Halyna Hutchins

As much as I try to use the Giphy app, I just can't make selected gifs animate properly (here on lj) as a user pic. Damn!

Sometime last year a co-worker and I were talking on the subject of film. It was the Harvey Weinstein debacle that sparked the topic. I recal expressing my opinion on stuff like film industry corruption. In a nutshell, I've always believed that artists have to resort to basic resources when they aren't yet famous. An example might be utilizing prostitutes as models for life drawing sessions instead of real "nude" models. So, keeping that idea in mind, directors of motion pictures might behave similarly. When a nude scene is required, it's much easier to convince a porn actress to play the part rather increase the salary of a B-list actress. You see this type of behavior in Game of Thrones with Sibel Kikelli in the role of Shae.

As soon as the nudity is no longer needed, the director kills off the character.

I guess it's a thin line between establishing the artistic expertise in movies because so many skilled talents go into the making of a motion picture. Between two such career professionals as Halyna Hutchins and Alec Baldwin, who is the real artist? My opinion that day with aforementioned co-worker was basically that an actor acts, but a director has more responsibilities involving framing their subjects, technical skills with cameras, using their imagination for unique ways to portray their images. While it may be true that actors like Baldwin are rich in worth, one might also argue that actors get more gigs than cinematographers. Wouldn't it be interesting to compare the salaries between A-list actors against cinematographers with equal prestige? Assuming the A-list actor has 145 credits to his name, and we sum the total earned for those gigs, would an equally talented director have earned more or less what the A-list actor earned?

Martin Scorsese IMO falls into the category of master of his trade, yet he only has 84 credits to his name. Google shows a net worth for Scorsese as 150 million, while Baldwin's net worth is only 60 million. Halyna was a young cinematographer, but I wouldn't doubt that she was probably earning equal, if not more, what Baldwin was earning as "Actor" for Rust (not counting Baldwin's involvement as producer for that film.) It should be interesting to follow the outcome of the lawsuits against Baldwin as I calculate it will result in one of the fastest declines of A-list to D-list ever seen in Hollywood.