Cinematographer Killed on Set With Alec Baldwin Hailed From Ukraine
** BREAKING (Nov. 17, 2021): ‘Rust’ Script Supervisor Sues Alec Baldwin for ‘Assault’ After Deadly Set Shooting. Mamie Mitchell says Alec Baldwin chose to play ‘Russian Roulette’ with loaded gun without checking it
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed Thursday in a tragic incident involving a prop gun fired by actor and producer Alec Baldwin on the New Mexico set of the film “Rust,” was originally from Ukraine. She was born in the village of Horodets in Zhytomyr Oblast and her maiden name was Androsovych, Radio Svoboda reported.
Hutchins grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle “surrounded by reindeer and nuclear submarines,” according to the bio on her personal website. It also said she earned a graduate degree in international journalism from Kyiv National University in Ukraine. Before making her way to Los Angeles, she worked as an investigative journalist on British documentary productions.
Ukraine’s consulate in San Francisco said Hutchins retained her Ukrainian citizenship, Radio Svoboda reported.
Family reaction
"I cannot comprehend (her passing)," said Hutchins’ sister, Svetlana Androsovych, who currently lives in Indonesia. "I loved her very much ... I was very proud of her and she was my role model. We were always close and remained in touch, despite the distance."
"This loss is a great grief for our family, and I see how hard it is for our parents," she added. "Hopefully, time will ease our heartache."
Ivan Androsovych, a lecturer at the Agricultural University in Kyiv and a cousin of Hutchins, spoke about her to Radio Svoboda.
“You know, she always wanted something bigger. She studied English on her own, applied for an American green card and eventually went to the United States.
“After some time she returned and entered international journalism at the Shevchenko University of Kyiv..I also studied there ... And after a while she invited me to the wedding.
“I thanked her and joked that ‘you didn't find your grandfather there.’ And she is a real beauty. And they made such a good couple, such a good guy, a couple of years older than her.
“She's so very strong, you know. Purposeful. She clearly saw her future, lived by these projects.”
A 2015 graduate of the AFI conservatory, Hutchins, 42, had been selected as one of American Cinematographer’s Rising Stars of 2019. With indie features like “Archenemy,” “Blindfire” and “The Mad Hatter” to her credit, along with a string of shorts and commercial work, she was beginning to make a bigger name for herself.
“She had this amazing background that you just sort of instantly romanticize,” director Adam Egypt Mortimer said. “She had this whole Ukrainian vibe that made her seem both super cool and serious about truth.”
Hutchins was transported to the hospital via helicopter and pronounced dead by medical personnel at University of New Mexico Hospital, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office.
(Hours before Baldwin fatally shot Hutchins on set, a half-dozen camera crew workers walked off the set to protest working conditions, The Los Angeles Times reported Friday. The camera operators and their assistants were frustrated by the conditions surrounding the low-budget film, including complaints about long hours, long commutes and collecting their paychecks).
Also, the Associated Press reported Friday that Baldwin was handed a loaded weapon by an assistant director who indicated it was safe to use in the moments before the actor discharged it, court records show.
In a tweet Friday, Baldwin said: “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours. I'm fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred and I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family. My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”
In her last Instagram post, three days ago, Hutchins said that one of the perks of shooting a western movie is that you get to ride horses on your day off. According to Ukrainian media, she leaves behind her husband and a nine-year-old son.
Friends remember Hutchins
Alex Fedosov, another Ukrainian film-maker working Hollywood, said Hutchins was "rising fast in her career" and was "an artist and a visionary".
"She was so talented, a photography director with her own vision, her own strong ideas," he told BBC News Ukrainian.
"When we worked together on set, I was assistant director, I would rush her and say, 'Hurry up, we need to film this'. She would smile calmly but carry on in her own rhythm because she knew what she wanted to achieve."
Halyna Hutchins and director Pollyanna McIntosh capturing the final church scene on set of Darlin’
Fedosov added Hutchins was a "wonderful mother, first and foremost".
He also questioned how her death could have happened, saying: "Standards of safety in the US are very high. There is always an expert on set. There are always checks ahead of filming. Blanks are used sometimes to achieve a better effect on camera but it is always done with high degree of safety."
“For Ukrainians, working conditions in Hollywood are a paradise after what they are used to in their homeland. There, my shift in filming commercials, music videos, movies could last 24-26 hours. In Hollywood, changing actors - eight hours, groups - 10-12 hours”
Fedosov told BBC Ukrainian that Hollywood would’ve been a huge, positive change for the slain cinematographer. "For Ukrainians, working conditions in Hollywood are a paradise after what they are used to in their homeland. There, my shift in filming commercials, music videos, movies could last 24-26 hours. In Hollywood, changing actors - eight hours, groups - 10-12 hours.”
In a 2019 interview, Hutchins explained to American Cinematographer magazine why she moved from journalism to cinematography, saying: "My transition from journalism began when I was working on British film productions in eastern Europe, travelling with crews to remote locations and seeing how the cinematographer worked.
"I was fascinated with storytelling based on real characters."
Her early life as a self-described "army brat" meant she was "already a movie fan because 'there wasn't that much to do outside'", the magazine added.
It said she gained "hands-on shooting experience from documenting her forays into such extreme sports as parachuting and cave exploration".
After her death, the magazine paid tribute to the film-maker, saying: "We're deeply saddened by the news from Santa Fe regarding the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Safety on the set should always be of paramount concern to everyone, especially when working with firearms."
Hutchins was “just in love with movies and movie-making," filmmaker and journalist Jim Hemphill, who profiled Hutchins in 2019 as part of a feature on rising cinematographers, told CNN.
"She grew up on a Soviet military base where there wasn't much to do but watch movies. So she fell in love with movies at a young age, came over here, was really making a name for herself as a cinematographer of genre movies. She was known for action films and horror films. It is just a devastating loss, I think, to everybody in the cinematography community," Hemphill told CNN.
Hutchins studied journalism and worked on documentaries in the United Kingdom before she went into filmmaking, he added.
"That led her to come over here to the US to work in a film industry where she kind of brought that eye that she had from documentaries and nonfiction filmmaking to action movies and horror movies. They had this sort of immediacy and realism as well as this eye for beauty that she had and it was a really unique look," Hemphill said Friday. "It was really announcing her as somebody to watch."
Casting director, producer and writer Sidra Smith posted on Instagram she was left "devastated" by the news about Hutchins, with whom she worked on the TV miniseries "A Luv Tale."
"It's hard out here for women cinematographers and this was a HUGE opportunity for her. She was so young and so talented. Halyna and I spent so much time together. She was so beautifully gracious and words cannot express how supportive she was to me," Smith wrote. "God bless her beautiful heart and soul."
- BBC, LA Times, CNN, wires
**The film and television community in the U.S. is holding candlelight vigils for Halyna Hutchins in California and New Mexico. Details here
