Master Your Craft

When I was in the Army, there was a necessity to master your craft. People’s lives depended on it. There was a number of courses you could take to ensure you had the information and education to master what you did. Jumpmaster. Rappelmaster. Master Gunner. Master Fitness. Master Trainer. I went through Jumpmaster School at Ft. Bragg in November 2000 to ensure I knew how to safely put Paratroopers out of aircraft. As bad as Ranger School sucked for 89 days, the 11 days of Jumpmaster was infinitely more stressful because I knew if I screwed up, people could die. No joke.

The school was only part of it. You had a professional responsibility to continue to learn and perfect what you were doing. It never stopped. Things changed. Equipment changed. Procedures changed. You kept learning and studying, because it could still mean the difference between life an death. Eventually, I earned a Master Parachutist rating over time and lots of experience. I still kept learning. I had to.

Over a year ago, I was in Chicago with my best friend having a guys weekend at a car auction, playing poker, and eating great food. That’s what two sober guys do on a guys weekend. That was the weekend of the Alec Baldwin incident. Here you had two guys; one with a lifetime of personal and professional experience with firearms and one with a lifetime of experience as an actor, writer, and producer in Hollywood.

Knowing what I know and knowing what he knows, we very quickly determined negligence was the cause of this. I know the mechanics of firearms, even the antique/classic firearms used that day. I know what has to happen and not happen for that pistol to fire. I didn’t know what kind of safety measures Hollywood used to prevent these exact things. I was somewhat shocked at what I learned.

Hollywood does have and use safety procedures. They pay a lot of money for trained, experienced, professional armorers. The Assistant Director is personally involved in checking any firearms on set to make sure they are safe. Professionally trained actors (and there are more of them than you realize) take real classes on stage combat to know what they are doing. And it isn’t just swords and shields or punching someone in the face.

Safety procedures or not, qualified professional armorers or not, very few actors have any real idea about firearms. The safety of what they are doing is almost completely taken out of their hands. They are handed a weapon that has been (supposedly) checked by a number of people before them that assure it is safe. Many actors wouldn’t know how to even check the weapon that has been handed to them, including ones that have used firearms in movies and TV repeatedly. They have not mastered that potentially dangerous part of their craft.

There are some notable exceptions. If you’re bored, check out Keanu Reeves training with Taran Tactical Innovations for the John Wick movies on YouTube. That dude can SHOOT. Everything he does in those movies, he can do for real. No joke. And it isn’t just for show; he trains with live ammunition. Like real bullets. He knows that role requires him to do all those things, so he learned for real. And he keeps learning and training. He is mastering his craft.

When you master your craft, that does NOT eliminate the potential for accidents. I knew a few very experienced Paratroopers who died while jumping. Even qualified Master Parachutists. It’s dangerous and things happen. But mastering your craft reduces the risk of accidents when you are doing dangerous things. By the way, any real professional has a desire to master their craft. Why do you think I keep writing all the time?

John Wayne knew how to ride a horse. All the western actors did. Steve McQueen was a motorcycle and car racer. Paul Newman raced cars too. Tom Cruise is notorious on learning to do the things his characters do, including flying planes, driving cars, etc. Why do they do stuff like this? Because that shit is dangerous…and they want to master their craft. By the way, for you old timers, Errol Flynn was a master swordsman, even when he was drunk.

Alec Baldwin, on the other hand, is like many actors. He hates guns when he isn’t working but loves them when he is, because they pay the bills. But, he left safety to someone else when it came to the incident that ended a young woman’s life. He didn’t check the pistol. He didn’t do his own due diligence. He violated the golden rules of firearm safety. He doesn’t know guns. He hasn’t put the time in to master his craft. Negligence. Period. Personally and professionally.

Place the blame however and wherever you want. That’s where it ends. Negligence. And this WILL change Hollywood. Mark my words. There will be a slow movement to remove all real firearms from movies and television. They will be prop guns and CGI, period. They won’t have to master this task, because it will be taken away.

That brings us around to you and me. What about you? What do you do to master your craft? Are you still working? Are you still learning?

That’s what I’m doing. Right now. As I type. Like I do most days. I write. I am a writer. I am trying to Master My Craft.