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  #11  
Old 11-07-2009, 08:11 PM
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MT2008 MT2008 is offline
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Originally Posted by mr_Goodbomb View Post
Private property.
Fair enough, but you still should be pretty careful. Check out Bill Davis' web site for some of the info there:

http://propguys.com/weapons/

Also, I believe there are some armories that cater to low-budget/student filmmakers. Instead of using personal weapons, you can actually rent blank-adapted guns and even bring a handler on-set to supervise their use, and then you pay him a fee (I think most of them charge by week). I've seen student films which used real guns, instead of airsoft or commercial blank replicas, so clearly, they're out there. Again, I'm sure MPM or someone else could tell you more about that...

Last edited by MT2008; 11-07-2009 at 08:17 PM.
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  #12  
Old 11-07-2009, 10:03 PM
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As others have pointed out, there have been quite a few disasters with blanked firearms in Hollywood..

Uh no there hasn't. Remarks like that will put us armorers out of business.
The insurance underwriters are convinced that we're killing people everyday on movie sets, which is untrue. We've had TWO fatalities in 100 years. That's 100 years!!!!!! There are way more injuries and fatalities with knife fights, sword fights, bare knuckle fights, stunt falls, car stunts. It would be more likely to hear about a blank firing disaster on an amateur movie or student movie than a professional one. Even then, the news doesn't have a lot of stories about it, because it doesn't often happen. A student filmmaker is more likely to be arrested for brandishing a toy gun than someone getting injured or killed firing blanks, from a historical perspective.

The Insurance companies don't know a thing about guns, and urban myths like that help fan the flames of their prejudice against guns. that's why insurance rates go through the roof (unfairly) for a production company when guns are present on a set.
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  #13  
Old 11-07-2009, 10:08 PM
Jcordell Jcordell is offline
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Originally Posted by MoviePropMaster2008 View Post

Remarks like that will put us armorers out of business.
The insurance underwriters are convinced that we're killing people everyday on movie sets, which is untrue. We've had TWO fatalities in 100 years. That's 100 years!!!!!!
John Eric Hexum and Brandon Lee?

My point (in my response) was that blanks aren't toys, but I've never heard anything but positive descriptions about movie armorers.
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  #14  
Old 11-08-2009, 01:37 AM
mr_Goodbomb mr_Goodbomb is offline
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Originally Posted by Checkman View Post
John Eric Hexum and Brandon Lee?

My point (in my response) was that blanks aren't toys, but I've never heard anything but positive descriptions about movie armorers.
Brandon Lee, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't even shot with a blank. They emptied normal rounds, which is incredibly stupid, to make the "blanks," because they showed them previously in the movie as real rounds being loaded and used the same ones, emptied, as blanks. My facts may be a bit off, however.
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  #15  
Old 11-08-2009, 04:55 AM
Jcordell Jcordell is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr_Goodbomb View Post
Brandon Lee, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't even shot with a blank. They emptied normal rounds, which is incredibly stupid, to make the "blanks," because they showed them previously in the movie as real rounds being loaded and used the same ones, emptied, as blanks. My facts may be a bit off, however.
I remeber reading that there was a bullet stuck in the barrel from a squib and nobody knew about it. So when the actor fired a blank there was enough energy to send the bullet out of the barrel and into Lee.
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  #16  
Old 11-08-2009, 08:14 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MoviePropMaster2008 View Post

Uh no there hasn't. Remarks like that will put us armorers out of business.
The insurance underwriters are convinced that we're killing people everyday on movie sets, which is untrue. We've had TWO fatalities in 100 years. That's 100 years!!!!!! There are way more injuries and fatalities with knife fights, sword fights, bare knuckle fights, stunt falls, car stunts. It would be more likely to hear about a blank firing disaster on an amateur movie or student movie than a professional one. Even then, the news doesn't have a lot of stories about it, because it doesn't often happen. A student filmmaker is more likely to be arrested for brandishing a toy gun than someone getting injured or killed firing blanks, from a historical perspective.

The Insurance companies don't know a thing about guns, and urban myths like that help fan the flames of their prejudice against guns. that's why insurance rates go through the roof (unfairly) for a production company when guns are present on a set.
OK, OK, chill. Maybe I shouldn't have said "more than a few". But surely, you concede that while the accident rates might be exaggerated by insurance companies, I am right to caution MrGoodBomb (who is planning to do this film without an armorer) that there is a risk? Awareness of the risks is important, after all.
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  #17  
Old 11-08-2009, 08:18 PM
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Originally Posted by Checkman View Post
I remeber reading that there was a bullet stuck in the barrel from a squib and nobody knew about it. So when the actor fired a blank there was enough energy to send the bullet out of the barrel and into Lee.
The bullet was part of a dummy cartridge - which was made by taking a real bullet and removing the powder from it. The scene called for the gun to be shown getting loaded with the dummy rounds, before it was later fired using blanks. Somehow, the head was put on too loosely, and when an untrained property assistant (not the armorer, who got sent off-set to save money) dry-fired the gun to uncock it, the bullet came loose from the shell and got lodged in the chamber. Nobody checked the gun before it was loaded with blanks and fired at Lee, and the wad from the blank propelled the bullet from the chamber and into Lee's abdomen.
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  #18  
Old 11-08-2009, 08:46 PM
Ace Oliveira Ace Oliveira is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MT2008 View Post
The bullet was part of a dummy cartridge - which was made by taking a real bullet and removing the powder from it. The scene called for the gun to be shown getting loaded with the dummy rounds, before it was later fired using blanks. Somehow, the head was put on too loosely, and when an untrained property assistant (not the armorer, who got sent off-set to save money) dry-fired the gun to uncock it, the bullet came loose from the shell and got lodged in the chamber. Nobody checked the gun before it was loaded with blanks and fired at Lee, and the wad from the blank propelled the bullet from the chamber and into Lee's abdomen.
And that gentlemen, is why you never screw around with guns on set without armourer supervision.
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  #19  
Old 11-08-2009, 08:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Ace Oliveira View Post
And that gentlemen, is why you never screw around with guns on set without armourer supervision.
In America, you aren't necessarily obligated to have an armorer on-set unless you have NFA weapons (in countries with stricter gun laws, this is a different story). Propmasters and their assistants handle guns on-set all the time. Or at least, they used to (this is apparently changing).

It's just that in the case of "The Crow", the particular property assistant who handled the gun that killed Lee while the armorer was off-set happened to be very inexperienced.
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  #20  
Old 11-09-2009, 12:21 AM
Jcordell Jcordell is offline
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Thanks. It's been sixteen years since I read that article about Lee's death. I remember thinking that the move set had some real issues and that Lee's death was totally avoidable.
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