[Source: AP Emtertainment]

Film production and firearms experts say movie sets probably changed permanently when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed on the remote New Mexico set of the Western “Rust” 14 months ago, leading to the announcement from prosecutors Thursday that Alec Baldwin and the film’s weapons supervisor will be charged with involuntary manslaughter later this month.

“The gun safety experience on set has become more vocal, it’s a lot louder,” said Joey Dillon, an armorer who has overseen the use of firearms on television shows including “Westworld” and movies including “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” “I make it a lot louder myself.”

Baldwin was pointing the gun with a live round inside that killed Hutchins as they set up a shot for an upcoming scene. People at several levels of production are determined to ensure it never happens again.

That has meant the increasing use of digital and other technology that could make gunfire of any kind obsolete. It has also meant more simple things, like shouting when using the same safety protocols long in place to make clear to everyone when a gun is present and what its status is.

Actors and others are more interested when the gun is handed over.

While checking a gun themselves may be in the best interest of actors, how much responsibility they bear for doing so remains in dispute, and will be a central question for jurors should Baldwin’s case go to trial.

His union, and his lawyer, say this onus can’t be placed on performers.

She also emphasized that while Baldwin is to be charged as the man with the gun in his hand, his role as a producer, and at least partial responsibility for the lax conditions that led to his having a loaded gun, were a consideration in deciding to bring the charges.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who oversaw the film’s firearms, will also be charged with involuntary manslaughter, the district attorney said.

Her attorney Jason Bowles said in a statement that they would “bring the full truth to light and that she “will be exonerated of wrongdoing by a jury.”

Productions were already using digital effects to simulate the flash and bang of gunfire more often, but Hutchins’ death has almost certainly sped the change along.

And when it comes to hardware, companies have been making increasingly convincing replicas, essentially enhanced BB guns with moving parts that behave like pistols but don’t fire bullets. Muzzle flashes and sounds are added in post-production.

But, Parsons said, “there’s not a lot of replicas for some of the antique stuff” used in Westerns and other period movies, which he specializes in.

Other solutions that have been sought for sets may be misguided, and may not help.

In the days immediately after the shooting, much media discussion surrounded the dangers of blank rounds in guns, based on the assumption that one of them killed Hutchins.

Dillon said dummy rounds, prop bullets used in scenes where characters are shown loading guns, are more likely to result in mistakes like what happened on “Rust,” since they look like live ammunition and could be confused with them.

He said he found that “frustrating because that can accidentally impart to the crew that we’ve been ignorant” and previously kept them in unnecessary danger.

When investigators revealed it was actually a live round, the fear of blanks, which can certainly be very dangerous at very close range, remained.

Parsons said the fact that it was misguided to blame the fact that “Rust” was a small-budget independent production. He said the pace and length of large studio productions can put crews in positions where accidents of all kinds can become more likely.

“In some cases, they can put people through even longer hours, and the need for speed is even greater,” he said. “That can be very very dangerous. The need for speed on any set incentives behaviour that’s not always the best for safety.”

Gutierrez-Reed’s dual role as armourer and assistant props supervisor has also received negative attention.

But Dillon said the overlap of weapons and props is inevitable, and such dual roles happen often. The crew members playing those roles just need to be utterly clear when they’re playing.