It wasn't the first time the assistant director of 'Rust' who handed Alec Baldwin the gun with live rounds that fired accidentally killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, was involved in a film where a weapon discharged unexpectedly. Dave Halls was fired from the production of Freedom's Path in 2019 after a gun fired accidentally.
Although no one died in that incident, one of the crew members was seriously injured while Halls was on the set when the gun discharged. The person had to seek treatment, while Halls was fired for being irresponsible and putting lives of the film's crew in risk.
Completely Unprofessional
Back in 2019, when Halls was an assistant director on the movie 'Freedom's Path,' a gun "unexpectedly discharged," injuring a sound crew member, the production company Rocket Soul Studios told CNN. As a result, Rocket Soul Studios, the company that produced the movie decided to fire him immediately.
The injured sound crew member was lucky to have survived the accident but had to be transported to a hospital where he received treatment for days till he recovered. The company told CNN about the incident on Monday as others in the industry lined up to trash Halls, calling him unprofessional, 'barbaric' and negligent.
The company also said that Halls "was very remorseful for the events, and understood the reasons he was being terminated." "A new assistant director as well as a new armorer were hired for the duration of principal photography. Production of the film finished successfully."
The film is still in post production and is expected to be released next year. However, Halls is yet to comment on last week's tragedy that involved the death of Hutchins and a shoulder injury to the film's director Joel Souza.
Irresponsible Act
There is an ongoing debate on who is to be held responsible for the tragedy. While some are of the opinion that the film's lead armorer Hahhan Gutierrez-Reed, 24, came with almost no experience and was confident that the gun was safe for use, several have been holding Baldwin responsible for pointing the gun at the camera and firing the shot.
However, Halls is the person named in police reports as giving Baldwin the gun loaded with real bullets or at least one live round instead of blanks. He had picked it off of a tray which had three guns on it but himself didn't check them.
Halls had shouted that the weapon was a "cold gun" — meaning it was safe to use — before giving it to Baldwin, according to a search warrant issued on Friday.
This comes as several others who have worked with him on earlier productions have claimed that Halls is known for not holding meeting for weapon safety protocols in the past also.
In a career including 2000's'The Crow: Salvation', 2003's 'The Matrix Reloaded' and the upcoming Dolph Lundgren starrer'Castle Falls', Halls also had a personal-behavior complaint filed against him two years while working on Blumhouse TV's anthology series Into the Dark. "Dave Halls worked on two films for Blumhouse Television in 2019, and was not rehired after that time," a Blumhouse TV spokesperson told Deadline on Sunday. Halls was on the crew of the 'Pure' and 'Culture Shock' episodes of 'Into the Dark', which was streamed on Hulu.
