The Rust crew was short-staffed and running behind schedule, according to the latest affidavit.

Earlier that morning, a camera crew had quit, which led to director Joel Souza in search of new camera operators.

Even with a replacement team, filming was slow as there was only one camera available, according to the affidavit reviewed by Wall Street Journal.

Brandon Lee – the son of the late action star Bruce Lee – was killed in 1993 on the set of The Crow after an actor fired a prop gun that he believed to be loaded with blanks.

His family shared a statement following the on-set shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Crew member Reid Russell, who was setting up the camera for the scene, said Alec Baldwin had been “very careful” with weapons, according to a latest affidavit reviewed by Wall Street Journal.

Russell revealed that Baldwin made sure a child wasn’t near him in prior scenes when he was using a gun, just to be safe.

Prop guns include both real guns as well as toy guns or defunct weapons. The former are typically used to add an element of authenticity to close-up shots, as pointed out by firearms expert Cameron Brown in an article for American Cinematography magazine.

These are usually loaded with blanks or blank cartridges, not bullets. A blank cartridge contains all the components except for the projectile. Instead, the tip is sealed with things like paper wadding or wax.

Here’s how prop guns and blanks work, and why they can still be dangerous.

Joel Souza said he heard a loud pop on Alec Baldwin’s final reach for the gun, according to the affidavit released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday (24 October).

Souza vaguely remembers that Halyna Hutchins grabbed her waist and stumbled backwards before complaining of stomach ache, according to the document.

The director had been looking over the cinematographer’s shoulder to analyse the church scene, before he noticed that she was bleeding, according to the affidavit.

Director Joel Souza allegedly admitted that he wasn’t certain if the gun being used by Alec Baldwin was checked for safety after work resumed following a break at 12.30pm, according to a latest affidavit.

Souza said he had believed the gun being used in rehearsal was safe, according to the search warrant document released on Sunday (24 October).

“Mr Souza stated there should never be live rounds whatsoever near or around the scene,” the affidavit said, which was reviewed by Wall Street Journal.

The document also states that there were severe delays in production that day as a camera crew had quit, leaving the director in search of new camera operators in the morning.

Despite CGI and computer technology, many productions still use guns — real guns — when filming.

The tragedy on the set of Rust has revived the question: Why are real guns ever used on set, when computers can create gunshots in post-production? Isn’t even the smallest risk unacceptable?

The gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin on the set of Rust was being used by crew members of the film for target practice, TMZ reported.

The outlet has learned that an off-set target practice was being allegedly conducted using real bullets, which is how a live round found its way on the set.

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Sources familialiar with the work of the 24-year-old head armourer at the centre of the Alec Baldwin shooting have alleged that she was a “bit careless” during her first role as a head armourer on a film set.

“She was a bit careless with the guns, waving it around every now and again,” said a source to The Daily Beast of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. “There were a couple times she was loading the blanks and doing it in a fashion that we thought was unsafe.”

The source added that on the set of the upcoming Nicolas Cage film, The Old Way, Ms Gutierrez-Reed handed a gun to an 11-year-old child actor without checking the weapon.

She recently said in an interview with a podcast that “loading blanks was the scariest thing to me because I was like ‘oh, I don’t know anything about it”, but her father, longtime Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, helped with her training.

Safety standards developed by film studios and labor unions are the primary protection for actors and film crews when a scene calls for using prop guns. The industry-wide guidance is clear: “Blanks can kill. Treat all firearms as if they are loaded.”

Shootings nevertheless have killed and injured people while cameras rolled, including the cinematographer who died and the director who was wounded this week when no one realized a prop gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin during the filming of “Rust” carried live rounds that are far more dangerous than blanks.

As The Associated Press explains, most of the preferred states for film and TV productions take a largely hands-off approach.