'Rust' Production Member Reportedly Mocked Camera Crew Complaints with T-Shirts

Crew members from Albuquerque reportedly asked production for closer hotel rooms to avoid a 50-mile travel to the Santa Fe, New Mexico set, and were mocked.

The scene of the 'Rust' accidental shooting
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Image via Getty/Sam Wasson

The scene of the 'Rust' accidental shooting

A production staffer on the set of Rust—the Alec Baldwin film which saw the on-set death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins following a prop gun firing—mocked some of the camera crew’s complaints with T-shirts, according to a report from The Los Angeles Times.

Crew members from Albuquerque reportedly asked production for closer hotel rooms to avoid a 50-mile travel to the Santa Fe, New Mexico set, and in response, the Rust production office mocked them.

This came after camera crew members wouldn’t get hotel accommodations after the first week of filming, A-camera first assistant Lane Luper told the Times

Someone on production staff then reportedly ordered “custom black long-sleeve T-shirts” with phrases “Error 404: Housing Not Found” and “ABQ is an hour away” printed on them. This came around the time that six camera operators and their assistants left the set to protest working conditions and commutes, the LAT previously shared. 

“They all made it clear they didn’t feel safe and that they had to spend a long time to get to set, so everyone was tired even before they got there,” an insider told PEOPLE. “They were concerned and angry that the proposed union strike that was meant to address these issues never happened.”

This isn’t the first time T-shirts have been a topic of discussion in the aftermath of the shooting, as Donald Trump Jr. has been ridiculed for selling since-removed shirts on his website, which read “Guns Don’t Kill People, Alec Baldwin Kills People.” 

Production for the film is indefinitely paused, as Baldwin—who discharged the prop gun that killed Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza—gave his first on-camera interview to reporters outside of where he was staying in Vermont last week. In it, he said the Rust team was a “well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened.”

For a rundown of everything that’s happened following the shooting, click here

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