Oh man, I'm gonna eat it here but...
I was a location sound recordist for the film biz here in hollywood for over a decade and here's the scoop.....
1. After 26 takes of the actor screwing up his lines...the director no longer cares when the weapons master suggests that the actor didn't simulate recoil.
2. After 30 actors and extras leave their expensive prop firearms laying around the lunch table instead of returning them...the weapons master no longer cares if the actors simulate recoil.
3. After 6 18hr days in a row...nobody can pronounce recoil, let alone worry about it.
4. recoil is hard to convincingly simulate.
5. Recorded gunfire sounds like crap. 99.9% of all gunfire you hear in a movie is added later.
6. Movie scenes are mostly shot out of order. Sometimes days apart. The "Script Supervisor" is in charge of "continuity" which means things like what clothes they are wearing, and which eye was black and such. My experience is that Script supervisers mostly know nothing about firearms, and the weapons master is too busy keeping the actors from pointing the guns at the crew to inform them that a 6 shooter only fires 31 shots.
7. It is a common saying in the biz that "if they are looking at that, then we are doing something wrong" This would pertain to things like missing primers and such.
8. Any idiot knows that the hero unloads his gun and counts his ammo when he goes around corners and therefore needs to re-rack the slide or pump that shotgun again. You just don't see them do it. Use some imagination folks
9. What I'm sick of is that fake looking fire gel they put on the stuntpeople. What a bunch of whimps.
10. When you are making 10mil a year, you are too busy mansion shopping to worry about this stuff.
Anyway, if you have any questions about what goes on at the sets....just ask. I still have a vague and dreaded memory of it.
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Same Shot, Different Day