Any rational person who does not work in the business would say "Why would anyone go out on a train track and put themselves at risk? Didn't that Assistant Cameraperson know that they could be hit? That trains are dangerous?"
That is very true. But a rational person does not work in the film business. They work in a job that has regular hours, where the pay is reasonable. Those of us who work in the industry are driven to do it because we love it. There is nothing like the sheer joy of watching a shot successfully pull off the magic. The tingle when a funny thing happens. The heart pounding feeling of watching an action scene play down without a flaw, in real time, right in front of you.
We all work trusting that the members of the team who are creating this magic -- the special effects mavens, the directors and producers and location managers and permit pullers and all the other behind the scenes organizers are doing their job and getting their part of the process properly aligned.
Sarah Jones, and the rest of us, trust that all the others on our team will make it happen, and that it is just up to us to pull our weight and make sure that we get the shot, then stand up and dust ourselves off after "cut" is yelled.
Anyone who questions anything -- like the way things are being shot -- the way things are planned -- the overall scheme of production -- is quickly labelled as being a detriment to the team. A comment about any other part of the production than your little area is "above my pay grade." And people who ask thos questions are labelled a troublemaker. And troublemakers are not invited back to play again the next day.
Because of liability issues, most of the time productions come off without deaths. No one wants to die to get a shot. Serious injuries happen, though. Falls. One show I worked on only replaced a faulty, dangerous set of stairs where multiple falls had occurred after a crew member fell for the second time in one day, injuring herself badly enough so that she had to go to the hospital overnight. And even then she did not complain about the stairs, blaming herself for being clumsy.
Producers only replaced those stairs because they were afraid of being sued.
So Sarah was on the shoot, and from what I hear trains were coming by fast every 15-20 minutes. She was hit while running, trying to remove equipment from the tracks so it would not be destroyed. I suspect Sarah was trying to make sure that they could set back up after the train passed -- and get the shot.
RIP Sarah, I hope that your death makes people reflect a bit about production, their lives, and not questioning what we are asked to do on the job.
