Another example of hire a pro

[josh88]

Long story short, lots of child actors and metal, sharp weapons swung haphazardly at them by unskilled extras. Luckily nobody was injured and it was brought to someone's attention that mayyyyybe thats not a good idea.

"Thirty child actors – some as young as 4 years old – were put at risk during the filming of a battle scene last month on the Georgia set of Lionsgate’s Allegiant. In the chaotic scene during production of the third film in the Divergentseries, child actors scrambled through a gauntlet of more than 100 untrained adult extras swinging metal clubs, axes and machetes."

“Concerned, I went around and handled the weapons for myself and saw that they were steel and aluminum, with bladed edges, and some were quite sharp.”

“Everyone seemed to know it was wrong, but no one was willing to speak up,” he told Deadline. “To me, it seems that saving money – the expense of rubber props – took priority over safety

http://deadline.com/2015/07/divergent-series-allegiant-child-actors-risk-whistleblower-1201475599/

 

[Catwalker]

I sometimes wonder what goes through people's heads on these occasions.

"So, fight scene time."
"Yep. So, where do we get the props?"
"Well, I have a bunch of extra steel in my shed we can use."
"Sounds like a plan. What could possibly go wrong?"

 

[josh88]

Yeah. I've been lucky enough to work with and around people who know to call me in when there's something like this and I know when to call someone in when the scale gets to be larger than I can handle. It seems like common sense at this point to me to use a rubber or plastic weapon whenever possible unless you need the ring that steel makes. When it comes to weapons and potential danger, common sense doesn't always exist in your average person. But there are dozens of "when it comes to _______" statements that come to mind with stuff we all deal with on a day to day basis.

 

[StradivariusBone]

The comment wars on this article are interesting, a lot of the parents are defending the safety measures the production company took. I agree steel and kids are not the best mix, but I can also relate to dealing with someone who may not be 100% familiar with a situation being taken aback seeing something like that. Case-in-point I had a new teacher who was shocked to learn that my students actually use power tools to build sets. This is despite the fact that we spend a month learning how to use the tools and the PPE associated with them and even then I don't let all the kids chop wood.

 

[What Rigger?]

The person who made the call did the right thing. Period. Nothing that could cause injury, especially around children, can ever be used. Metal weapons? Are you kidding me? No training on the handling of said weapons? Give me a break. Edges or not, the answer is no. Good on Local 479 and the individual who sacked up and got the ball rolling on stopping this stupidity.

 

[gafftaper]

"The film’s safety consult declined to discuss the matter with Deadline, but in an email to the witness, he wrote: “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I do not and will not take this lightly. As you are well aware of, these weapons are completely unsatisfactory for the type of action that you have described."

So the film's safety consultant claims he/she had no idea that this was going on in the middle of a major combat scene? Either the person is lying to cover up safety violations and deserves to be fired OR the person is completely incompetent and should have been fired yesterday.

Worst of all, this isn't a low budget indie film, this is a box office monster franchise. They made over $250 million on Divergent world wide. They can afford a couple dozen rubber props.

 

[josh88]

They can afford a couple dozen rubber props.

Not only can they afford it, it sounds like the rubber ones were right around the corner. At one point I read that once all this came up all they had to do was grab the rubber ones and keep going. So they were available and relatively near by.