in place on the film set to ensure that doesn t happen? well, there s no reason to have had a firearm that was capable of discharging live ammo on the set. anything that an actor touches is a prop. so if an actor touches their cellphone, you know, it becomes a prop. but when we say prop gun it means that as a gun that s beenmicically modified so you cannot put live ammo into it. only blanks can pit into it. okay, we re having some issues, steve. go again, sorry. we were having some issues. it was hard to hear you and you were pixilated. go again. okay. so i was just saying that a prop gun is a gun that s been specifically manufactured for shooting blanks, not bullets. in fact, the bullets won t fit into a gun that s been modified properly, only blanks will fit
reached out to the production company. they have yet to we have yet to receive a response. i want to talk to phillip schneider, a movie set property master. phillip, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us. i have to believe that this has been emotional for you. bring us into that moment when you first heard about this. well, first of all, i would like to express my condolences to the hutchins family, and i would also like to add that i was on set yesterday, and the entire industry mourns this horrible accident. but it s especially hard on people like me prop masters and armers in which this is a worst case scenario. talk about that. you re a prop master and an armerer, what does that entail? well, to be a prop master is to bring everything and anything that an actor touches. it can be anything from a pen to
about blanks and the difference between blanks and bullets, that s the way it is supposed to be explained? you nailed it. you could have done, you know, ten times the job that was done on the baldwin set. well, let me ask you about this. this is go ahead, please. this is the thing that would be a blank round, just a casing and some gun powder. this is live ammo , the thing used to shoot at things. so, you know, hard to get these wrong, which is which. one issue though has been referring to this weapon as a prop weapon. a prop is anything that an actor touches. if an actor touches their cellphone, you know, this is a prop. well, if i touch this gun it is a prop. that doesn t make it a prop gun though. it is a gun that s being used as a prop. a prop gun has been modified so
someone? does it mean that it must have had live ammunition in it? so the definition in hollywood of a prop is anything that an actor touches. i touch my cell phone on-camera, now it s a prop phone. this is different when it comes to firearms. if i touch any gun, then that just became a prop. but a prop gun, in quotes, per se, is a gun that s been modified so it cannot fire live ammunition. if i were to take live ammunition, try to put it inside this gun, look at that. i m saved by the gun, right? now, if i take an identical-looking gun that is not a prop gun, it looks the same, right? look at that. live ammo goes in it. so very important to distinguish between a gun that s being used in a prop, and a gun that s been modified so that it cannot have live ammo introduced into it. so, no, i do not believe that
the property where the incident took place, where the shooting took place. they expect that search to continue over the weekend but because of the high-profile nature of this tragic incident, they do not expect any press releases or any press conferences before monday. we re still working on getting more answers to why this tragedy took place. jake? lucy kafanov, thank you. here to discuss is steve wolf, a stunt accord naughtor and firearms safety expert for movies and tv. he s worked to investigate deaths on movie sets. i understand you have spoken to the investigators working this case. what have you learned? i ve learned that they are very busy trying to gather information about what happened. they re trying to figure out what type of firearm was used, whether it had the proper modifications to make it actually a prop gun. anything that an actor touches on set, technically, is a prop. so if i m an actor and this is a pen, this is a prop pen. has this pen been modified to