Alec Baldwin kills Halyna Hutchins with prop gun; Here's all about the cinematographer

American actor Alec Baldwin was recently involved in an accident on the sets of his forthcoming film Rust where a prop gun killed a cinematographer. Apart from the cinematographer, the gun also injured director Joel Souza who was later taken to a hospital in Santa Fe. As per the reports by ANI, Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun and shot the director and cinematographer at Santa Fe film set in New Mexico. Baldwin was filming his upcoming movie, Rust, near Santa Fe when Halyna Hutchins, 42, the director of photography, was shot by a prop firearm  

Soon after the incident, the cinematographer was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where she was pronounced dead by medical personnel. Halyna Hutchins has worked on a number of indie productions including Archenemy, Blindfire, and The Mad Hatter. Born in Ukraine in 1979, the 42-yer-old cinematographer grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle. She passed out from Kyiv National University and graduated with a degree in international journalism. In her first career, she worked as an investigative journalist for British documentary productions in Eastern Europe.

All about cinematographer Halyna Hutchins who was shot dead on Rust sets

Later, she took inspiration from cinematographers such as Christopher Doyle and Sergey Urusevskiy and decided to shift the curve of her career from journalism to cinematography. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hutchins decided to focus on filmmaking and moved to Los Angeles, working first in various production-assistant jobs and as a grip-electric, while also shooting short films. 

Soon her career took a turn in 2018 when she was selected as one of eight female cinematographers for the inaugural 21st Century Fox DP Lab, and a year later she was selected as one of American Cinematographer magazine’s Rising Stars. Her career credits include Vega’s To the New Girl (2020) and Pollyanna McIntosh’s horror film Darlin’ (2019) while on other hand, her short film credits include I Am Normal and Sunday’s Child. 

The demise of the cinematographer came as a great blow to the industry as everyone was completely taken aback after listening to the incident. American film director James Gunn mourned the demise on Twitter and sent his prayers to the one affected by the 'tragedy'. Joe Manganiello also expressed his grief and shared how he was completely blown away after hearing the news early morning.

Meanwhile, Sheriff's spokesman Juan Rios informed the Albuquerque Journalist about the incident and revealed that the detectives were investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged through the prop firearm and no charges have been filed in the incident. The deputies also revealed that the crew was filming a scene with a prop firearm when the incident occurred.

IMAGE: AP/Instagram/Halyna Hutchins