Hannah Gutierrez-Reed
What role does the armorer play in the tragic death on the set of “Rust”?
Prop weapons like these are treated like real weapons on movie sets
© David McNew / AFP
After the tragic death of a camerawoman on the set of the western “Rust”, the search for the causes is still ongoing. The 24-year-old armorer comes more and more into focus. Who is the woman?
It’s a tragedy like no other: Last week, head camerawoman Halyna Hutchins was killed while filming the western “Rust”. Previously, a fatal shot had been released from a prop weapon used by Alex Baldwin, seriously injuring director Joel Souza.
The search for the cause of the accident is still ongoing, but the focus is already on Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the gun master on the set. If a rifle or pistol is used during filming, an armorer must be present to instruct and train the actors in the use of firearms.
In Germany, the regulation of the employers’ liability insurance association regulates exactly who can be used as an armorer: Gunsmiths and technical employees with appropriate additional training, something of an armorer training, come into question.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed: Your father is considered a luminary
Requirements that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed also fulfills. Despite her young age, the 24-year-old is already a gunsmith and gunsmith. Because the profession was practically in the cradle: Her father is the well-known weapons master and art shooter Thell Reed.
The now 78-year-old is regarded as a luminary in the field; for decades he has provided his expertise as a consultant for filming. Among other things, he has worked on westerns such as “Tombstone” or “Faster than Death”, the neo-noir thriller “LA Confidential” and Clint Eastwood’s World War II epic “Flags of Our Fathers”.
Hannah learned a lot from her father from an early age, and so she is not considered a freshman in the industry, even if “Rust” is only her second film in which she acts as a gun master. She recently worked in this capacity on the film “The Old Way” with Nicolas Cage.
Complaints about a lack of security
So what is the lack of experience after all? Or maybe a lack of authority? In any case, it should have gone haywire on the set with “Rust”. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, several employees complained about inadequate safety precautions and left the production facility in protest.
The New York Post quoted a podcast in which Gutierrez-Reed spoke last month about her uncertainty while shooting her first film: “I was really nervous at first and almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure whether I’m ready, “she is said to have said about” The Old Way “, according to the newspaper.
Her doubts were evidently not entirely unfounded: Even when filming “The Old Way”, the 24-year-old was said to have attracted negative attention several times, as reported by the online magazine “Daily Beast”. “She was a bit carefree with guns,” an employee on the set is quoted as saying. One incident is particularly memorable: Gutierrez-Reed is said to have handed an eleven-year-old actress a loaded gun unchecked.
Everything went well at the time. But already on her second assignment as an armorer there was a fatal incident. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has now deleted all of her social media profiles. It is uncertain whether she will continue her career.
Sources used: “New York Post”, “Daily Beast”