‘Rust’ film set shooting ‘puzzling,’ not ‘surprising,’ says former Hollywood crew fixer: ‘Maybe it’s cynicism’

Since the investigation into the death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after a shot fired from a gun actor Alec Baldwin was wielding resulted also left director Joel Souza wounded, on- set safety – or in this case, an alleged lack thereof – has remained a supreme topic of conversation in Hollywood.

In just one of Riess’ many jobs in the world of cast and crew, he worked as a Hollywood production "fixer" — going undercover at various productions ripe with attrition —  which included high turnover by crew members quitting or being unhappy in some capacity and reporting back to the showrunners or the networks about suggestions he felt they needed in order to change the morale and fix their crew issues. 

Fox News sat in on Riess’ screenwriting class, where his students were engaged in a table read of one of his television series, which has seen five revisions since 2004 and at one point had been optioned by a network but ultimately went the way of countless others and never saw the light of day.