A reminder about safety on set
 

Man shot dead on Brisbane movie set

This one hits close to home for me; it occurred in a venue I've frequented and during the filming for a band I've loved for a decade. As the news unfolds I'm anxiously waiting and praying that none of the local crew and actors I've worked with over the years are involved.

NEVER, EVER take any chances when it comes to guns on set, whether they be real or fake, and whether you are using live ammunition or blanks. No project and no scene is worth putting lives at risk for.

Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

This just happened today in Brisbane when actors with prop guns (of the non-rubbery type) were filming a sequence for a hip hop music video. One of them is now dead and police are investigating.

Here is the lead story on the news tonight:


From the police statement on the incident:

Andrew

Re: A reminder about safety on set
 

Only just noticed your post here. I have a news story and the related Qld Police media release content here:

DVINFO: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/open-dv-...deo-shoot.html

Andrew

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

More on this:

Full article at: Bliss n Eso music video shooting: Stuntman Johann Ofner dead

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

Update from Queensland Police on the shooting.

Andrew

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

(probably the last follow-up post on this)

Entertainment industry in shock after death of stuntman


(Apologies for what looks like an exposure issue on the story intro. This bloke has been overdoing the fake tan lotion.)


TRANSCRIPT:

STAN GRANT, PRESENTER: The entertainment industry is in shock and a family is in mourning after the death of a stunt man yesterday.

Johann Ofner died after being shot in the chest on the set of a music video being made for chart-topping hip hop group, Bliss n Eso.

A police investigation under way but some film industry figures suspect that firearm safety standards were not correctly followed and are calling the tragedy a massive wake-up call.

Michael Atkin reports.

(Music)

MICHAEL ATKIN, REPORTER: By all accounts, Johann Ofner was a stunt man who loved his job.

(Music)

He was looking forward to his latest assignment, a gangster-themed video clip for Aussie hip hop group, Bliss n Eso

JOHANN OFNER, STUNTMAN: So today, these guys....

MICHAEL ATKIN: But the violence that happened when the cameras started rolling inside Brisbane's Brooklyn Standard bar was horrifying.

DET. INS. TOM ARMITT, QUEENSLAND POLICE: During the filming of that scene several firearms were used.

MICHAEL ATKIN: Johann was shot twice in the chest and desperate attempts to save his life failed.

LAURENCE PETTINARI, ENTERTAINMENT SAFETY CONSULTANT: What I do know is the guys that were there at first hand, some friends of mine, they straight away, first aid was applied once they knew that he was in trouble.

So everything was done medically to help the young man out.

TOM ARMITT: Film crew were actively performing CPR on the person. Police then assisted, QAS attended and we have conducted and commenced our investigations from there.

MICHAEL ATKIN: On social media, Ofner's girlfriend, Kati Garnett said she was devastated.

KATI GARNETT, JOHANN'S GIRLFRIEND (Facebook post): The love of my life was taken from me and I still can't believe it. You were a true angel.

(Music)

MICHAEL ATKIN: The members of Bliss n Eso weren't on set for the shooting and are yet to speak publicly. They posted this message to fans.

BLISS N ESO, HIP HOP GROUP (Facebook post): The three of us are extremely upset and shaken up by this and our hearts and prayers go out to the victim’s family and friends.

MICHAEL ATKIN: Today officers continued to pore over the crime scene and late this afternoon the band revealed Johann Ofner was shot with a prop gun loaded with blanks.

A licensed armourer was on site to monitor the firearms.

LAURENCE PETTINARI: You generally don't point guns at anyone. You know, you know that's the rule. Of course, you can shoot things with cameras and make sure people aren't in directs fire lines, even with blanks.

MICHAEL ATKIN: Safety consultant, Laurence Pettinari wants to know if strict industry standards were followed.

LAURENCE PETTINARI: We follow some tight, tight stringent protocols to do with prohibited weapons.

All of the safety professionals in the industry all follow the same protocols. So having a safety person on site to check the weapons before they go out to any actors or any talent is part of those protocols.

ZOE ANGUS, MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT AND ARTS ALLIANCE: I can say that we have been in discussions with Screen Queensland and with the Premier's Office and our view is that now it is time to conduct a review of the safety standard.

MICHAEL ATKIN: The union Johann Ofner was a member of is calling for an urgent safety review.

ZOE ANGUS: We see more and more the safety issues on set are in the digital space. They are smaller crews, smaller cast, non-professionals. People having a dab hand at themselves with their own credit card.

What that means for stunt community, is that they are on the frontline of insisting on safety standards.

MICHAEL ATKIN: It's a disaster for Bliss n Eso. The popular group was about embark on a national tour before releasing a new album.

MATT COYTE, ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE: With a fan base online on their Facebook seemed a bit split. Some of them seemed like they were being respectful of the tragedy.

Other people were using that opportunity to voice their disapproval of the use of guns in the video.

A lot of their fans were coming on and saying why do you even have guns in the video?

MICHAEL ATKIN: Rolling Stone magazine’s Matt Coyte believes, Bliss n Eso should consider taking a public hiatus.

MATT COYTE: It's going to be devastating to them and their plans for an album release. I mean, they can't use this clip now obviously and they're going to have to come up with something that addresses the situation as well.

It puts them in a very bad position and I feel for them.

MICHAEL ATKIN: It's also devastating for Australia's tight knit film industry who want to make sure Johann Ofner is the last person to die on the job.

ZOE ANGUS: Our stunt professionals are at the front line of this.

They go into work every day and perform extremely dangerous work and we want them to come home at night.

END

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

Thanks for the updates.
The take-away was that it was a prop-gun, filled with blanks, and yet a death still occurred.
While the facts are still hazy, this is similar to the death of Brandon Lee

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

A little more information has come to light through various subsequent media reporting.

My moderately educated guess is that the stunt man was struck in the chest by some wadding from the blank round that was used. He was in the line of sight of the weapon when it was fired. This would account for the relatively small size of the wound in his chest that was reported.

Also reported was that, when the shooting sequence was being filmed, the stuntman didn't get back up when the others did. It was only then that they realised that something was wrong with him.

I would expect that the wadding made it in to his chest at high velocity and managed to pierce his heart (I'm not sure how viable this is) or a high pressure blood vessel connected to the heart (much more likely). The stuntman would have 'acted' his way to the floor, but on the way down he would have started experiencing the effects of losing blood pressure to the brain and would have blacked out either immediately or shortly after landing on the floor.

The blacking out would be due to the loss of blood pressure from a high pressure sudden internal bleeding from within the chest cavity. This internally held (and non-compressible) pool of blood would also prevent the lungs from expanding within the chest, effectively preventing any further breathing.

The other actors immediately started CPR on him, but were not successful. You can probably guess why - any internal bleeding would have only been exacerbated by forcing the heart to pump more blood through.

... or I could be completely wrong and instead the hole in the chest cavity allowed air from the outside to come in and would have broken what is essentially a vacuum seal between the chest and the outside of the lungs. (Which normally means that when the chest wall expands to take a breath, the lungs also expand and hence the air from the outside comes rushing in to fill the lungs.) ... also effectively preventing further breathing until the hole is plugged.

My money is on the first scenario. That said, *** BIG DISCLAIMER *** I am not a doctor, I wasn't there, and you'd have to wait for the results of a post-mortem to come through to know for sure.

Andrew

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

Why use old style mechanical effects? I do not get it.

Re: A reminder about safety on set
 

Please keep us all informed.

As the person who is responsible for firearms safety on set, this is devastating. There is obviously far more to this story than we are hearing. The cause is NOT a "wad" expelled from the blank. (Modern blanks do not contain a "wad." They use crimped casings.)

This is, BY FAR, the most significant quote in that whole news story:
I am not going to judge until the fact are all known, but I have known many stunt people who THINK they are also "weapons experts" and they are not. I have known many ex-military or ex-police who fashion themselves as "weapons experts" and they are not.

As budgets plunge, productions try to save money by doubling up crew positions or hiring amateurs. When it comes to guns, this is a recipe for disaster.

Folks, our safety standards are SLIPPING.

In 2016, an actor was shot in the head with a blank in Ontario Canada. Now in 2017 an actor is shot and killed in Australia. This is unacceptable. Productions should not be using persons who got their firearms licence yesterday or who "took a course." They don't pay us for what we do; they pay us for WHAT WE KNOW.

By the way, the reason why I think there is far more to this story than we are being told is simple - a blank would have to be an inch away to be fatal. No one would do this deliberately if they had the slightest amount of experience, or even common sense. Either someone was doing a stunt with a gun loaded with a blank - that a firearms professional would NEVER do - and fell on it, they went onto set with a loaded gun and forgot to unload it (such as happened in New Jersey four years ago, or Tombstone Arizona last year) or there was someone else on set with a loaded gun.

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

Real firearms are no more dangerous than any other prop on set WHEN USED BY PROFESSIONALS. (Note the emphasis.)

The reason we don't CGI all muzzle flashes is the same reason why we don't just replace all actors with CGI - it looks awful. I never want to be the guy who has to hand Samuel L. Jackson a plastic toy gun and say, "Here. Act."

There is a disturbing trend today that says one can save money by doubling up crew positions or hiring amateurs. Add to that the increasing number of people who are stunts, special effects or ex-military who fashion themselves as "weapons experts" and they are not.

Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professional practice until they can't get it WRONG.

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

History has told us otherwise. There have been a number of high profile deaths from guns on set, even with professional handlers present.

You can't say the same about pot plants, or lowball glasses, or manila folders, or "any other prop on set" apart from perhaps vehicles.

As for CGI looking terrible, maybe you are right, if not overly critical. But is it really worth endangering the lives of your cast and crew just for the sake of those few dozen frames of your film which include muzzle flashes?

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

Wellllll...

If it's worth sometimes physically and mentally abusing actors to get a better performance (see numerous examples), then apparently it is worth it.

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

Well, I am not here to defend the use of firearms and blanks. I am here to make sure they are SAFE.

But I would speculate that more actors have been injured with potted plants than with firearms. Accidents with guns are high profile but very rare.

I will not rest until they are non-existent though.

I would also like to correct you on one point. In every single fatality on a film set (Jon-Erik Hexum in LA in 1984, Brandon Lee in North Carolina in 1993), near-fatality on a film set (Brendan Fletcher in Ontario in 2016) or near-fatality on a wild west reenactment set (Scott Harris in New Jersey in 2006, Ken Curtis in Tombstone Arizona in 2015) there were NO professional handlers present.

They either doubled up crew jobs and gave the firearms to untrained props crew (Lee, Hexum), used amateurs or beginners to save money (Fletcher) or had the stunt people also act as their own safety specialists and they simply forgot to unload their real guns (Harris, Curtis.) I think we will also find that the same thing happened in Australia.

One would have to be an inch away with a blank to be fatal. I am sure the story will come out, but my guess is that he used his own gun and didn't unload it, or someone else on set that day used a loaded gun and either shot him deliberately or by accident. A blank is not fatal unless it's near-contact distance, and no armorer or firearms safety specialist is going to let that happen. If it happened during a stunt and the stuntman fell on the loaded gun or it went off during the action while pressed up against him, no professional safety specialist would allow that scene to be shot.

Guns are safe when handled by professionals. This is not the place for amateurs or self-described "firearms experts." It has been my experience that ex-police or ex-military have some of the worst safety skills of anyone. (Anyone remember that DEA officer who shot himself in the foot during a gun safety lecture in a high school in Florida?)

And, sometimes having stunt people responsible for their own firearms is a recipe for disaster. I have had the pleasure of working with some of the top stunt people in the film business, and even with their knowledge and experience, they would never do a scene with a firearm unless there was a firearms safety specialist right there to check the firearms and oversee the action.

Smart producers also know that firearms specialists do far more than just handle the firearms. They are there to help the characters act and to help the story look real. Even the use of replica firearms involves safety issues, and if you ignore the importance of this, then you run the risk of making a serious film look laughable when your actors throw the obviously-plastic guns in the air in some fake recoil and run around all day with their stupid fingers inside the trigger guards.

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

What sort of certification or qualifications should a producer be looking for?

Re: Fatal gun safety fail at a music video shoot
 

Hmm, good question. Forgive me but this can't really be a short answer.

I can only speak for myself, but I put less weight in certificates hanging on a person's wall, and more weight on people who sign certificates for a living and probably don't even have a "love-me" wall. In other words, I want people who teach others and have extensive experience with real firearms.

I can teach people the technical skills; I can't teach them to be nice people. The MOST important quality a person must possess is the ability to make people feel relaxed and confident the moment they walk onto set.

If they parade around set like they are still in Afghanistan; come across as Type A personalities; treat people aggressively; or constantly remind people how "dangerous" guns are, and "guns can kill," they just get people upset and put the whole set on edge.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, I want people who work with the quite confidence of a Christian with four aces.

I want people who can say to a director and DOP, "Of course I can get that shot for you." Experience means one rarely has to say no, simply because they know how to get the director what they want in a safe manner. Amateurs say, "no." Professionals say, "yes," and then find a way to just do it safely.

Experienced professionals know when to say no, and don't usually have to.

25 years ago on my very first day on a film set, I learned the most important lesson of my career. I don't work with guns; I work with people. It's a people business, and experienced professionals know how to collaborate with everyone to do it safely, and never get upset at anyone because they all have jobs to do.

On the other hand, experienced professionals will not be pushed where they don't want to go, and if they get pushed to the point that someone might get hurt, they just quietly pack up the guns and prepare to walk off set. A firearms safety coordinator MUST be prepared to sacrifice their job rather than see anyone hurt.

That is part of the "quiet confidence" I mentioned earlier. Every single person on that set must see the firearms coordinator as someone who ALWAYS has their back. Firearms specialists will never yell and scream because they don't have to, and they know that if they walk off the set, there will be 100 crew people right behind them.

(By the way, in 25 years, I have NEVER had to walk off set and probably never had to say "no" more than once or twice. It is always more like, "How about this way? Here's how we can do this.")

Who does NOT make a good weapons handler? Well, again based on 25 years doing what I love to do, I would have to say there are two types of people to avoid: those with a LOT of experience with only a few guns, and those who took some courses, have a firearms licence but have never shot a real gun before.

The former is the ex-police or ex-military who think they know everything because they spent 20 years on the SWAT team. They are the ones who can't work with people and would get upset when the 17-year-old PA tells you that you must get to set right away.

The latter is worse. Their only experience is with film firearms and they don't have a clue about how to hold it realistically, and - just as important - WHY it is held like that in real life.

So I guess the bottom line is that a person is qualified if they can work so quietly and confidently that everyone on set can relax and concentrate on their jobs.

THAT'S how we don't just save lives; we save time and money.

Re: A reminder about safety on set
 

The industry is looking to overhaul safety guidelines.

More at the full article.

Andrew

Re: A reminder about safety on set
 

I spend much time preparing risk assessments as part of my job - all encompassing - from performers tripping or slipping, people working at height, children, disabled, and loads of other categories, and while some have the scope for reducing serious danger to something acceptable - even swords we use in fights - firearms, thank goodness, rarely cause us any grief in the UK.

As a total non-expert in firearms, my experience is limited to seeing the hole a blank round can produce up close. The entire point of a weapon like a gun is that it fires something, and the reason people use them in movies and on stage is because they look and sound like a real gun. They kill people like a real gun too!

All the safety systems in the world won't stop them firing at the wrong time or the wrong place.

Only recently details emerged of an old case where a school doing the musical Sweeny Todd used real cut-throat razors in the neck slashing scene, and cut through somebodies neck so the windpipe was visible - in a school, with kids. The razors were real, and whoever 'blunted' them botched it.

I have to ask what sort of pop video would even use guns? Impressionable young people seeing guns as an everyday part of social life? Maybe this is reality in some parts of the world, but why promote it?

If the idiots making the video get it wrong, there's not much hope for the audience.

It's about time America's lunatic gun system was stopped fro leaking into other societies who are poorly geared up for it.

What would a proper risk assessment have done with it? Initial danger worst case - death. After taking remedial action this risk is reduced to ..... still death!

I feel for the people involved, but surely if somebody had said "is this gun safe?" the answer would have been "no".

For once, the UK isn't at the front of the lunacy queue - I didn't realise Australia were as liberal as this either, I'd assumed, wrongly, that they were like us, and guns were not part of the culture.

Somebody will get crucified over this, and probably not the person who deserves to. Did somebody have the 'good idea' to use live guns on set, and somebody else had the good idea to not take action to stop accidents like this happening? Here, to load a pyrotechnic, it's standard practice to make sure whoever does it also has the firing key in their pocket, just in case. It's inconvenient sometimes. If some body uses a firearm on stage, it will usually be a dummy, and the bang coming from a controlled and secured blank firer in the wings, with a very large empty space around it - and I can tell you the people who fire that absolutely hate the damn things. Giving a stunt man a weapon might seem to be exactly what stunt men are for? I just wonder.

Re: A reminder about safety on set
 

A bit about my viewpoint, I am an NRA certified shotgun, metallic cartridge reloading and Range Safety Officer and I would never want to be in the position of a film/TV armorer, weapons expert on a set. I've worked on quite a few gun heavy sets, Homeland, Prison Break, Die Hard with a Vengeance amongst others and in 2017, the best solution is now rubber guns on set. This will sound unforgiving, but actors are insecure narcissists who play make believe for a living, not the most reliable subjects to run around with live firearms in the course of playing make believe. Directors and Producers, as has been proven countless times, are often more concerned about their vision and the almighty dollar than with the safety of crews and talent. Many people don't realize that often, the guns on set are real guns, simply firing blanks, they aren't always "blank guns". Blanks are simply real ammunition without a projectile. They still have a projectile of sorts though, it is often a piece of cardboard, plastic or other material that seals the round so that the smokeless powder inside the case doesn't simply run out of the case. The other thing most non-gun educated don't realize are the tremendous pressures that guns operate at. When we reload real ammunition, we use a recipe for which powder, bullet and overall case length to select based upon pressure, which in some rounds can run 50,000 to 70,000 POUNDS PER SQUARE INCH! Shooting a firearm is detonating a small explosion inches from your face. Granted, blanks generate less psi than regular rounds but still, the energy expended by blanks can easily kill someone. Non-gun people don't seem to understand this, which is why people continue to be killed with "blanks" on sets.

I instruct 12-18 year old Boy Scouts how to safely handle and shoot guns and have for years. If young kids can safely handle and shoot real guns with real ammunition, you'd think that mature, rational adults could be taught to safely handle guns on set but I disagree, I don't think they can be taught with any guarantee of safety, as these repeated incidents have made clear. IMHO, there is no reason to have real guns on a set. Too many irresponsible people, playing make believe. The last set I was on in Africa, the entire, very gun heavy production used rubber and non-firing replica guns, all muzzle flashes and case ejections where handled digitally, and most of the explosions were handled digitally, although they did set off one explosion with two stunt people who were thrown about ten feet from it. It's not that difficult to teach actors how react to recoil and many popular guns these days, like AR-15 type rifles, in real life, have almost no recoil. As someone trained and certified to watch people and be responsible for people handling real guns, my vote is to ban real guns from movie and TV sets. I've worked side by side with Hollywood armorers on various projects and there are just too many mitigating factors to make having real guns on set be safe. We are playing make believe in production, so let's use make believe guns. Digital compositing is not that difficult or expensive anymore. If you can afford to have a crew, actors, fake guns, props, stunts and gunfights on set, you can afford to comp in muzzle flashes and case ejections. Bullet hits can also be handled digital now without too much trouble or you can still shoot insert shots of hits using traditional squib hits. At least then, the expert in charge of setting off the squib hits is an expert and not an actor.