Veteran prop master turned down 'Rust' film: 'An accident waiting to happen'

Neal W. Zoromski has spent three decades in Hollywood, working on movies big and small, but never on a western. So he was thrilled last month when he was asked to join the crew of an Alec Baldwin film in New Mexico.

The veteran prop master immediately told "Rust" production managers that he was interested in the job that would give him responsibility for the accoutrements of the Old West. Pistols, rifles, wagons, saddles and flour sacks were needed to re-create 1880s Kansas for Baldwin, who was playing a grizzled outlaw named Harland Rust.

But during four days of informal discussions with film managers, Zoromski said he got a "bad feeling."

"There were massive red flags," he said in an interview Sunday with The Times.

He said he felt that "Rust" was too much of a slapdash production, one with an overriding focus on saving money instead of a concern for people's safety. Production managers didn't seem to value experience and were brushing off his questions, he said.

Zoromski ultimately told "Rust" production managers that he would take a pass.

"After I pressed 'send' on that last email, I felt, in the pit of my stomach: 'That is an accident waiting to happen,'" he said.

Last Thursday, Baldwin fatally shot 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in the chest with a prop gun while rehearsing a gunfight scene inside a wooden church at the Bonanza Creek Ranch movie set near Santa Fe, N.M.

Baldwin, who also is a producer on the film, was practicing removing his revolver from its holster and aiming it toward the camera. "Rust" director Joel Souza, who also was injured, told a Santa Fe County Sheriff's detective that he heard “what sounded like a whip and then a loud pop."

Hutchins, a rising star in the industry, crumpled over, and fellow crew members struggled to treat her wound. She was later airlifted about 50 miles away to an Albuquerque hospital, where she was pronounced dead. She left behind a husband and 9-year-old son.

Production has been shut down, and Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies and the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau are investigating the accident.

Tensions were boiling on set. On Thursday, the 12th day of a 21-day production, union camera operators and their assistants had walked off the job to protest working conditions. Nonunion camera operators were brought in, and the switch put the director behind schedule. The assistant director had yelled at the script supervisor during lunch, according to a copy of the 911 recording.

Days earlier, a camera operator had reported two accidental gun discharges during a rehearsal in a cabin. "This is super unsafe," the camera operator wrote in a text message to the production manager, The Times reported Friday.

The tragedy occurred amid a boisterous debate within Zoromski's union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, over whether to go on strike to seek better pay and improved conditions on film and TV sets.

The "Rust" producers late last week released a statement: "The safety of our cast and crew is the top priority of Rust Productions and everyone associated with the company. Though we were not made aware of any official complaints concerning weapon or prop safety on set, we will be conducting an internal review of our procedures while production is shut down. We will continue to cooperate with the Santa Fe authorities in their investigation and offer mental health services to the cast and crew during this tragic time."

Now, Zoromski, who lives in Los Angeles, is haunted by Hutchins' death. He believes that had he accepted the "Rust" job, things would have turned out differently.

"I take my job incredibly seriously," he said. "As the prop master, you have to be concerned about safety. I'm the guy who hands the guns to the people on set."

Zoromski, 57, didn't grow up wanting to be in the movie business. Born in New Zealand, he traveled around the world with his adopted parents before moving, at age 5, with his mother to Rhode Island. He graduated from Boston College with a biochemistry degree.

He had planned a career in the pharmaceutical industry, but he was in need of a job. He worked at a restaurant in L.A., in retail, and then at a cutthroat commercial real estate brokerage on the West Side.