Once Brennan (and everyone ) was convinced, we proceeded to shoot the real shot with no errors other than we had to shoot it twice due to a camera department error. I then took John Brennan's place and let Ralph Bluemke shoot me with a blank, in exactly the same manner and distance, to prove it was all safe. Twelve hours of surgery later, Lee succumbed. Blanks have typically more powder than a real cartridge, so when it went off it propelled the lead bullet right through Brandon Lee's stomach, lodging near his spine. When the lead bullets were removed (apparently weeks earlier) and then blank rounds were inserted into the cylinder to fire with bright flash.but what happened was the prop man didn't notice that one of the lead bullets hadn't come out and had a blank inserted behind it. That lead bullets (not cartridges (meaning no powder or charge of any kind) had been put in the cylinder of the gun to make it appear to be loaded (as seen by the camera). I had been paying attention to what friends in the VFX industry had been reporting, and both Walter Suarez and I sat down with actor Brennan to explain EXACTLY what had happened to Brandon Lee, and why what we were doing was safe. The death of Brandon Lee was still very fresh in the minds of many when we came to shoot our scene.
#Twilight scene it dvd series#
Jon-Erik Hexum in the TV series Voyagers! Hexum put a blank-loaded 44 Magnum to his head and pulled the trigger (as a practical joke). A blank had also accidentally killed actor Jon-Erik Hexum on the set of the TV series COVER UP, in 1984. On Wednesday March 31st 1993, two months earlier, was the day a gun-accident on the set of THE CROW ended the life of actor Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee. On Tuesday, June 8th 1993, we were shooting a scene for my film involving a pistol (loaded with a single blank round), and a bit of practical makeup effects magic where an actor (John Brennan) being shot from behind by actor Ralph Bluemke, but there was one problem: John Brennan was nervous and concerned to do the shot! In June and July of 1993 I was producing and directing a movie, TWILIGHT OF THE DOGS, which had everything, trained animals, stunts, hundreds of extras.and guns.real guns, supplied by our armorer, Walter Suarez, from his local (Newport News) based PARK AVENUE ARMOURERS.Īctor John Brennan about to be "shot" with a blank by Ralph Bluemke on the set of TWILIGHT OF THE DOGS