. So Morrissey's behavior after the trial ended is especially
(06:37):
showing, which we'll of course get into. But just a lot of mudslinging. Zoe, this next
thing, would you read? This sort of gets into a little bit of highlighting certain things.
Yeah. So the following highlights are some of the accusations made between the two sides.
In the same aforementioned plea withdrawal, prosecutors accused Baldwin of attempting
(07:00):
to persuade witnesses to the killing to participate in a documentary about Hutchinson's death
in the hopes of improving his long tarnished public image. Other accusations from the state
side include, and I quote, Baldwin using his celebrity status to sway public opinion. Fair
(07:20):
enough. Baldwin having a history of manipulating public opinion from his previous public run-ins
and various bullying tactics from his legal team led by Alex Spiro and Luke Nikas. Meanwhile,
Team Alec made all kinds of amazing allegations, most interesting of which began, claiming
that Morrissey repeatedly leaked confidential information about the grand jury proceedings
(07:44):
to an NBC reporter, trying to get her and co-counsel Jason Lewis removed from the case
while requesting monetary penalties be imposed against Morrissey. The same day as the allegations
were made by Nikas, NBC reported an unnamed source as saying that prosecutors hoped a
trial would humble Baldwin and serve as a teachable moment. Okay. Morrissey denied the
(08:08):
accusations but did not deny speaking with an NBC reporter, nor saying that a trial would
humble Baldwin, though she did go on to say, charges against Mr. Baldwin are not being
pursued because of his criminal history, his impressive level of arrogance, or to teach
him a lesson, so do with that as you will, et cetera, et cetera. So it's clear that things
(08:28):
were getting ugly between both sides more on this.
So you can see that it's getting spicy. It's still a lot of stuff is being presented in
legalese in these things, but it's that kind of reading between the lines. Like the fact
that she still, she refers, she not only calls him arrogant, but says impressive level of
(08:51):
arrogance. And I will say, I mean, I've never worked with Alec Baldwin. No, I don't think
I have. Yeah, I haven't. I feel like I'd remember that. He certainly has, he has come off that
way in certain interviews, certain things. Sometimes it's just roles he plays, you know,
kind of thing. But I, okay, fair. I could see that. And I could see his very well-paid
(09:17):
lawyers being bullies, but that's what lawyers do. I mean, lawyers are often bullies. That's
just what they are. So it certainly was getting messier leading up to the trial. And then
July 12th of last year, only four days into the trial, Judge Mary Marlowe, summer, dismissed
(09:44):
the case altogether after a motion to dismiss was filed by his defense team over some bullets
in question from evidence. And, and Justin, if you'd read this here in a second, it's,
it's crazy for all this hype and everything, how it just, it just suddenly was done and,
and we'll get into it now, if you would. Yeah. The decision by Judge summer to dismiss the
(10:09):
case came four days into Baldwin's trial and at the end of a rocky evidentiary hearing
over a defense motion to dismiss the case, the bullets in question were dropped off to
police in the spring by ex Arizona cop, Troy Teske, a close friend of still incarcerated
rust armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed's legendary gun coach father, Thel Reed. That's wordy.
(10:37):
So Thel Reed was friends with Troy Teske. Correct. Okay. Um, the prosecution asserted
that the bullets had nothing to do with the case despite the apparent misfiling by the
police, whether an oversight or a lie, the admittance of tainted evidence was the final
straw for the judge to throw out the case. Yeah. So essentially bullets showed up, they
(11:03):
were delivered by someone not on the case that wasn't even like in that particular law
enforcement jurisdiction and they got submitted into evidence and basically the prosecution
was saying, Oh no, it was a mistake. Those should have never been admitted into evidence.
They have nothing to do with the case. And the defense is going like, well, if they had
(11:26):
nothing to do in the case, why were they submitted to evidence? Or are we just going to go into
the incompetence of you guys? You know, so it, from the judge's standpoint, it became
kind of like, well, whatever the, the reason cause, whatever the fact is, is that this
is tainted evidence and this taints the case. And so it was enough for a judge summer to
(11:47):
say I'm done with all of you and case is done. So, um, uh, essentially, um, when it comes
to evidence, there's a chain of command and by having that chain of command broken, that's
what, uh, they start considered tainted cause you can't trust the point a to point B of
(12:09):
say from crime scene to court, you know, there's a very particular chain that those things
have to fall. Um, when I was putting all this research together and reading different things,
one of the things I read, uh, was in reference to, um, uh, Spiro and, and, uh, and Lucas,
uh, saying brilliant lawyering. And I actually had to stop from memory. Like is lawyering
(12:35):
a word? I mean, it's in this article. It's gotta be a word. Like, but that's happened
this.
There's a lot talking.
Exactly. That's exactly what I was thinking. I was like, Hey, sweet lawyering. Um, so anyway,
as you'd imagine lead prosecutor, Carrie Morrissey did not take this lightly. She will go on,
uh, go on to file multiple appeals to salvage the case, each looking increasingly desperate
(12:58):
and rejected equally by judge summer. And as of the present, the state of New Mexico
is seeking no new charges against Alec Baldwin and his case stays dismissed. But for anyone
believing Baldwin holds culpability, fear not, as there are a copious amount of civil
suits he's tied to of which we will not cover. Um, I for, I just don't want to. Um, uh, and
(13:23):
then some suits I learned are ones he's actually filed against, uh, some of the former crew
where his team's pointing fingers. So that'll be a nice soup of a legal mess for years to
come, unfortunately. Um, but what gets comically bad is how awful the prosecution looked at
the end of the saga and the desperation filings didn't help anything. Uh, Justin, if you'd
(13:45):
read the next, uh, piece. Yep. Because the state's amended motion raises arguments previously
made and arguments that the state elected not to raise earlier, the court does not find
the amended motion well taken. The filing was also made outside of the time limit for
(14:06):
such filings to which judge summer later continued the amended motion is untimely. Therefore
the court does not find the amended motion well taken due to its untimeliness. Yes. Well,
if only we could speak this way in real life. Um, you know, I understand you want to go
out, but, uh, your request is just not well received at this time. Um, but if you want
(14:32):
to file your request to go out later, we can do that. It's very untimely for me. Um, yeah,
it's I mean, that's basically a polite way of saying, uh, this is, uh, poor and incorrect
and get out of here. Yeah. It's a waste of my time. Yeah. Um, so, uh, now we'll get into
the aftermath of the trial, uh, conclusion, some interesting asides. There's a lot more
(14:56):
detail that we glossed over and I mean, anyone listening, you're more than welcome to go
down that rabbit hole. Um, but a lot of it is just like being a dead horse. The appeals
got more desperate, like we said, and until very likely Morrissey was instructed to just
give it up. I mean, that's my opinion, but the way it played out, I just don't know what
boss would have not pulled her off the case and closed it because it was just becoming
(15:20):
a bad look. Um, I don't know if it was the final filing, but one of the filings I remember
reading for example, that it was like an absurd, like 30 pages longer than it should have been.
And I guess there's like a maximum size to these kinds of things. And so the judge was
pissed cause it was extra reading. There was that part of it. And then also in that same
(15:43):
filing they were only repeating things. There wasn't anything new, which is sort of what
the judge was saying in that comment, but it was like, you brought us all here with
not only did you not even father followed the procedure correctly, but you're not putting
anything in here that's new or different. You're just kind of regurgitating the same
thing over. So no, this is done. Like unless you got something new, like, you know, get
(16:05):
the fuck out of it. That's it. Also, like, I don't know. I'm, I'm not celebrity obsessed.
I get celebrity obsession, whatever, but the whole like, we got to teach them a lesson
is so like, actors aren't above the law. And like, no, no, nobody's, nobody's thinking
(16:26):
that it's, you know what I mean? It's complicated. It's weird, but like, why, why do we have
to do this? We got to teach him a lesson. Like I'll be the first to say who a lot of
actors do not live in our universe. No, I'll be the first to agree with that. It's almost
impressive sometimes about how out of touch they can be with the universe that we live
(16:48):
in. That said, I don't feel like they're somehow people that are on some plane that because
of their public status or something like that, that there they need to be beholden to laws
differently or something like that. I think it's the same process we all go through. I
don't see any need to teach a lesson differently. I mean, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Then I'm like,
(17:12):
sure maybe if we're talking about like top politicians or something like that, that I
do feel are above the law. Okay, fine. But actors aren't that far. I mean, the worst
thing I can think about actors is right now with the fires, which, you know, we haven't
really talked about, but you know, obviously our hearts go out to those that have been
in it for one or worse reasons. But they, you know, I've read some stories about them
(17:39):
using private firefighter services to, you know, keep their properties. Okay. And that's
a whole other debate and conversation, but you know, you can judge that one way or another,
a they have the money to do it or B morally, maybe it's wrong, you know, whatever. But
also do that's anybody that top 1% money. Like it's all, it's all, it's all about money.
(18:01):
Exactly. It's all about money. And that doesn't, that's not looking like they're above the
law. It's just looking like they have means that, you know, y'all we don't have, you know,
cutting anyway. Yeah. So as Morrissey was told to give up the case, basically it's,
it's, it basically put an end to as far as the criminal charges aspect go, makes Baldwin
(18:26):
clear. But there are some interesting asides worth mentioning, and we're going to get to
it in a second. But as far as like the, the kind of anticlimactic into this tragedy on
the criminal side, how do y'all feel about the way this played out? I guess in terms
of do you feel like any justice was served? Do you feel like, you know, poorly handled
(18:51):
in hindsight? Is there an alternative you would have preferred? You know, how do y'all
feel after, after seeing this from point A to point B?
I feel like it was just always a, it was a safety issue. It was a safety issue that is
in multiple people's hands. That's hard. It's hard to bring that in front of a jury. And
personally, I don't, I don't think that Alec Baldwin should have had criminal charges against
(19:17):
him. I've, I've seen actors get handed stuff and you know, normally we, we have safety
meetings about guns on set and all those things that we've talked about. But like, at the
end of the day, like, I don't know, he held it. He thought it was clear. Oopsie daisy.
Yeah. I think the people handing him that and you know, all the ammunition stuff, but
(19:37):
I'm like, at the end of the day, I'm like 18 months is a long time. That was a young
woman too. Like that sucks. I feel bad. Yeah. I feel bad for her. I do. It sounds like I
heard nothing but lovely things about her. And yeah, I mean, I've been put in situations
where like my boss has told me to do something that I'm like, I don't really, I don't necessarily
think that that's safe or I don't feel comfortable with doing that. But for the sake of just
(20:01):
moving on with my life and my day and saving faith, all those things, like you do it and
it ends up being fine. So I feel, I do feel bad. I feel bad for her. 18 months doesn't
seem like a long time compared to 10 years or whatever. But I think that we discredit
how long that actually is to be away from your friends and family and sitting in a cell.
Like that sucks. 18 months is a long time. So I don't know. This is, this has always
(20:25):
been a tricky one for me. I feel, I feel kind of bad for everybody. It's feels just icky
and sad and it feels like the people that were actually guilty kind of, I don't know,
feels like they kind of found a scapegoat and were able to be like, eh, whatever. Yeah.
You know, how didn't, why didn't she get out whenever that same evidence was brought up?
(20:50):
So because that's even closer of a conflict of interest to her case. They don't want to
take her family. Yeah. So that's actually the first thing I have in the asides because
yeah, Hannah's legal team lost an appeal using the same faulty evidence as a reason to have
her case thrown out. And that doesn't make any damn sense. Same judge, Judge Sommer is
(21:14):
the one who denied it. So it is interesting. The only thing I can think of, which this
doesn't make it right, but it kind of going back to when we talked about what manslaughter
is, you know, as a, as a charge that states, and by that, I mean, just like the legal side
of things of, of governments, they, they feel that if somebody dies, there has to be culpability.
(21:41):
That's that's just the bottom line. Yeah. Someone went to jail and they don't want to
release someone from jail because it makes it, I mean, because David Hall's got the,
he's got the immunity and the slap on the wrist and all that, because he made the plea
deal early on. I think it was the first to make a plea deal. That put him in the clear
and absolved his culpability. And then by not having Alec, that kind of leaves Hannah
(22:06):
because they never charged the prop master. They never charged the ammo supplier or anything.
But that's all other litigation y'all are welcome to read about that we're not going
to, but there's so much finger pointing and it's such a mess. It was not well handled
by the police at certain points. The prosecution, I think in hindsight had regrets about making
(22:30):
the plea deal with halls because they didn't have all the information yet. And you know,
once you make that deal and the paperwork signed, you can't undo it. Yeah. No takes
backs. Yeah. No take you back. So much of like the legal system and like prison is like,
no takes backs. Yeah. So you're innocent. Sorry. That's where you leave Hannah. And
(22:51):
this is kind of just my opinion of it, but I think she just kind of becomes the figure
head of, of the finale of the crime. She's the only one that they could meet out of punishment.
So the fact that it's 18 months also, I could see where the judge is like by the time, even
if I said yes to this and it went through its process, you're probably almost out anyway.
(23:12):
Yeah. Yeah. And one thing I will say about, then she could sue the city if it eventually
she could turn it. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, appeals appeals are a whole thing, man. It's
yeah. Yeah. Her, her jail, they would drag it out purposefully. Yeah. Yeah. Her jail
calls, which I have, I would say of all this reading, I, I have ascertained that she might
(23:38):
not be the brightest crayon in the box of certain things. She definitely, her youthfulness
shows in a lot of comments and stuff that she's made. But when she was in jail, her,
her phone conversations, which my God, anyone, if you don't listen or watch true crime, maybe
(24:02):
you don't know this is common knowledge, but don't just talk casually on a jailhouse phone.
They're always listening and they're always recording and you're an idiot. So of course,
she said things about how she shouldn't be there. She had no culpability, didn't have
any signs of remorse or anything like that. It was just, I shouldn't be here. This is
(24:24):
bullshit. Blah, blah, blah. And that was kind of it. So, I mean, take that for what you
will, you know, in her own, I mean, I, I, yeah, she has a hand in it. I mean, for sure. But
she also, as we've already talked about young and experience, you know, the movie was poorly
handled all around the fact that also people love to throw around that they didn't show
(24:47):
any remorse. I'm like, they can't show remorse every second of the day. Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know. You know, her, uh, pissed too. Yeah, I would too. Like you can, I don't know,
you can feel bad about something and yeah, but also, yeah, that shit's recorded bitch.
Her being the, I mean, I certainly would be in her shoes of anger of like, like I'm the
(25:08):
fall person on this because no one else has taken a blame, you know, kind of thing. And,
and the way it played out, she was kind of the only person to go after just because the
way the prosecution handled it. Yeah. So you left her and Alec as the only viable options
to, you know, cause you had already worked your way out of these other people. Yeah.
And, and again, all of this is sort of going past the whole issue of there was real ammo
(25:37):
on a film set and still don't know how it got there. Probably will never be clear how
it got there. And to me that should have been the core of the investigation is trying to
figure out how on earth this could have, like, what are the, what are the possibilities?
There can only be a handful. So what are the possibilities and explore each one of those.
But I think also our film universe is such a weird universe to an outside person. Yeah.
(26:02):
Which again, we've already talked about, but it makes it hard for, it makes it hard for
our stuff to translate back into, I'll just call it real world stuff. Sometimes when we're
looking for work, cause there is no work, it's hard to translate our normal film jobs
into regular world. It's not, it's not an assembly line. It's always kind of different.
(26:25):
Even if it's the same, it's not, it's not, you know what I mean? Based on even just,
yeah, location, the script, things like that, that it's hard to really, I imagine like a
detective investigator, lawyer, whatever would have a kind of a hard time. Well, they didn't,
they didn't know who, like who's an expert we should be talking to. They didn't know
(26:46):
the right people they should be talking to. And they talked to a lot of people they shouldn't
have been talking to. A lot of people that just wanted to be in the spotlight for, you
know, their 15 minutes of fame or whatever you say. And, and it's what it is at this
point. But as an industry, we do follow OSHA, which is the occupational health and safety
(27:07):
administration for anyone that doesn't know that. And anytime an industry, and this is,
this could be auto workers, this could be glass factory, it could be, you know, whatever.
We all follow the same OSHA, you know, coast to coast in the US. And OSHA as a standard
(27:28):
did their own investigation, which they always do when a safety accident happens. And the
very first thing they did was wipe the number of days since last accident and they reset
it to zero. I'm kidding. They always make sure that thing's correct. But no, they, they
did their own investigation and they had concluded that quote, Baldwin, though he was a producer
(27:51):
on the film was not in a position of management authority and was not culpable for the lack
of oversight, end quote. And I thought it was worth mention because this is coming from
OSHA. It's the same group that would investigate any safety accident. And they're probably
more film aware just because we follow their standards and agreements and things than say,
(28:16):
the prosecution or Johnny Cupp, Johnny La. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so a couple other
sides. So had the case gone to full trial, the Colt replica. And just to be clear, I'm
saying replica in terms of it's a remake of a 19th century handgun, not that it's what
(28:39):
we also in the industry call a replica, which is just a hunk of metal that looks like a
real gun and doesn't fire. Yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of issues that were not well reported
on. So like to give an example, it's commonly reported that that particular Colton question
was tested by the FBI. And the conclusion was that it could not fire without a trigger
(29:00):
pull. And Baldwin repeatedly denied he ever pulled the trigger. That part got a lot of
press. But what got less press is that the weapon had apparently been modified before
it was used. It's never been clear what the modifications were. But when they were doing
testing, the weapon also got damaged during testing, had to be rebuilt. So whatever damage
(29:23):
happened to it, they had to rebuild the gun. And we don't know what degree of damage and
repair because it's never been made clear. But that all seems to me to muddy the, and
this might be why they were being sensitive about it because you start putting in those
little details in the FBI report, starts having holes in it because of all these other things
(29:46):
that are getting less mentioned. And I think it's safe to say that had Baldwin's trial
gone full length, that probably would have been one of the center points about it would
have been a myriad of experts parading in for both sides saying this and that. And you
would have gotten into all this extremely boring stuff about the makings of this gun.
(30:06):
So we'll just never know at this point. And then lastly, I want to throw in Alec himself
has recently made claims that a lot of new information will soon be revealed about the
shooting and he claimed to be the victim of a smear campaign. For a man that hates Trump,
(30:27):
it sure reeks of the same shitty ilk. They're all out to get him. So that my friends is
the conclusion of the rust tragedy and the extremely avoidable and senseless death of
Helena Hutchins, who we don't want to lose sight of in this entire thing. She is the
tragic victim in this quagmire. So any, I guess, final thoughts before I get to our
(30:55):
big announcement? Any rust closing comments? No, that's the crest of it. Are your mouths
rusted shut? Am I right? No, it's just sad. It's a sad drag. And it's sad that a woman
died just doing her job, man. You know, she's a freak. Over under that Hannah will be a
(31:24):
armor on a film set again. Now one, I'm going to say the over under is at one. Well, actually,
no felons can work in film. Never mind. Forget it. She'll be back. She'll be back. Forget
it. I was like, oh, finding a job as a felon. But I'm like, oh, yeah, no. Yeah. All right.
(31:45):
So yeah, I mean, if there's something interesting that crops up in the news, we might mention
it, but we're certainly not going to do any more episode covers on it. We have beaten
that dead horse. But we hope that you all enjoyed the series. And we kind of got the
idea that we could use this to branch into maybe a new series that we're going to start.
(32:09):
So the big announcement is that we're going to have a new segment that's going to highlight
other kind of senseless and avoidable deaths from previous projects. And the hope is in
doing this is to not only remember the those that lost their lives and keep names in memory,
but also to do our part to kind of keep safety in perspective in hopes of better working
conditions for crew and actors. That's something that I think we're off mic talking earlier.
(32:36):
But it was never really the full intention of this podcast to be so safety oriented.
But it's a theme that we keep coming back to in a lot of these things. And basically
to separate this from, say, the legendary lures, the legendary lures, you know, I'm
going to keep those at like, this is crazy. This is, you know, it's almost shocking. No
(32:57):
one died on Super Mario Brothers kind of thing. And then say for this installment, you know,
we'll cover things like Brandon Lee, the crow, the helicopter crash in the Twilight Zone
movie, camera assistant Sarah Jones, both the 1925 and 59 been her movies, although
(33:18):
the 59, 1959 one might be a legendary lore. Anywho's camera assistant, Brent Hirschman,
special effects tech Clifford Wenger, if I hope I didn't mispronounce that. And there's,
I mean, sadly, there's a lot. And what I didn't put on the shortlist is a stunt person because
(33:39):
as you could probably imagine, they're way above everyone else in the death category.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuntmen that die, even contemporary that just don't really
get a lot of reporting and stuff. There's a lot of injury and death. I've definitely
been on some shows where stuntmen have gotten severely injured. Luckily, no one died. But
(34:02):
yeah, they still even with today's technology and everything else, it's still a very dangerous
world for stuntmen and women. Stunt people. There we go. So stunt people are people too.
So I think one of the things that we're lacking for this at the moment, and I invite Zoe and
(34:23):
Justin and the ghosts of Chris and Joe and as well as people listening, we need to come
up with a good title for this new segment. And so that's something I've been wrestling
with. But if anyone has any good ideas, feel free to email us. I think that would be fun
to come up with something. So I think the way I'm going to say we're closing a window,
(34:45):
but we're opening a door. So with that said, well, I guess before that one last thing.
Closing a door, opening a window. Yeah, sure. Whatever.
Climbing out the window, going back through the door. Yeah. Yeah. Getting out of the basement.
Going in the attic. I don't know. We've got an elevator.
(35:11):
Going from the first floor to the... Whatever. So any comments as far as our new segment
or anything like that? Justin, you already knew. Zoe, it's kind of news for you. What
do you think? I like it. Everything comes back to safety.
Yeah. And I mean, even just, I don't know, things.
(35:32):
I kind of feel like we're inherently unsafe, but try to be safe. And there are, I don't
know, I got a whole nuanced opinion on safety. I will say after taking the OSHA, we call
it the OSHA 10 class. When I took the OSHA 10 class, I think everyone has a similar thing
experience, but there's about somewhere between like five days to a week kind of period where
(36:01):
you immediately get out of that class. And for that first, say five-ish days.
You're an expert on all the safety things. You notice everything. You're an asshole about
it. Yeah. You notice everything. Those stairs have
no rail. Yeah. I think it was like two weeks for me. I was like, well, it's not OSHA approved.
You can't help it. No, you can't. I mean, I think that's why safety issues happen because
(36:24):
that person is fucking annoying. They're annoying. So it's just like, eh, whatever. I've done
it like this before. And then that's how accidents happen. Because you don't want to be that
person even when you do notice. There's one thing, like a big, big safety thing of like,
come on guys. But it's the little things that anytime that person's around, it's like, fuck
off. You're as popular as a COVID compliance officer.
(36:47):
Yeah. Nobody likes the hall monitor. That's the reason why bullies exist. Yeah.
It is weird because what you learn is that a lot of safety is common sense. You just
don't usually think about it because you just kind of do it inherently. But there is a lot
(37:12):
of stuff where it's like, hey, this is a hot stove. If I touch it, I'll burn my hand kind
of concept. Yeah. And then when someone does it, you go, no, why did he do that? He knew
that was hot. Like that's a weird one. So I mean, sometimes it just happens. Yeah. Unfortunately.
So, Justin, any thoughts? Yeah, no, I can, I am a big advocate for safety, but I can
(37:37):
definitely use my own reminders from time to time. So it'll be good. Yeah. Cause you
know, I get in the zone and I just, I let things fly. We all do though. I mean, our
job sometimes calls for being a little bit unsafe in that moment. You have to do something
quickly. That's what the scene is calling for. And nobody's, you know what I mean? Like
(38:00):
we know he's looking, whatever. And it's nothing like something big and insane and dangerous.
It's like a little small thing that's just like, Oh, maybe this isn't, but I might fall
off this ladder and break my ankle, but I probably won't die. Yeah. Like, yeah, nobody
else is going to get hurt. I've hopped off a lift gate being like, it's fine. I'm, you
(38:21):
know, I'm young, I can do this, but I'm like, Oh man, if I were to just kind of lose my
footing a little bit, I might really hurt myself. Why did I slip? Yeah. Yeah. Like,
you know, it's things like that. Yeah. It's not too indifferent about peeing in public
and trying to not get caught. I know I shouldn't do this, but man, do I really need to go right
now? And I don't want to have to go all the way over there. And so anyway, yeah, as far
(38:48):
as P goes, P where you got to P this, that's the safe thing to do. Don't hold it in.
Cause that reminds me of a lot of, we're true Frenchmen here. So I mean, I've been on shows
where there've, there've been like PAs and background extras who have felt like they
(39:08):
needed to hold it in because they couldn't go to a bathroom because a scene was about
to start or something like that. Don't hold it in. They can wait for you. Yeah. Yeah.
Agreed. That's the safe thing. Yeah. The moral, the moral here today is P when you got to
P and respect your hall monitors. Yeah. All right. So yeah, like we said, we're closing
(39:37):
a garage door and opening a safe door. Car window. Car hole. That's the analogy. Car
hole. So thank you. And we hope you keep enjoying the show. Please subscribe, rate and review
all that stuff. It's not just a thing that podcasts ask of listeners. It's actually vital
(40:01):
to us continuing. So if you like what we're doing, take a minute and be like a Suze with
big hair and Libra for justice. I guess that's right. Suze has big hair. Which by the way,
like something, say something. Yeah. It helps us out a lot. And Zoe, you're just itching
(40:23):
to say something over there, aren't you? Yes. Do you like what we're doing here? Do you
have thoughts, comments, questions? Maybe you have an idea or suggestion for topics
you want to hear about? Well, you can find us on the intrawebs. You can email us at filmfoklorpodcast
at gmail.com. You can find us on the social medias. Instagram being Film Folklore Podcast.
(40:48):
We have a Facebook group called Film Folklore. Twitter X, whatever you want to call it at
the Film Folk. And yeah, thanks for joining us today. All right. Thanks everybody. We
look forward to seeing you next time. Bye.
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