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Halyna Hutchins: "She worked tirelessly for eleven years"
Photo: Fred Hayes / Getty Images for SAGindie
Halyna Hutchins smiles at the camera.
She films herself riding a horse in the middle of a barren landscape.
“One of the advantages of filming a western is that you can ride on your day off,” says the video, which has now been viewed over 1.7 million times.
It is the last Instagram clip that the camerawoman posted - before she was apparently accidentally shot by Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin on the set of the western film "Rust".
In addition to Baldwin himself, other colleagues of the native Ukrainian reacted with dismay to the death of the 42-year-old.
Adam Egypt Mortimer, director of the superhero film "Archenemy" from 2020, on which Hutchins worked as a camerawoman, called her a "brilliant talent" on Twitter.
He was "so angry that something like this could happen on a set".
Joe Mangianello, leading actor on "Archenemy," tweeted: "An incredible talent and a great person."
Stories based on real people
A touch of the talent to tell exciting stories can be seen in the short biography on Hutchins' own website: She grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle, "surrounded by reindeer and nuclear submarines."
She began to be interested in films because "there wasn't so much to do outside".
First she studied economics, then turned to journalism in Kiev.
“My transition from journalism,” she once said, “began when I was working on British film productions in Eastern Europe, traveling with crews to remote locations and seeing the cameraman working.” They had stories based on real people's lives Charmed.
She decided to devote herself to filmmaking and went to the United States, where, according to American Cinematographer magazine, she took "all sorts of jobs as a production assistant." She also went on excursions into fashion photography to learn more about "how to create a mood, a feeling". She studied at the well-known American Film Institute in Los Angeles and worked as a camerawoman - in a male domain.
Sidra Smith, a casting director who worked with Hutchins, wrote on Instagram that Hutchins' death broke her heart.
"Rust" was a huge opportunity for her, camera women had a hard time in the industry.
The camerawoman Catherine Goldschmidt told the BBC that it was so sad when you consider "what was still ahead of her".
Hutchins leaves behind a son.
Her husband, Matthew Hutchins, told Insider, "I don't think there are words to describe the situation."
"Rising Star"
In 2019 “American Cinematographer” named Halyna Hutchins a “Rising Star”.
According to the online database IMDB, she worked as a camerawoman on 32 film productions;
including short films, documentaries and feature films such as the racism drama »Blindfire«, the horror film »Darlin '« - and the western »Rust«.
The Los Angeles Times reported that employees on the set of the film had complained about a lack of security.
They also complained about bad conditions such as long working hours.
Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper also reported that several members of the camera crew had left the location a few hours before the fatal incident in protest of the working conditions.
Director Olia Oparina, who had worked alongside Halyna Hutchins on several occasions, wrote about her colleague's death on Instagram: “She worked tirelessly for eleven years, and her career only started to pick up speed this year.
And does it end this way? "