Join Stargate Armorer Rob Fournier and Felcan Enterprises for a few rounds of firearm training with the original P-90s fired on the shows — plus a hands-on overview of other weapons from the franchise!

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
I am with Rob Fournier of P51 Productions, and we are at… Is this Falcon Enterprises?

Rob Fournier:
This is Falcon Enterprises.

David Read:
I cannot thank Tom and you enough for making this possible for us to be able to come together and see all your glorious toys…

Rob Fournier:
It’s our pleasure.

David Read:
…that mean so much to the history of Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe. You guys provided the weaponry for all production.

Rob Fournier:
All three productions, every season. And some of them did crossovers also.

David Read:
And the thousands of other productions up here in Vancouver. Is that right?

Rob Fournier:
Absolutely. This company, Falcon Enterprises, has been around since 1989. I started here in 1993, and then I was a certified armorer by 1994.

David Read:
I can’t imagine what stories we’re about to hear with you in person. I only had a chance to meet you briefly earlier this year, and when I got to experience the sensation of firing one of these beautiful pieces, I was like, “I really hope that we have a chance to share this with everyone so that they can see the work that you guys go into on the back end to prep people, to prep the firearms, to go through the process, and even ultimately afterwards, to clean it and then to store it again.” And I want to give people a taste of that today.

Rob Fournier:
Copy.

David Read:
So, for a little bit, I’m gonna get out of your way and I’m gonna let you and Remington come in and get up close with the audience and let them see all of the work that you guys have gone into making this.

Rob Fournier:
Not a problem. That sounds great.

David Read:
Go nuts, everyone. Thank you, Rob.

Rob Fournier:
Thank you. What I have here is a few of the weapons that we’ve used throughout Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Stargate Universe, and I remember during SG-1 and Atlantis sometimes, certain weapons would be on one production and then all of a sudden we need them on another production, so we were crossing over all the time. This first weapon here, a very powerful weapon, a USAS-12, it’s a rotary-style magazine on a 12-gauge select-fire weapon, and it could fire semi-automatic and fully automatic. It only works on full loads because of the blowback extension, and it was incredible concussive effect all the time when we fired these things. A lot of the times we’d have to clear as many people out of the stage as possible because of the concussive effect. Excellent firearm. Used to kill Replicators on Stargate. And then we have here the L6 40-millimeter grenade launcher. Tear-gas launcher, but you could also use it for high explosive, incendiary, or any type of armor piercing. We used it on several occasions throughout SG-1 and Atlantis, not so much Universe. And then on Stargate, a little bit on the late seasons of SG-1, but mostly on Stargate Atlantis, you’d recognize the HK G36. This was a favorite amongst Ben Browder, and he was a big fan of it. He actually liked it more than the P90. He got really good with it, he got very, very versatile with it, and he was very efficient with the reloads and stuff like that. He liked it more so than the P90. Right behind here, we have the Desert Eagle. This is, believe it or not, Deadpool’s Desert Eagle in .50 AE or .50 caliber, but we’ve also used it even before Deadpool back in the SG-1 days and Atlantis days, just as a bad guy sidearm and stuff like that. Big concussive effect, very big caliber. Could fire quarter loads, could fire full loads, and we even have solid plug loads on that. And if you look behind it, what was famous from the Vietnam War era, they used to call it the Pig. It’s the M60A2, which is a platoon-level support weapon in 7.62 millimeter. Used quite a bit. We used it… I think I’ve had almost every character fire that weapon at some point, especially Richard Dean. He loved that weapon. It fires around 700 rounds per minute, and the blanks basically were held in a box there. I just have dummy rounds just to show you what a dummy round would look like. But had a very good range on it, and it was pretty reliable on set. And then we had a newer version, a smaller caliber, the SAW M249, which is a standard issue of the US military since the ’80s and still used today. It was in 5.56 millimeter and it’s more of a section-level weapon ’cause of the smaller caliber and stuff. But I’ve had Richard Dean fire this, and Chris Judge, if I remember, fired this also, among other people with different SG teams. We would have them depending on if they were the Marine Corps SG team or the Army variant or the Air Force variant, but it was used quite often on SG-1. In front here was a weapon that was not built for SG-1 or Atlantis or Universe, but we did use it on Atlantis, and it was a Winchester Model 101 12-gauge that has a big-frame that was built around it. It’s an actual lever-action 12-gauge that’s dated over a hundred years old. And we built this for Blade 3. It was Ryan Reynolds’ gun. And we only used it on the very last sequence of the movie, but because the look of it was so unique, they ended up using it on Stargate. It was brought up for the Satedans, and we ended up using it sometimes for the stunt performers, or the people that were close to our heroes at the time. And it was a menacing-looking weapon system. They liked that look. Has a nice leather look to it. On Stargate, we used a lot of leather products when they were traveling to different planets. It would be readily available. And it had a certain look to it. Very popular weapon to this day is the HK MP7. If you remember Chris Judge, he’d fire one in each hand. You can fire this weapon effectively with blanks one-handed. On fully automatic, if you were to fire live, it’d be a little difficult. But when you fire blanks, it’s really only about 20% of the recoil compared to live ammunition, or even less sometimes. So the MP7 is very easy to handle. Basically, we would have a drop-down little grip on the front if you want to do it two-handed. And we also had an extending stock on it also. So that, put it in the shoulder, and then you would be able to shoot at targets in longer distances. And then we had a Gen 2 AimPoint red dot on it. Very effective. The early days of Stargate, we didn’t have P90s yet. We had what they call an HK MP5. This is an A2 model with a Gen 1 AimPoint on it. Had a little touchpad light on it. You can see it lights up, and a standard 30-round magazine. This is a 9 millimeter. And it had, basically, your safety on the opposite side: safe, single shot, and fully automatic. So this allowed our SG teams to select their rate of fire. When it says single shot or semi-auto, that’s exactly that. Pull the trigger, fires one shot. If you switch it to F, fully automatic, then if you hold the trigger down, it empties the magazine. Still used today. Been around since the 1960s, believe it or not. But it’s changed quite drastically from this configuration to today’s variants. In front of this, we have what we used on Timecop. And this is the same Desert Eagle as you see back there, but this was specially built that it would sit in a holster like this, and it’s a big shell over top. And then once you pulled out of the holster, the sight would pop up once. I drop it like that. So basically now you have a handle to hold onto, and you have an imitation scope that pops up. And you can sit there and blast away. Magazine only holds about eight shots on it. This one was in .44 Magnum. So used on Atlantis. I remember using these for a lot of the bad guys. And it’s a heavy piece of kit. We did have rubber versions of these. But anytime you do a close-up shot, you always want to go with the real thing, clear and safe. Just because rubber looks like rubber on camera if it’s close enough. And that was built for Timecop, but we ended up using it on Stargate. And then also, we have what they call the Timecop Beretta. So this was also built for Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Timecop, but we used it quite often for the Genii. And it’s basically a normal Beretta 92FS, normal magazine, and then we built a shell around it, and it gives it that sort of sci-fi look to it, if you can see. Gives it more of that chunky type, futuristic look. Very reliable. You always had to have Allen keys to keep tightening, because if you fired enough ammunition out of it, sometimes these little screws would want to tend to loosen because the surface of the screws are so small and set so dense that they would loosen up when you would fire multiple rounds, especially with full load. Timecop Beretta. And then we did the same sort of thing with the Taurus PT99. It’s like a Beretta copy. This particular one we built for Nick Fury, the old David Hasselhoff, and they liked the look of it so much ’cause it had that futuristic look, we only used it on Nick Fury and Stargate. That’s it, really. Nobody else has really used this through the years. And we used to have a little glowing type of LED light that they would put inside here that would give it that more futuristic look. Right behind that, Will Smith, I, Robot. So this is actually a .22 revolver in here, nine shots. And the only way to load it is to take it apart. And you can see it has all the hexagon-type screws. You had to undo all those pieces out, had a drill on set in order to load the weapon. Once you loaded the weapon up, you would put a red flag into the barrel, which would signify that the weapon is hot. If you cleared the weapon, and then put the shell back on, you put a green flag in. So we had multiples of these on set because it wasn’t just Will Smith’s character. We also used it on Stargate, in Stargate Atlantis, ’cause it had that futuristic look. More high-maintenance and longer to load because you had to take it apart to load it, but definitely gave it that futuristic look. And I missed one of the weapons back here. This is the old Battlestar Galactica revolver. This one is in .357 Magnum. Now, to load this, it’s the same way we had to load the I, Robot gun. We’d have to take these four screws out, the shell would come out. You’d take your revolver, load it like a normal revolver, six shots of .357 Magnum, put it back on, put the red flag in, signify that the gun is hot. You fired your six shots off, they’d cut, you’d have to take it all apart. I had multiple drills on set and I was constantly unloading and loading weapons. But then I also had help. I had some of my coworkers would come in and they would help me reload everything on that. And just beside the old I, Robot/Stargate Atlantis pistol is your standard Model 1911. This has been around since 1911. It was used in World War I, World War II. The only people that really use this now is for ceremonial purposes for the United States Marine Corps, but it is an iconic-type pistol. They like the look. It’s simple to use, and it was quite ahead of its time when it first came out, and we used it quite a bit on the old Stargate. And then you have your standard Beretta. The military calls it the M9, we call it the Beretta 92FS. M9 is just a military designate. That’s all it is, it’s the exact same pistol. This was our standard issue for SG-1. Everybody carried a Beretta back then, and then even on Atlantis. Very simple to use, trained the entire cast, stunt performers, background on how to use this weapon system. Very effective and still used today with certain law enforcement. And then we have the most famous weapon of Stargate, we have the FN P90 in 5.7x28mm. It’s made in Belgium. It’s a company called Fabrique Nationale in a little town called Herstal in Belgium. And anytime you see where it says empty chamber, these are the real weapons. This is the rubber version, as you can see my finger pressing in on it, and then we have a replica. So the replica is one-to-one, very similar to the real thing. Very, very similar. And then you have your standard 50-round magazine. This one is empty, and it’s see-through so then as you’re firing the weapon and the rounds are basically coming this way as they empty out, you can actually see it with your eye as you’re firing the weapon. Or you can pull the weapon up and you’ll be able to tell if it’s empty or not. As we can see, we can see through that. So that’s what it looks like. This is a replica mag of it, so these are just plastic, and that’s what the replicas look like, the rounds would sit inside. As you can see, they’re basically 90 degrees, and as it loads the weapon, it rotates 90 degrees and then drops into the weapon system itself. And that’s how it is. The magazine sits on top of the weapon system, as you can see from this is the replica. And to take the magazine out, it has a detent on both sides. You just basically pull that, and the magazine comes out at this point. To reload it, it’s just magazine in and you give it a tap. Sometimes our cast would like to do this, and the problem with that is eventually it will break off on the magazine, so some of the cast loved doing that. I won’t say which ones did, but eventually what happened, it would chip off the magazine. So I say use the detent, and then you just give it a tap to make sure it’s fully home at that point. So that’s your replica, very, very lightweight. We’ve seen all our cast, they would have it slung like this. Rick was very famous for having his hands up here like this. Amanda would have hers a little lower, and then Chris, while he never wore it up here, he would just carry it in his hand. And a lot of the times, Michael Shanks’ character, Daniel, would either have just a Beretta, but sometimes he did carry the P90 also. So it was a sling system that we just basically hooked right here, and it could just connect up to a harness that was wrapped around them. If I needed to take the weapon off them if they were going for lunch, or going to the washroom, or craft service, or what have you, it’d be a quick disconnect. I’d take the weapon system down, I’d take the mag out, check. These are just replicas. And then I would basically lay it down like that, and that’s basically how we’d leave it configured, if we weren’t using the weapon at all. That’s the P90.

David Read:
Remington, I know you have questions.

Rob Fournier:
Yes, go ahead.

Remington Phillips:
Yes, absolutely. Why don’t you talk for a minute about how you’ve designated these weapons with the empty chamber, a flag, and how important that is on set?

Rob Fournier:
Sure. Absolutely. So when you have an empty chamber, this is an obviously good sign for it. But any time you hand a weapon over to somebody, and if it’s a real weapon, or if it’s a replica or rubber, you have to show ’em. You can’t just assume that it’s just a rubber or replica. You have to show them. So what we do is… The first thing we do, on the P90, your safety is actually right here. It’s right in this area. So all the way to the left is safe. In the middle, one click is semi-automatic. All the way to the right is fully automatic. So we put the weapon all the way to the left so the weapon’s on safe. You could see it right in that area there. And then we basically cock the action, finger off the trigger, pull this out, and if I had an empty mag, I would take a nice flashlight, best piece of kit ever on set, and I would show into the chamber area that the gun is in fact clear and safe. So I’ve shown that the weapon is clear and safe, but I also have to show that the magazine is empty, if we have an empty magazine. So then the magazine basically sits in here. If they still don’t trust it, that it’s empty, cock it a few times. Cocking handle is ambidextrous. That’s the beauty of the P90. It’s on either side. Weapon’s on safe. If they want to hear it click, I’ll put it on semi or fully automatic and you hear that click. That’s the firing mechanism going forward. The best part about the P90 that was a hit in late Season Three, or actually Season Four is when we introduced it, was because it’s bottom ejection. You can see this big cavity right here. So when you fire the P90, it actually loads from the top, it fires through the barrel, and it ejects right down through this hole. So we could have all our actors side by side basically shooting without having to worry about getting brass in their face. So that was a big, big plus on any type of sci-fi movie, especially Stargate. So when we introduced that– ‘Cause it took us a long time to get these, a year and a half, and it took a lot of negotiating and I’m French Canadian, so I had to speak French to the Belgians via long-distance quite a bit. And then eventually we got them. But it had to be a rule where it had to be used in good taste. Couldn’t be used for anything like terrorism or a bad guy or mob or something like that. It had to be used for a positive team. So after the first season when we used these, we basically took a photo with all the cast with their P90s, I had them all sign it, blew it up, and we sent it out to the president of FN. And as far as I know, it’s still in the office.

Remington Phillips:
Was Stargate Productions the catalyst for getting FN P90s into your shop, or were you guys already working on doing that to have them in your inventory?

Rob Fournier:
Definitely Stargate was the catalyst and it was the reason we got these sooner than later because we really tried to sell it and say, “Look, they need a futuristic weapon. They travel from world to world. We want something that is high-tech and modern.” And the P90s were very new at the time. They were only a few years old. So as a civilian company, it’s very difficult to get because it’s a military weapon. Especially Fabrique Nationale doesn’t just sell to anybody. So we had to basically do lots of PR with them and we would constantly send them photographs and stuff and sign and “Thank you so much, they love the P90,” and stuff like that, send them videos and DVDs and stuff like that. But it was definitely the catalyst. I don’t think if we didn’t have SG-1, it would have been very difficult to get these.

Remington Phillips:
In general, how do firearms companies like Fabrique Nationale view movie guns?

Rob Fournier:
They’ll support it. It’s getting more strict all the time, but they’ll support it because it gets their product out there and it’s almost like free advertising. But like I said, sometimes certain companies don’t like it if it’s being used in a negative fashion. They’d rather it look like the hero saves the day, whether it’s a military unit or if it’s law enforcement or something like that. But they can get a little touchy about that. So you have to give them the proper information. Otherwise, you’re not going to get the item in town. And a lot– We deal with companies all around the world, including the USA. So you have to be able to know how to talk to these companies in order to get the product you want.

Remington Phillips:
Now, late in the P90s’ tenure on Stargate, 5.7-millimeter ammunition started to get hard to find and you had to create a new weapon for Amanda Tapping specifically on the show. Can you talk a little bit about what was the purpose for doing that on screen, what you guys built, maybe a little bit about the FN P90 ammunition shortages at the time as well?

Rob Fournier:
It was at a time when there was a lot of conflicts going on around the planet. And so the P90 being a military weapon, the brass comes directly from Belgium. It’s sent from Belgium to Arizona where our blanks are made and then sent up here. So it’s a double brokerage that we have to pay for. That’s why it’s very expensive ammunition. It’s $4 a round. So what we would do is, when there was an ammunition shortage, we had to save a certain amount of the 5.7 because it was really hard to get. And so we recreated a short version of a CAR-15, basically a short M4 rifle — I don’t have it here with me, because we no longer have it in that configuration — but it was a very short barrel, standard M16 type magazine in it, 30-round magazine of .223 caliber. And we put a nice big sight on it and it had a nice sling mount and then a special butt stock on it that was configured to Amanda’s arm length. We had to size her for it and all that, including her stunt double.

Remington Phillips:
So you actually shortened that stock just for Amanda’s sake.

Rob Fournier:
We did. We had to have a special… It fit her perfectly, but if, say, Chris Judge went to fire it, it would look odd in his hand, and stuff like that. But she got really good at it. I think the two people that have probably fired the most weapons on the show were definitely Richard Dean Anderson and Amanda Tapping. But I’ve trained the cast from day one since the very start of SG-1 on the TV series. I had to spend an entire week and a half with all four cast to run them through it. So they had to get up to speed. Rick was probably the most proficient with it because he’s handled it before, but it was very new for Michael Shanks and Chris Judge and Amanda Tapping, so I had to spend extra time with them. And as the years went by, it just got better and better and better, and the trust level was very high with our cast.

Remington Phillips:
We saw very good and safe firearms handling on set, which I’d imagine we could attribute to you specifically. How long did it take on Stargate or maybe just in general on your average production to get the actors to understand those four rules of firearm safety that are so important?

Rob Fournier:
When you deal with firearms on a film set, you almost treat it like a live range. But also there’s other configurations that you have to worry about. You have to worry about not only where you’re aiming the weapon when it’s firing, but also where the brass ejects. Not necessarily the P90, but any type of firearm that ejects to the right, or even upwards and stuff like that. So you always have to worry about those areas, depending on where the grips are, where the electrics are, where the camera department is set up, where the stills photographer is. So you always have to be aware of, obviously where you’re aiming at, where the brass ejects, and then also you have to know the dangerous effects of blanks, depending on a quarter load to a full load. There is quite a difference. A quarter load is exactly that, it’s the quarter amount of powder. It’s quieter, it’s slower burning, gives you a smaller muzzle flash, but it’s not as… doesn’t have as much concussive effect. A full load is much cleaner burning, it’s faster burning, gives you the bigger fireball, the bigger flash, but it’s also very loud. And a lot of times when we film in Vancouver, especially exterior, we’d have to use quarter loads because of sound sensitive areas, especially if we’re filming at night. Majority of the time we did use full loads, but sometimes we would be out in the sand dunes at 3:00 in the morning and I’d have 40 guys firing machine guns so we’d have to configure them to fire quarter loads. You still get muzzle flash, and if it’s not big enough, they always had visual effects would enhance what they have. So you have to give them something better than absolutely nothing at all so they can taper off that. Does that answer your question?

Remington Phillips:
Yes, absolutely. We saw the actors very religiously keeping fingers off triggers. We saw weapons being pointed in safe directions at all times. And it just seems like they were acting very professionally, which I’d imagine takes a bit of conditioning for somebody who doesn’t… Their job isn’t carrying a gun.

Rob Fournier:
It’s discipline. You have to remember they’re actors, they’re not soldiers, so you can’t treat them and yell at them and coerce them as a soldier would. Myself being ex-military, I was used to that, but then you can’t portray that. You have to find a way to be… to have them accept your commands and stuff like that, but on a very democratic-type way instead of having somebody yell at you. The cast was always good. Sometimes we’d have day players come in. I’d have to spend time with them, or stunt performers or stunt doubles or even background, where all it takes is one or two that are undisciplined with it and the next thing you know is, I’m giving that person a rubber rifle and I say, “You’re not shooting today because you’re the weakest link.” And it was never personal, it was always safety. Safety is always paramount on set, number one. So unless I got to spend time with those people, that’s how we judged it. I didn’t always have the time to train somebody effectively and spend hours with them. Sometimes I’d have 15 minutes to show them how the P90 worked or an M60 or a G36. So you always wanted to do what we call test fires with the actors, or the stunt performers or background. A test fire is so they know what to expect when they actually roll on the camera, and by having a test fire, you show them the muzzle flash, the concussive effect, and you also show them where the brass ejects. So that’s where I get on these people and I’ll say, “Look, you have to know your parameters of what’s safe.” And on set, I use a very bright green laser. And some actors will say, “I don’t know where to aim, Rob.” And I’ll go, and I make sure I don’t point it in anybody’s eye, because that’s bad, and I would just say, “OK, that’s your point of aim there. From there to there, that’s your window. Don’t go outside of that.” Obviously for camera safety, if we have to get towards the camera, we use Lexan protection. Lexan is like a polycarbonate that’s made in the military. It’s used inside of armored personnel carriers to protect from fragments and it’s very, very tough and bullet-resistant. So for blank fire… It’s exceptional for blank fire. So the standard issue in Vancouver for our unions here is three-eighths of an inch, so not quite half an inch. Very, very strong. If you get into big, massive belt-fed machine guns like .50 caliber M2 Brownings, then you go to a three-quarter inch, but the bigger Lexan you have, the heavier it gets. But it’s meant there to protect the operator. The camera, to me, is insignificant. It’s the people around the camera that is my responsibility.

Remington Phillips:
Cameras can be replaced, people cannot.

Rob Fournier:
Absolutely.

Remington Phillips:
When it came to weapon selection on Stargate, were you guys asked occasionally to bring certain things to set, or were you given some autonomy in selecting the types of weapons? We can think about, for example, the SPAS-12 shotgun, and then you’ve got your USAS-12. So you’ve got a few different options. Were those called for in scripts or did production just ask you, “Hey, bring something cool?”

Rob Fournier:
It was both. Sometimes we’d have show-and-tells for the director, incoming director, and I’ve [made] good friends with a lot of directors through the years, and sometimes we’d have a show-and-tell here or we’d do it at the production office. Most of the time it’s at the production office, so I’d bring choices of different weapons if it was very character-specific, and if not, if they say, “You know what? Bring something that is different from what we used,” so then on the day, I would bring a series of, let’s say four selections. We always found that the number four was good. Any more than that and you can confuse people. So they would pick out of that and then that would be the weapon we would use. You also have to remember, if we do that and there’s stunts involved, we have to have a replica ’cause the weight, and definitely a rubber gun, ’cause what you see here on this table, very, very expensive. So you don’t want to damage the real weapon. You want to do minimal damage. And if you are stunt-involved, there’s usually a cut, or you do an entire sequence CGI. If the person’s getting shot and launches the weapon system itself, we want to use a rubber gun. That’s what they’re made for, is for stunts. But as you were saying, we’ve done both. We’ve done show-and-tells. We’ve picked weapons. In the early days of Stargate, it was my job, because we knew that the show was coming as a series in the ’90s, so I watched the movie with Kurt Russell over and over and over. And I would stop-frame it, and it was driving my wife crazy because she wanted to watch the movie, and I was stop-framing every time I see a firearm. So I basically saw the weapons — I could tell what they are just by seeing them — and then I wrote down the makes and models, and then I tried to get some clear shots of it or some still photos from the movies. I have a good relationship with Internet Movie Firearms Database. They’re great too. They have a lot of great photos that they’ve taken from stills and stuff like that, and I’ve given them photos from stills. But that’s how we basically chose the weapons in the first season, and then it just evolved as the seasons kept going and going, like Season Two and Three and then Four with the P90s, and then we introduced other weapon systems as well.

Remington Phillips:
And you guys had to coordinate to some extent with the Air Force advisors, I’d imagine?

Rob Fournier:
Yeah, we did have Air Force advisors. I basically did both jobs, because the Air Force advisors were only there the odd time, so I was really a full-time armorer/military advisor, because I’ve spent a lot of time training with the US military. I was based in Europe for three years, and US Army and US Air Force, I spent a lot of time training with them. So a lot of times the cast would ask me questions right on the fly. “Rob, what do I do here? What’s a good hand signal? Would I use a hand signal? Am I using dialogue? Do I use phonetics? Do I use Zulu phonetic, or do I just use a hand signal?” Stuff like that. And there was times where I’d say, “Well, this is a covert operation. You have to be quiet. It’s at night. You’re close to your target. You shouldn’t say a word. It should all be hand signals.” So there goes two and a half pages of dialogue and you save production probably about two hours of work in a day, which is huge on a global scale, especially on a television scale. So you’d have to teach the actors how to do the hand signal properly so it would be acceptable for the viewer on television, especially if they’re ex-military. They could pick that up right away. There’s always that… I use a term on set. I said, “Creativity defeats reality.” And that happens sometimes because if a director wants a certain thing, it’s their movie. You can only give them options. If they want to do it their way, you can tell them, “This is the correct way to do it, but if you want to do it that way, it’s your movie.”

Remington Phillips:
We can see it in a lot of lower-budget productions, almost a lack of regard for proper military procedures, sometimes even safe or proper firearms handling. And it seems like we didn’t get that a lot on Stargate. It seems like Stargate had a great deal of respect from professional operators and people that are aware of firearm safety. And it sounds like we have you to thank for a lot of that. It sounds like maybe you were wearing multiple hats on set …

Rob Fournier:
I sure did. Armorer and–

Remington Phillips:
… doing armorer and RSO responsibilities. I have a question about… You mentioned times on set where you might have 40 guys all shooting live fire or at least blank fires. What’s it like for you, and maybe a small team, to manage and keep eyes on all those different actors and know where all those weapons are being deployed?

Rob Fournier:
Well, it all comes out in the blocking, when you do a proper blocking and rehearsal. So you rehearse with clear and safe weapons. There’s no magazines in the firearms whatsoever. You give them the real ones because you want them with the actual weight that they’re gonna be using on the day, and it saves you time from having to switch the replica to the real with all those personnel. So rehearsals are everything. So I’ll coordinate with the first assistant director, stunt coordinator, and director, and DOP, of course, and we’ll try and find a way to shoot it, because it only counts if it’s in frame. If it’s out of frame, it doesn’t count. It’s wasted. So that’s where the creativity would defeat some of the reality with our displacement of the soldiers and firefights and stuff like that. My main concern was always the safety of the cast and crew, 100%. Where are they aiming at? What are the cues? Where is your first mark? Where is your second mark? Where is your end mark? And is there gunfire in multiple directions? You always had to be aware of that. I would read a sequence, and they would tell me how many people are involved. Our ratio here is, if you have six shooters, you have one armorer. So if you have 12 shooters, you have two armorers, and so on. So some days, I would have eight armorers on set. And I would be in charge, and I would have all the units go hot. I would just go, “Alpha through Foxtrot, go hot.” And you’d hear, “Alpha hot, Bravo hot, Charlie hot, Delta hot.” All the groups are hot. I say, “OK, copy that. All guns are hot. All guns are hot,” and then I yell it out. So I’m on the radio, on channel one, and I also yell it out, because not everybody is on channel one. The grips aren’t, electrics aren’t, even the camera department’s not on channel one. So you have to yell it out, “All guns are hot. All guns are hot,” making sure that everybody has their earplugs in, which is a big deal when you have to give earplugs that are skin-toned to each personnel. You don’t wanna see these big yellow earplugs coming out and have to paint it out in CGI. That’s extremely expensive. So there’s this whole process. You have to know that, to make sure that makeup has the earplugs ready to go. Then you have to make sure props has the ear and eye protection. Then you have to make sure that all the other armorers are set to go. They all have their magazines for their corresponding weapons for their groups. Once that’s good, you rehearse, and I don’t load anything until I’m 100% happy. So if the stunt coordinator’s not happy about something, then we don’t shoot. Not until everybody’s on the same page. Then we load the weapons, and we do it in sequence. It’s never a race because of safety, and once the ball gets rolling and they yell, “Action,” it’s hard to hear cut. That’s the big deal on set. So they’d either have a loudspeaker system or we’d use lights. Sometimes you use a bright light that’s off-camera to have everybody stop firing, because they don’t always hear. They have earplugs in, and sometimes they’re spaced over four, five, six acres of gunfire happening. So there was all these factors that came into play, and through the years, it really… I would say Stargate taught me more than any other TV show, of how to deal with firearms. Especially ’cause we had such a vast array of types of firearms on our set, with different ejection systems and different muzzle flashes and different loads, that you really had to stay on it. And our motto here at the shop is if you don’t understand the weapon, you don’t go out with the weapon. So we have weapons that range from flintlock rifles from the 1700s to modern belt-feds, and everything in between. You have to know how every system works or you don’t go out with that weapon system. So in 32 years in film, I’m still learning from year to year. You have to. You cannot stop learning or you’ll be left behind.

Remington Phillips:
Sounds like on set, the most important tool for you is communication, making sure everybody understands you and is listening to you, and maybe could communicate if they had a problem as well.

Rob Fournier:
Absolutely. If it’s just one gun firing, let’s say Richard Dean Anderson has one P90 firing and he’s doing a short burst, I’m not gonna give him a 50-round mag. I’m gonna give him maybe 10 rounds. I said, “Rick, you got three good, short bursts — bruh, bruh, bruh — and your gun’s empty and you go out of frame.” Sometimes the single shot can be the hardest shot too, though. People say because of camera. Where is camera? Where is the personnel for camera? And stuff like that. So discipline is also a major key. But also, you don’t wanna be the loud guy on set all the time, yelling at people and this and that. I found through the years that people listen to you better if it’s a calm voice. If you talk to them, they’re the last voice you hear. A lot of times I’ll take the P90, and if I’m sitting with one of our cast. I have the weapon. And then I’m not even loaded. They slate it. I let the camera trainee walk away, and then I chamber it and I put it on the actor. “Gun is hot. 10 rounds, full load. Gun is hot. 10 rounds, full load.” And I repeat it like that and then I walk away. And I watch the actor. I don’t walk, I don’t go to craft service, I don’t go to the washroom. My focus is on them, 100%. When they yell cut, I take the weapon away. I don’t clear it in front of them. First thing I do is I put it on safe. Then I walk away, I take the magazine out. You always take the mag out, and then you rack the action or cock the action and I hold it open. “Gun’s clear and safe. Gun’s clear and safe.” So I do it on radio so the first AD hears it, and then I’ll yell it out for the immediate crew. And that’s how we do it. That’s the whole process of it. Sometimes you get actors that are quite excited and they wanna go back to the monitor right away and watch that playback and they still have the gun in their hand. I’ve seen that happen. So what I do is I’ll be the cutoff. If they’re coming towards the monitor, I walk towards them, I grab the weapon, I walk in the opposite direction. I can understand that they’re excited. It’s something new. Everybody has a first time when they fire a firearm on set, but it’s also that my job is to be safe. ‘Cause if that gun is still hot and they go back to the monitor and it accidentally fires, accidental discharge, that’s not good. That shows that you’re not focused on your job. So I have to always look for all these factors. And I have great coworkers that we’re all on the same level. Some of them I’ve trained through the years and stuff like that, so I run a pretty tight ship when I’m on set, but I’m very fair also.

Remington Phillips:
Well, the actors above all else need to respect you as the armorer, because at the end of the day, for some of them, they may not be able to make the distinction on the fly between prop and real weapon, because they’re dealing with both all the time. They’re dealing with so many props. But you are the one constant on set when it comes to, “Hey, this is the person who has the final say when it comes to the firearms.”

Rob Fournier:
Absolutely. There’ll be times where we’re switching from replica to real gun, back and forth and back and forth. It doesn’t matter what it is, I’ll always show ’em. If it’s an airsoft pistol, I’ll pull the mag out and I’ll rack it and I’ll show airsoft. I’ll even dry fire it for them to show them that if they accidentally pull the trigger, nothing happens. With a real gun, if it’s empty, I’ll show ’em that it’s an empty magazine, and then I’ll show ’em that the action’s open. I can do that right now for the Beretta. So the Beretta’s on safe right now. I’ll pull the magazine out. You always pull the magazine out. I’ll rack the action open and then I tend to hold it side by side like this. Then I shine the light into the chamber area and into the magazine. And I’ll say, “Gun is clear and safe,” and they look at it, but some people sometimes don’t know what they’re looking for. And I explain to them, “You’re looking to see if there’s anything in the barrel whatsoever, or anything in the magazine.” Point it in the same direction away from them, chamber it, and if they wanna hear it, I’ll dry fire it for them. So they know that if they accidentally pull the trigger, it’s absolutely safe at that point. Lots of times we leave the action open, just like this, with the magazine out on set and the magazine facing towards me. So if I’m coming up to the table, table’s always under security, it’s either a props person or another armorer that’s watching the weapons at all times. You never walk away from a table with weapons. And if I need this Beretta, alls I have to do is pull the mag, chamber in there, safety, and the gun is ready to give to the actor at that point. Or I’ll actually leave the action open and mag out and just grab it as is. But if the actor’s right beside me, I can show them, do that whole procedure, put it in their holster if they pull it out in the sequence. I’m also going to show the camera department. Because if you’re pointing at the camera, they want to see that it’s empty. I’m also gonna show it to another actor if they’re pointing it at that actor. So I’ll have all the actors there. Anybody involved in that sequence, I’ll show. And I’ll do it 10,000 times a day. It’s my job to show the cast and crew that the gun is clear and safe. When you get into gunfire, there’s always that little… all of a sudden, you’re in another gear. Everybody’s senses are heightened. As should be because then you’re more focused. Not to the point where they’re panicking but to the point where they’re aware that now there’s gonna be an affect happening. Because that’s what it is. It’s an effect. You’re simulating gunfire through blanks. So, that’s where your focal point… My focal point has never changed in all the years I’ve done it. I come on set, I do my job, make sure everybody goes home safe, that’s great. If I make friends in between, fantastic. If I don’t, I don’t lose sleep over it.

Remington Phillips:
As long as there’s no accidents.

Rob Fournier:
That’s right, 100%.

Remington Phillips:
Can you speak more toward the times where the director’s vision calls for shooting in the vicinity of camera, or toward camera or over camera? I’m thinking of sequences specifically, like Jack O’Neill’s hero shot in “Allegiance,” Season Six, where he does the 360 …

Rob Fournier:
The 360, I remember that.

Remington Phillips:
… shooting at the invisible Ashrak.

Rob Fournier:
So that was– I remember that. That was up in the GVRD, just not far from where we are here. I had Rick test fire the weapon, of course, ’cause he has to do multiple spins with it, and he basically empties out the firearm itself. So what I did is I had Lexan protection. I had three big 8-foot sheets that were about from basically knee-height to above everyone, and I had the whole crew tucked in behind there, believe it or not. And it’s so funny, because we were in such a vast area, and I had probably 80 people all tucked behind these areas. And there was a hill there that nobody sees that… most people were down in the hill. So the line of fire– ‘Cause you never want to point directly at somebody with it. So it was a timing issue when he starts spinning and there’s personnel, that they start going down before he gets to them. So we rehearsed that, and when we rehearsed it, I was with the stunt coordinator, my good friend Dan Shea. So we’d number the people, the stunt people, and say, “OK.” And as we said their numbers, they went down, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.” So then I timed it with Rick as he was spinning, that the camera, it looks like — especially when it’s over his shoulder — it looks like he’s aiming directly at you, but he’s not. So if I was to aim, let’s say at this cam or at yourself, and the camera’s over my right shoulder, I aim to the right. Right is right, left is left. So if I aim off your shoulder from this camera angle, it looks like I’m aiming at you. It’s two-dimensional. So that’s how you have to configure it. So it’s a timing issue with all our stunt performers doing the rotation, and then because there’s quite a bit of ammunition in that weapon system, so he did quite a few different turns before he emptied out, and stuff like that. So that was a lot of fun. That was a hot day, too. It was very hot outside, so it was not comfortable and stuff like that. The weapons themself, with blanks, especially full loads, they can get hot if you’re doing continuous fire. Barrels heat up, everything. So then we always had two on set, ’cause one is always none. You always have to have two weapon systems. They could break. A firing pin could snap. An extractor can snap. A frame of the weapon itself can snap. If you don’t have a backup, now you got nothing. So one is none, as props would say. Two is always good. Three is even better.

Remington Phillips:
Stargate did a lot of shooting outdoors, but there were also a lot of soundstage work.

Rob Fournier:
Yes.

Remington Phillips:
For you as an armorer, what do you find are some of the key differences between those indoor soundstage shoots where you’re possibly in a confined space [and] have a lot more equipment around you, maybe harder to navigate versus being outside?

Rob Fournier:
It’s more of a noise issue. It’s the sound levels. Once you go outside, sound waves dissipate to infinity. They’ll just keep traveling away, so it’s quieter outside compared to if you film indoors in a stage, let’s say, at The Bridge studios where we did Stargate. If you filmed in one of the smaller stages, which we’ve done .50 caliber in, in a very small stage, I would have a safety meeting. Obviously, in the morning safety meeting, I’d be on the tail end of it. I said, “Look, we’re firing .50 caliber full loads today. If you’re not used to massive concussive effects with a massive shockwave, we’re indoors, it’s concrete, the walls are concrete covered in foam, the sounds, it’s gonna feel twice as loud in here.” So what we would do is anybody that didn’t wanna be there, we’d just send them outside for the take. You’d definitely hear it outside, you’d hear a rumble, but it’s not ear-piercing. If you’re indoors, obviously protect the camera, work with the cast, or the stunt performer of where they’re aiming at and stuff like that. A massive flash, massive fireball, extremely loud, 120-plus decibels. Sometimes louder. And you’d have to coordinate that, and then sometimes people would wanna have a test fire, so then I would do a quick test fire. I don’t blow a whole belt off, I blow maybe five or 10 rounds, so then they know what they’re gonna be dealing with. So a lot of times the operators would have earplugs and ear cans over top, because it was that loud. Outdoors, it’s a whole different story, because you don’t have those limitations with the walls and stuff like that. It’s still loud, but it’s not to the point where it’s that uncomfortable concussive effect. Belt-fed machine guns we fired from helicopters, from vehicles, from tanks, armored personnel carriers, through vehicles, underneath vehicles. So depending on the type of load you’re using, quarter loads are always less concussive, obviously, ’cause of the less powder, but a full load cinematically is more appealing on camera ’cause you have that bigger muzzle flash.

Remington Phillips:
It gives the post-production effects team more to work with, perhaps.

Rob Fournier:
Yeah, absolutely.

Remington Phillips:
We’ve seen at least one high-profile incident in recent years. How much talk is there in your industry when there are notable accidents or tragedies on sets, and does that cause new conversations to come up between your side and production sides, where maybe there’s an increased heightened-ness on the… We’ll call it the layperson’s side of safety.

Rob Fournier:
Definitely, on certain events that happened not long ago, it has changed our industry. Technology is part of that, because CGI and visual effects has gotten so good that a lot of times it’s an option to have blank fire, where they’ll just say, “Well–” I’ve worked on productions where all of a sudden “We’re just going to do all CGI.” And you’re like, “OK.” And then you don’t even have real firearms on set, you have replicas. And then there’s other times where they want to have practical. A feature I just finished, we did both. We had CGI and we had practical. My job hasn’t changed. I’ve been doing the same job for most of my adult life, and my safety protocols are the same. Extremely high safety protocol. I have not changed the way I teach people, and the discipline on set, and how I go about my day-to-day work. I always found that you wanna hire the best person for the job. I find that that speaks volumes. You can know everything in the world about a certain item or a certain job, but unless you have that experience through the years, it’s hard to be able to sell that to a production. Sometimes I’m interviewed by people that are half my age. And they say, “Well, you know what? You have a great resume. What’s your latest thing you’ve done?” And this and that. And I says, “Well, I’ll send you anything. I have references from producers, and directors, and stunt coordinators.” And it’s just a relationship that you grow throughout the years, and it’s also a trust level because sometimes when I get hired on a production, a production manager will just say, “Hey, Rob, I just wanted you to come in. You already got the job. I just wanted to see you, say hi.” That’s it, really, because I’ve worked so many times with them, where other times I don’t know most of the crew. And I get interviewed and stuff, and they have these questions, and they’ll ask certain scenarios. “What happens if you had to deal with an actor that was abusing alcohol or drugs, or had a massive ego, or was angry on set? And how would you deal with that?” And stuff like that, which I’ve had all of that through the years. So I just find that being the calm voice on set… You can’t be one that’s razzled or angered or upset because the schedule all of a sudden changed. That’s normal in film. It’s controlled chaos, as we know. So you have to be able to accept it and move on. It’s never a personal thing. It’s always a work thing. And like I said, my main job is to make sure everybody goes home safe, has that good glass of wine at the end of the day.

Remington Phillips:
Absolutely.

Rob Fournier:
Perfect.

Remington Phillips:
I did have one personal question I was curious about. Just when it comes to you, obviously you’ve worked with and trained so many, maybe hundreds of actors. And you’ve probably seen some actors who have maybe a very afraid and fearful when it comes to handling a gun, maybe they’ve never done that before, and others who might be cocky about it. And you might also have some people who are just overly excited about it. Which of these kinds of groups do you struggle with the most, or maybe which ones would you prefer to work with?

Rob Fournier:
I think you have to learn how to read people. That’s a big deal. And you could read a person within five or 10 minutes of meeting them, of what they’re about. I’ve taught a five-year-old to fire a .44 Magnum revolver. I’ve taught a 98-year-old to fire a 12-gauge shotgun, and everything in between. I’ve dealt with problematic actors. If they need their space, give them their space. Whatever. Take the weapon away from them if they’re angry. If they’re inebriated, or if they’re drunk, or high, or what have you, I don’t do any gunfire. That’s my procedure. “Today is a CGI day. You have empty firearms all day or replicas. It’s just the way it is.” If production’s unhappy with that, then they could send me home. I’m there for safety at that point. It’s a very rare occurrence. It doesn’t happen as much as it used to. I’ve worked with some famous actors, and then I’ve worked with not-so-famous actors, and sometimes you get the best of both worlds, where they’re great or they’re not so great. So you have to be able to read the person and see how other people react around them. I’ve worked with some divas in the female world. I’ve worked with some massive egos in the male world. So you just have to know the approach is everything.

Remington Phillips:
You have to play psychologist …

Rob Fournier:
100%.

Remington Phillips:
… to a bigger extent than anyone else on the set.

Rob Fournier:
You have to find what interests them and then have this working relationship, and then trust grows. Especially if you’re full-time on an episodic or a feature, you wanna build this trust with an actor, so then they not only get comfortable with you being around, but they can also trust you. And trust is a big issue on set, especially dealing with firearms. You don’t want an unstable individual. You want somebody that is level-headed and is not late on set and is complacent or anything. You have to be focused from start to wrap every single day.

Remington Phillips:
There’s probably a special relationship between armorer and actor that requires a level of trust that goes beyond what most other crew roles would require.

Rob Fournier:
Yeah, ’cause you spend a lot of personal time with them, especially if you’re one-on-one. I’ve taken hundreds of actors to the gun range where it’s just them and I, and no one else is around, and you have to know how to talk to them and get the best out of them to make their character believable. So it’s definitely more one-on-one compared to if they’re doing hair and makeup where they just do their hair in the morning and stuff, and that’s a different relationship. But now you’re dealing with something that deals with a dangerous effect, dealing with blanks and stuff like that, especially firearms. I’ve made a lot of good friends through the years with actors, people that I still talk to or go out with sometimes, for lunch or whatever, and it’s great. And then there’s some actors I don’t see for 15, 20 years and see them again, and it’s like, “Rob, it’s great to see you again. You’re still in the industry.” And I’m like, “Yep, I’m still here.” So that’s great when you can have that effect on an actor that they remember you.

Remington Phillips:
Now, you’ve got an impressive resume on IMDb, and you’ve worked on quite a few well-known films and TV series. Do you have a favorite production that you worked on outside of our favorite, Stargate, of course?

Rob Fournier:
Outside of Stargate? I would say, for episodic, it was… One of the hardest shows I did was Falling Skies. That was definitely a difficult one. On a feature level, my favorite would have been The A-Team, ’cause I also got to play a character in it. I’ve got to play a character in Stargate through the years. Usually a stunt guy that gets killed all the time, but I was given a nice role by Joe Carnahan on The A-Team and the stunt coordinators. They gave me this role as a door gunner in a helicopter and I had so much fun on it. But that was probably the most difficult movie I ever did in my life. But thinking about it now, it was 10 months of my life with prep and filming and wrap and reshoots and second unit that I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I was much younger back then too, but it was just great. We had a super crew, so we had the best department heads in the entire city, some of them across Canada, and they all came together. And it only happens about every seven or 10 years you’ll get this super crew. But Stargate to me, TV wise, was the best crew I ever worked with. Hands down.

David Read:
Thank you so much for that thorough history of sci-fi and Stargate weaponry. That’s so appreciated. But you know why I’m here.

Rob Fournier:
Of course I know why you’re here.

David Read:
So I’m here to take another look at that beauty that is the FN P90.

Rob Fournier:
It’s been great, and I have to say, it’s been a pleasure having you guys here, and I love it. And the more we can promote Stargate, the better it is. What I’m gonna do with you today is I’m gonna talk you through how I would talk with the cast, how I’d talk to them, how to load the weapon, chamber it, empty magazine, of course, and then how to change a mag, and if you had a jam, what to do with the jam. That was something that was… It happens on set with blanks. Our cast was so good at it that they could clear a jam on the fly and continue the scene, keep that energy level up, and they were amazing with it. I really didn’t have to worry when any of our four SG-1 members were firing. It was the other SG teams I had to really watch over, but there was… as the seasons got better and better. But are you into that?

David Read:
I am.

Rob Fournier:
I’ll talk you through it.

David Read:
Be my guest.

Rob Fournier:
So, what we’re gonna do here now is if you look down at the P90s, we got this thing saying empty chamber. We know it’s an empty chamber, but we wanna make sure it’s an empty chamber.

David Read:
Everyone knows.

Rob Fournier:
So we take the P90, pick it up, and making sure that the weapon’s on safe. Now, the safety–

David Read:
Want me to pick mine up or just leave it on the ground?

Rob Fournier:
You pick it up. You can see that the weapon is on safe. If you click one in the middle, it’s semi-automatic, and all the way to the right is fully automatic. So you wanna be all the way to the left, so we know we’re safe.

David Read:
Doesn’t go any further.

Rob Fournier:
The best safety in the world is what? Finger off the trigger.

David Read:
Finger off the trigger.

Rob Fournier:
So finger’s always off the trigger unless you’re ready to fire. So the first thing you want to do is get rid of this flag. So what you do is you put it into your chest a little bit. You pull back on the cocking handle and pull this piece out. Put it down and pull it back all the way. And now I can hold it towards me against my chest. I can see that the chamber is clear and safe. Completely empty as we can see in there. So now I can let the action go forward.

David Read:
Just release it?

Rob Fournier:
Just release it. Not gonna hurt it. These things are built like tanks. You take the magazine. As we see, this is a 50-round, 5.7-millimeter magazine. There’s nothing in the mag. We have four empty mags. Now, there’s one way to put it in and one way to take it out. To put it in, you want it so the rounds are inverted, so that this is the top portion. So if you pull it here, this goes in the housing. Such as this. You have detents on both sides of the P90. You pull, push those towards you, towards your shoulder, and drop the magazine in. So you’ll see the detents–

David Read:
Detents?

Rob Fournier:
Yep. Push it in and even though that the mag is home, give it a little tap. Just a little tap. Not a Hulk smash tap but just a little tap to make sure it’s fully homed. So is our weapon loaded?

David Read:
It is in place.

Rob Fournier:
It’s in place, but it’s not loaded …

David Read:
It is unloaded.

Rob Fournier:
… because it’s not chambered.

David Read:
That’s right.

Rob Fournier:
So chambering… How do we chamber it? Ambidextrous cocking handle. It’s on both sides so you pull it all the way to the rear and let it go.

David Read:
It’s so satisfying.

Rob Fournier:
So in theory, gun is clear and safe, but in theory, if we had blanks in it, it would be loaded. Now is it ready to fire?

David Read:
It is not because my finger’s not on the trigger.

Rob Fournier:
OK. But also there’s something else. There’s the safety.

David Read:
Ah, the safety’s on.

Rob Fournier:
That’s right. So if you want to fire a single shot, semi-automatic, meaning every time you pull the trigger it only fires one round, one click to the right. And now go ahead and dry fire it. Pull the trigger in a safe direction. Hear that click? That’s the firing pin release. It’ll only do it once. In order to hear it again, you gotta cock it again. Now, if I wanted to go automatic, it’s one more click to the right. All the way to the right. In that direction, go ahead and put it in your shoulder and then basically pull the trigger. And the phone rings.

David Read:
Hello?

Remington Phillips:
That’s not what I expected a P90 to sound like.

David Read:
It’s fine. It was fun.

Rob Fournier:
So that basically is how you fire the weapon. Now, if you’re firing, firing, firing, the weapon eventually empties. It only holds 50 rounds. You have to– And they yell cut, the first thing you do is finger off the trigger. Second thing you do, put the weapon on safe.

David Read:
Put it in safe.

Rob Fournier:
Two clicks off safe. The next thing you do is point it in a safe direction. Not towards your foot and not at your friend, ’cause it was a great scene and you took out all those Jaffa. You wanna point it in a safe direction. Next thing, the armorer comes over. Armorer– If it’s on the person, sometimes I’d clear it on the person if it’s hooked to them, and we have to go right away again. I’d point it in a safe direction, pull the magazine out. I always check the mag to see if there’s any rounds left. And then I’ll cock it two or three times and I hold the action open. And it’s under tension, it’s a heavy spring.

David Read:
It is.

Rob Fournier:
So then we use our nice little friendly flashlight, and I check. And I check that the gun’s clear and safe. That way I know it’s clear and safe.

David Read:
So it goes through here. Excuse me, guys.

Rob Fournier:
You’re looking right into there, yeah.

David Read:
OK. That’s the barrel.

Rob Fournier:
So that’s the barrel. The barrel is integral, it goes all the way from here inside right up to here. You only see this portion. The barrel’s not that long. It’s actually this long. So now that the gun’s clear and safe, it’s on safe. If we ask to do another take again, I would put a new magazine in. A lot of times I would like to take the weapon away from the actor ’cause sometimes it is a mechanical piece. Mechanical pieces break down. It’s manmade. Sometimes if you put a magazine in, it could do a premature fire. You don’t want that, especially on an actor. Makes everybody unhappy, scares everybody. They’re like, “What’s happening here? This shouldn’t happen.” So a lot of times I’ll take the weapon away from the person. I’ll put in a new magazine. As we can see, it’s empty. Chamber it, tap it. Chamber it. Put it on safe. I’ll say, “Gun is hot, 50 rounds full load. Weapon is on safe.” I’m not yelling it at the actor even though they have their earplugs in, but I’m saying, “Gun is hot.”

David Read:
You’re making eye contact with them.

Rob Fournier:
Eye contact.

David Read:
Do you make sure they make eye contact with you when you’re doing this?

Rob Fournier:
Yes, because that means they’re focused on me, and not talking to someone else. Or getting distracted. I’m the main focal point. If hair and makeup comes in, let’s say for final touches, I’ll be like this. I got all the time in the world. That’s how it works. And then once they go away, they’ve slated, gun is hot, I’ll rehook it on, I’ll point it in a safe direction. Not towards me, not towards them, and not towards anyone else. And I’ll ensure that when they put it in, that finger is flagging the trigger. We call that flagging the trigger. That’s safe. If you see a movie where they’re like this or they’re about to go hot, that’s bad. That’s when you turn the channel, go to the fire log channel. It’s more exciting, and more believable, so we definitely wanna keep that away from that. And if you’re firing away, put it up in your shoulder, “Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.” If it jams, your immediate action — this is something we were taught in the military — is– In the old days, they would just say, “My gun jammed,” and they’d ruin an entire scene. Or they would just sit there and they wouldn’t know what to do. We teach our actors to clear the misfires. Sometimes you’ll get a bad blank. Bad primer, really bad blank, or it’s ruptured or what have you, get it out of there. Cock the action, carry on with the action.

David Read:
So you just clear it.

Rob Fournier:
You just clear it and then continue on …

David Read:
And proceed.

Rob Fournier:
… and proceed. And when you deal with blank-firing weapons, especially the P90, it needs a solid foundation. If it’s held loosely in your shoulder, chances are sometimes it’ll misfire, because this whole mechanism–

David Read:
The recoil.

Rob Fournier:
The recoil, exactly.

David Read:
It’s following with it.

Rob Fournier:
It’s following. This whole system inside is going back and forth so quickly that if you try and do it one-handed– Unless you’re Chris Judge. But if you’re trying to do it one-handed, it could jam the firearm. But if you have it tight in your shoulder, your body is the foundation, is the tripod. Bipod, for us. But basically it’s like that, tight in the shoulder, pull the trigger, let the gun do the action. Don’t try and shake it to simulate the recoil, ’cause remember blanks only have 15 to 20% recoil of live ammunition. Just let the gun do the action. It will sell it for you. And that’s what I tell people. Don’t try and shake it ’cause the more you shake it, you’re gonna jam the gun, because now the mechanism inside that should be coming all the way back here is only going halfway.

David Read:
Is the recoil only 15 to 20% because of the weight of the actual bullets?

Rob Fournier:
No, because there’s no ball ammunition.

David Read:
There’s no ball ammunition in it.

Rob Fournier:
There’s no bullet leaving. The bullet leaving the barrel is what gives you recoil.

David Read:
And that’s a lead material?

Rob Fournier:
That’s a lead material. We just have powder, so it’s all leaving the barrel. Now we have constrictors inside that help regulate our gases. A constrictor, you can’t see it, but inside the P90 we have another metal block that has a little hole in it. These ones are set for full load, so they have a bigger hole. The smaller the load, the smaller the hole. And what it does is about 80 to 85% of the gases from the gunpowder escape, give you that beautiful muzzle flash. Everybody loves it. They’re like, “Oh my God.”

David Read:
We’re gonna see it today.

Rob Fournier:
We’ll see it today.

David Read:
Not really. We’ve got 100, 120 frames.

Rob Fournier:
But there’s more powder that hits the inner rim of that constrictor and forces it back. So you fine-tune the weapon. In the military we used to call it a blank-firing attachment, a BFA. But this is integral. You can’t have something hooked on the barrel, because it reads on camera. So you have to simulate that. That’s with anything semi or fully automatic. So you have to basically constrict that barrel in order to get the back gases to operate the system. That’s what that is. And anything like our belt-feds, same operation system. With the big M60, the G36… Even the USAS-12 has a constrictor. So it uses its muzzle brake as a constrictor. If it’s a manually operated weapon like a revolver, you just put blanks in and fire. There’s no back pressure.

David Read:
So these are the ones that were used on all of SG-1 and SGA, yes?

Rob Fournier:
Yes. That’s correct. And I don’t know if we used them in Universe. I don’t remember.

David Read:
Universe didn’t have the P90s.

Rob Fournier:
No. We had G36, we had M4s, we had M16s, lots of pistols and stuff like that.

David Read:
They wanted a different look.

Rob Fournier:
UMPs, HK UMPs and stuff. They wanted a different look for Universe. But definitely on Atlantis and SG-1 we used the P90s. They were the workhorse for many years. Very reliable, but can be high-maintenance, because you gotta keep it clean, and the more blanks you fire, the dirtier it gets, the chances of it misfiring increase.

David Read:
At what point do you no longer… How many rounds do you go through before you’re like, “I’ve gotta clean this now”? Where is your threshold for the the point of no return?

Rob Fournier:
So, you know how it is on a set where you got two minutes, and really you got one minute. So, on set what we’ll do is, let’s say I have three shooters. I’ll have six P90s because I have a backup for each one. And if it gets too hot or too dirty, I swap. I basically take one and switch it with another. If I have a second armorer, guess what he’s doing. He’s cleaning the gun while I’m on set with the backup system. That’s a luxury, because the more you rent, the more it costs. P90 is not as high-maintenance as certain weapons, but you have a bore brush that loosens all the carbon inside. I wear it on my chest pack. It’s always there ready to go. P90, it likes full loads. It really does. It doesn’t like the quarter loads so much. Quarter load is a slower-burning powder, and it tends to cake up more inside the system so then you get more misfires with quarter loads. Whereas full load, very fast-burning, big muzzle flash. Everybody loves it. Richard Dean was a big fan of the full loads.

David Read:
It looks good.

Rob Fournier:
He loved it, and he didn’t like the quarter loads. He’s like, “Damn quarter loads,” and stuff like that.

David Read:
I can see it happening.

Rob Fournier:
He was like that. But sometimes you’re in a sound-sensitive area, you couldn’t use full loads. And then to clear the weapon, I’ll put the magazine back in, take the magazine, put it back in. You’ve just been firing. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. First thing you do, finger off the trigger.

David Read:
And that’ll trigger return to…

Rob Fournier:
Safe.

David Read:
… safe.

Rob Fournier:
Back on safe. Point it in a safe direction. Take the magazine out. Check the magazine, put it down. Cock it twice. And then people say, “Why do you cock the weapon twice?” ‘Cause if there’s a round in there, it ejects and now it clears. I always– It’s a military thing, and this is across NATO. Everybody does it a few times and then checks. And I can sit there and hold it like that. Just pushing the back end and the cocking handle, I can see it’s clear and safe at that point. So, once the weapon’s clear and safe, if we no longer use it, I disconnect it from the cast and I put it in an area where the barrel doesn’t melt my nice furniture blanket. Because this portion will get extremely hot. And I’ve seen people where all of a sudden, “That was great, Rob,” and they go to put it down and they’re holding it, and it’s melting through the furniture blanket. And all of a sudden you have this big chunk of furniture blanket on the muzzle brake, and that’s not a good thing because now you have to scrape it off with your good handy leatherman.

David Read:
You’ve, I’m sure, been burned by these things a lot.

Rob Fournier:
I haven’t been burned, but there are certain people that have been where they’ve just all of a sudden put it on their knee or their leg. And I’m like, “Look,” I said, “everything else will get warm. This will get hot. This is where all the heat magnifies right here.” It would get so hot. Sometimes we’d fire so much P90 ammo, like one episode I did with Mario Azzopardi, and I love Mario. I think I explained it to you in an earlier read. I said, “Look–” At lunchtime, he says, “Rob, that was great, but after lunch, five times as much.” And I’m like, “I just went through 4,000 rounds of P90.”

David Read:
Sounds like Mario.

Rob Fournier:
I said, “OK, Mario, we’ll see what we can do.” And then I had one of the other armorers bring more ammunition out, and it was a sequence where I had, I think, all 10 P90s firing. So you’re talking about 10 P90s, 50, or 500 rounds a take. It adds up. So fast, expensive, of course, then you’re dealing with budgets. And then I have production manager coming up to me. I say, “You shouldn’t be talking to me. You should be talking to that person.”

David Read:
Director.

Rob Fournier:
So that’s their responsibility. I’m only doing what I’m told. I’m not in charge of the budget and stuff like that. So, P90, great workhorse, loved it. I’ve only seen it… it was used in one of the James Bond movies once. But it’s a rare weapon, and I think it’s a signature weapon with Stargate. When people see it, they think of Stargate.

David Read:
I’ve seen it with Westworld, they were white, and I was like, “Aha, I know that gun.”

Rob Fournier:
Fantastic.

David Read:
It’s a beautiful piece. It’s compact and the spent casings drop straight down.

Rob Fournier:
Yes. That bottom ejection …

David Read:
They don’t hit your body.

Rob Fournier:
… that is the best thing ever. If you look inside, I’ll light it up for you for the camera. You see there’s a little steel plate in there. Why we had to put that in there? Because we would fire this so much that the casings ejecting, because they’re jagged, ’cause they’re crimped, they would chew through the plastic. So our gunsmith, Craig, built these little steel plates in there on the ejection port in order to save on the plastic. And he had to go very thin with i, as you can see, because it needs a certain amount of space to eject. As it comes out, it’s hitting… the extractor is pulling out of the chamber, hits the ejector and pushes it out like that.

David Read:
So, it doesn’t go forward and hit the other side. It just hits the back and then …

Rob Fournier:
It hits the back and …

David Read:
… then fall.

Rob Fournier:
… pushes it down. Then you get this stream of P90. It’s definitely not a weapon you wanna fire with flip-flops on because it’s going right at your feet. I always told the cast… I said — because sometimes I’d have our actors shoot it in a kneeling position or even a prone position — and I said, “Look, if you’re in the prone position, it needs that space. If you’re flat against the ground, it’s gonna jam because it’s gonna build up into the ejection port and the gun’s gonna jam.” It needs that space. People like Michael Shanks, all of a sudden he was very, very wise. He would end up tilting the weapon so it would eject away from him. Sometimes like that. As long as you follow the sight, you can shoot it at any angle you want. Rick would get his arm up a little bit and use his elbow, so he had all that space, and sometimes he would dig a little hole that was off camera — you didn’t even see it — in the sand or in the dirt. He’d say, “Does somebody have a little shovel, like something you use as a gardener?” And I would be digging a little hole for Rick so the brass of the P90 would go in. Little tricks that nobody saw on camera.

David Read:
He knew what he was doing.

Rob Fournier:
He did. Obviously when you’re standing, you don’t have to worry about that. You have all that space and stuff, but definitely a great weapon system. Still used today. And still used around the world.

David Read:
I can’t wait to play with one.

Rob Fournier:
Fantastic. Good.

David Read:
I think you have some safety equipment for us.

Rob Fournier:
I do. I have some really good Oakley eye protection and some sound-dampening hearing protection. And I’ll put it on you and then press the button and you’ll be able to listen. If you push that …

David Read:
Is it gonna say something?

Rob Fournier:
… the rear button. Hold it down, and it’ll say “Powering on.” And now you can press the other two buttons to go up and down in volume. You should be able to hear me, no problem.

David Read:
I sound like there’s a microphone on these that’s picking you up on the outside.

Rob Fournier:
It is. You have two microphones on either side.

David Read:
It’s going up on a scale. If I go down …

Rob Fournier:
You can still hear me. It’s quieter.

David Read:
… it’s compressing. I feel it now.

Rob Fournier:
It’s compressing. Now I’m gonna do the same thing. I have my own. Now I can hear you, no problem.

David Read:
What?

Rob Fournier:
Now watch when I yell, “Bang.” See how it suppresses it. I just yelled in your face, it’s no problem. Now we’re gonna take a magazine. We’re gonna have you load it. We’re gonna have you fire a few rounds in semi-auto to see the muzzle flash, and then we’ll have you switch it to fully automatic. When the magazine is clear and empty, you’re gonna put the weapon back on safe. Point it in that safe direction. Pull the magazine out, check the mag, put it on the table. Cock the action twice, check that it’s clear and safe and smile.

David Read:
I’ll try and remember to smile.

Rob Fournier:
Very good. Everybody has ear protection? Good.

David Read:
Yes, sir.

Rob Fournier:
I’m gonna come on this side. You can pick either P90. Which one’s your favorite?

David Read:
I’ll take this one.

Rob Fournier:
OK. I’m gonna come onto the other side of you and I’m gonna give you the magazine. Don’t load it just yet. And we’ll have you step back into that area. What’s the best safety in the world?

David Read:
Hands off. Finger off the trigger.

Rob Fournier:
Finger off the trigger, that’s right. Now go ahead and put the magazine in the weapon. Push it down, give it a tap. There you go. That works. Now go ahead and cock the action. Now you’ve chambered it. Bring it up into your shoulder.

David Read:
Now if I chambered it again, it would release that?

Rob Fournier:
Yes. There’s a round in the chamber right now. If you pulled it again, it would eject out of the ejection port. One click to the right, and you’re on semi-auto. So now the gun is hot, you’re ready to fire. Fire five rounds into that corner area and then stop, and then I’ll talk you through the rest. On your own time, go ahead. Now switch the weapon to fully automatic. One more click to the right. Now he’s on automatic. You’re gonna do a few short bursts and get the feel for it. You have lots of rounds. Remember, it holds 50 rounds. What you’re gonna do now, you’re gonna do four bursts. Short bursts on automatic and then hold the weapon nice and tight, and then let the entire mag go, and then you’ll see how quickly that 50 rounds can go. It’s very quick.

David Read:
Understood.

Rob Fournier:
On your own time, go ahead. Now, weapon on safe. Two clicks, finger off the trigger, pull the magazine out. As you can tell, it’s smoking a little bit. Check the magazine, put the magazine onto the table. I can take that. And now cock the action twice. Check the chamber. Gun’s clear and safe. Weapon down. That is the mag. Now look at the mess you’ve made.

David Read:
And smile.

Rob Fournier:
And you’re cleaning that up, not me.

David Read:
I can do that. Where’s a broom?

Rob Fournier:
So, that’s a P90. That is what it should look like on camera. So you have a good primer strike there, and the crimp is mangled ’cause what happens is it opens up, it lets the powder out, and as the back pressure hits it, it mangles that crimp and then it ejects out the weapon system itself. So that is a very good crimp and fired blank.

David Read:
How much of that is recyclable?

Rob Fournier:
What we do is we have to clean it to recycle it, and basically once you clean it, you can recycle it back into a metal recycling place.

David Read:
Is it fully brass?

Rob Fournier:
It’s full brass, but the primer sometimes are metal. So it’s two different metals. So, completely recyclable. There it is.

David Read:
Sweet. I wanna do it again.

Rob Fournier:
So, David, we’re gonna do… Let’s do another mag. I wasn’t quite happy with that one.

David Read:
All right.

Rob Fournier:
I think you can do a better job. Let’s have you fire 10 rounds semi-auto, and then go into automatic, on your own time. Just a click, and then basically do burst until you’re empty. I’m gonna have you put the weapon on safe, finger off the trigger, weapon on safe, and then pull the mag out, check the mag, and check the chamber all in one. See if you remember what I showed you. OK?

David Read:
Yes, sir.

Rob Fournier:
Here’s your magazine. Here’s your P90, clear right now, and I’ll go onto the other side of you. And on your own time, go ahead and load. And chamber the weapon. And put it on semi-automatic. And up into your shoulder. Count out your rounds. Do double taps. Double taps are something we were taught in the military is two quick “Pow-pow, pow-pow, pow-pow, pow-pow” until you get to 10, OK? On your own time.

David Read:
Yes, sir.

Rob Fournier:
And now put the weapon onto automatic, and you’re gonna do what we call controlled rate of fire, which is three to five round burst, and it’s like a “Bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh” until you’re empty. Correct?

David Read:
I can do that.

Rob Fournier:
Let’s do that in the shoulder and on automatic. Carry on. Weapon on safe. Finger off the trigger. Take the magazine out. Check the magazine. Put the magazine on the table or give it to me. And now cock the action twice. And check and watch the barrel, and that’s it. That was much better. He passed.

David Read:
You pick it up real quick.

Rob Fournier:
That’s it.

David Read:
Thank you, sir.

Rob Fournier:
No problem at all.

David Read:
I have my buddy, Remington, who is much more experienced than I.

David Read:
So I’d like to bring him in, if I may.

Rob Fournier:
Absolutely.

David Read:
All right, sir. Thank you.

Rob Fournier:
Let’s put the weapon on the table for now. So to load it– You always make sure it’s on safe. So two clicks all the way to the left. That’s safe. Single, full auto.

Remington Phillips:
Safe, single, auto.

Rob Fournier:
So, it’s off. Flag the trigger. Magazine in. Just push that, and at the same time, do that. And then tap it. And your cocking handle, wrap your forefinger around it. It’s ambidextrous. So all the way to the rear until it stops. Let it go.

Remington Phillips:
Release.

Rob Fournier:
Don’t follow it. Just let it go at that point. Now it’s ready. In theory, it’s loaded. Up into the shoulder, and then with your forefinger, if you have to, you can even look. One click, and then put your chin right on here as if you’re using the sight. The hand fits quite comfortably right there. It wraps right around. And then pull the trigger. I’ll have you fire, let’s say, 10 rounds semi-automatic, and then we’ll have you stop, and then I’ll have you go to fully auto. You’ll fire it. You’ll empty it. And then at that point, when it’s empty, the first thing you do is finger off trigger. Put it onto safe. Point it always in a safe direction. Pull the mag out. Check the mag. I’ll grab the mag from you. And then cock it twice and hold it open. It’s under tension. You’ll feel it once I give it to you.

Remington Phillips:
Yes. [inaudible]

Rob Fournier:
And it’s gonna be smoking a bit ’cause there’s some gun oil in it. It’s always good to lubricate the weapons because it’s metal on metal.

Remington Phillips:
It is.

Rob Fournier:
And when metal heats up, it tends to bind. So we like to lubricate it as much as we can. And be careful, that barrel’s gonna be hot. And then you’ll be able to just sit here and put the weapon down. I always like to do barrel past the furniture blanket because we’re not gonna touch it, but I can feel the heat rising from what …

Remington Phillips:
Emanating from it.

Rob Fournier:
… David just fired. So it gets warm. OK. There’s your P90. Do a practice run. Pick up the P90. Always make sure it’s on safe.

Remington Phillips:
Safe?

Rob Fournier:
So, you [do] two clicks. And cock it just to check. Yep. You’re empty. Now tap, grab your magazine. Absolutely. Now you push that detent down. At the same time you push it down, give it a tap. Cock the action. Let it go. Bring it up into your shoulder. Now one click to the right with this little selector. And go ahead and dry fire. You’ll hear a click. Good. Cock it again. Now if I went one more click to automatic and did the same action, it’s a heavy trigger. It’s about five pounds, five pounds of pressure. So now, in theory, you’re firing away, “Bruh.” All that wonderful, massive fireball. Very high action. People love it. Bring it back. Hey, it’s coming back. So now what you’re gonna do is when you empty out the weapon, finger off the trigger, put the weapon on safe. Two clicks to the left. Take the magazine out. Push that, and then you check the mag. Make sure there’s no rounds. Sometimes there’ll be rounds still stuck inside of here. Cock the action twice. Check it’s clear and safe, and you’re ready to go.

Remington Phillips:
All clear.

Rob Fournier:
All clear. And just be aware of that. It’s gonna be hot on the day. Shall we try one?

Remington Phillips:
We shall.

Rob Fournier:
All right. Let’s do it. So go ahead and grab the weapon and the P90 itself, or the magazine and the P90. There we go. And it’s on safe, pointed safe direction. Go ahead and put the magazine in. There it is. Now go ahead and cock it and put it on semi-automatic.

Remington Phillips:
Semi.

Rob Fournier:
Now let’s do five double taps. Total of 10 rounds.

Remington Phillips:
10 rounds, double taps.

Rob Fournier:
On your own time. Go ahead. Now if it jams, cock the action. Try it again.

Remington Phillips:
10 rounds.

Rob Fournier:
All right. Now one click to the right.

Remington Phillips:
Full auto.

Rob Fournier:
Let’s go automatic. Lean into it this time. And do three to five round bursts till you’re empty.

Remington Phillips:
Three round bursts.

Remington Phillips:
Empty.

Rob Fournier:
No, it’s not. You had a misfire. Just rack it. Now let it all go, all one burst.

Remington Phillips:
Full auto.

Rob Fournier:
No. Try that again. Cock the action.

Remington Phillips:
Full auto.

Rob Fournier:
No.

Remington Phillips:
Jammed.

Rob Fournier:
All right. Let’s put the weapon on safe, and take the magazine out. Ah, I see. And then go ahead and cock it. I’ll take that. So you just had a bad round. So let’s put that P90 down. You’re gonna take this one. You’re gonna take your magazine. It’s clear and safe.

Rob Fournier:0
Clear and safe.

Rob Fournier:
And weapon’s on safe. Go ahead and load that up. Yep. And chamber it. Put it on automatic, two clicks to the right.

Rob Fournier:0
Automatic.

Rob Fournier:
And let it go.

Rob Fournier:
Now, weapon on safe.

Rob Fournier:0
Safe.

Rob Fournier:
Take the magazine out.

Rob Fournier:0
Mag out.

Rob Fournier:
Check the mag, we’re good. Throw it there. And rack it. Clear and safe?

Rob Fournier:0
Clear.

Rob Fournier:
All right. Weapon back on the table. How was that?

Rob Fournier:0
That was outstanding.

Rob Fournier:
Perfect.

Rob Fournier:0
That was outstanding.

Rob Fournier:
Awesome. My pleasure. I’m glad you enjoyed that.

Rob Fournier:
Right on.

Rob Fournier:1
Thank you, sir. Appreciate you.

Rob Fournier:
That was very cool.

Rob Fournier:1
You’re such a show off.

Rob Fournier:0
I actually had a jam, unfortunately, during my live-fire exercise. So talk me through what happened and how we recovered from that.

Rob Fournier:
So, when you had a misfire, the immediate action, it’s a military term we use, but it’s also how to clear the weapon on the fly, so keep the energy of the scene alive. Blanks are very dirty, so they tend to jam, especially the more mags you go through, the more takes, the more prone they are to misfiring. So, what you did exactly is when you cocked it, you got rid of the bad round, and then you chamber the next good one. If you do it multiple times and it still doesn’t fire, then we just mime the action. So, we have the actor go through the action till they yell cut, and then visual effects, our good friends in visual effects, will put the muzzle flash in post.

Rob Fournier:0
And you handed me a backup P90, which just goes back to our conversation about the importance of two is one and one is none.

Rob Fournier:
Absolutely. Having two, you saw how quick that was? ‘Cause the most expensive thing on a film set is what? Time.

Rob Fournier:0
Time.

Rob Fournier:
By doing so, I basically saved us all that time, and there was no delay. So, we went right to the backup. That’s why I always like to have a second weapon when it comes to the amount of shooters. Now, you can’t do that all the time, ’cause it’s always a budget issue because now you have to pay rent for two of ’em compared to one. So we try to alleviate the problem as much as possible. When blanks are… when guns are manufactured, they’re not manufactured to fire blanks. When you manufacture, you have to modify them to fire blanks. So, you’re basically retuning it for a blank purpose, and that’s- In the military, we had the worst blanks ever. They were low-ass, and they always misfired compared to film blanks. They’re handmade. They’re all hand loaded.

Rob Fournier:0
And you do that here?

Rob Fournier:
No, we don’t do that. It’s a company that supplies us down in Arizona called Joe Swanson Motion Picture Blanks. He’s been doing it for 35 years. And we met him at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas back in the ’90s.

Rob Fournier:0
Naturally.

Rob Fournier:
And he’s been great ever since.

Rob Fournier:0
So, high quality blanks on set because we can’t afford all those stoppages that if you’re in boot camp, it’s OK, we can misfire all day, but on set every single time there’s a jam or a misfire, it’s costing money per second.

Rob Fournier:
Absolutely.

Rob Fournier:
It gets costly after a while, and that’s the last thing you wanna do is waste production’s time.

Rob Fournier:0
And I will say that clearing the jam on the P90, with you and me, that was a lot more quick and efficient than maybe on an AR platform, or even with a handgun potentially, where there might be an extra step involved in clearing those jams. Just thinking back to the tap, rack, bang that they teach. So, the P90 is probably a quicker gun for clearing, even if it does potentially jam more.

Rob Fournier:
And that’s something that I have seen happen in the past where if the magazine’s in, all of a sudden it pops out of place, so that’s where your tap, rack, bang would come into effect. You would tap the magazine in, cock it, and then refire it. It’s very rare because that’s quite a heavy mechanism, but I’ve seen …

Rob Fournier:0
Grab it in your hand.

Rob Fournier:
… some actors where they’re like, “Yep, my mag’s in.” I’m like, “No, you’re not in.” So, you have to make sure that it’s completely homed. And some of our cast would love to do this, but the problem is it damages the mags. And they’re not cheap, these magazines.

Rob Fournier:0
They’re plastic.

Rob Fournier:
So, when they would do that and I would be like, “No, no, no.” So then I would say, “Look, use this. Give it a tap once it’s in.” Fully homes it. It’s a great little cocking handle. Only has to go back about two inches. So, it works. It is much quicker than doing an M4 or something like that where sometimes you have to take the entire mag out and stuff like that, but that’s the workhorse.

Rob Fournier:1
We know you had about 10 P90s. How many magazines did you have?

Rob Fournier:
We’ve had up to 1,000 magazines that we had on SG1 and Atlantis because if I had all 10 firing, and they’re firing for, three days, I would preload sometimes a day or two in advance. I would spend an entire day here just loading magazines. 12 hours just loading mags and listening to wonderful classical music or something.

Rob Fournier:1
At the rhythm of what you were loading them.

Rob Fournier:
It’s part of the job. And obviously, the part–

Rob Fournier:0
Blisters.

Rob Fournier:
Blisters. I’ve had every cut you can imagine. And people don’t see it, but what we fired today, that’s a good hour and a half, two hours of cleaning involved. So we have to make sure that the weapon’s clean again so when we use it, it doesn’t malfunction.

Rob Fournier:0
So you have to, in many cases, break these down, clean all components, reassemble, load magazines. That’s a lot of time that’s happening in between takes.

Rob Fournier:
Yes, it is. And sometimes– We worked on a series called The Last of Us, Season Two. And we had 80 guns firing from rooftops and everything. So the entire crew is gone, wrapped. Where’s the armorers? They’re still there for three hours after wrap in a sea container cleaning guns until everything is cleaned and ready for the next day. We did that for an entire five weeks. Something that we’re used to. It’s not the glamorous part of the job, but it is part of the job. Maintenance is just as important as being on set.

Rob Fournier:0
Like you mentioned earlier, these are machines. There’s a lot of moving components. And some of these systems are pretty advanced internally, and they’re actually miracles of manufacturing.

Rob Fournier:
It’s amazing that you can get something like that to work, and it’s completely automated.

Rob Fournier:0
And you guys are taking a device and using it for something it wasn’t intended to do.

Rob Fournier:
It was meant to fire ball ammunition and we’re using it for blanks. So re-tuning firearms is part of the job. Also is converting it. And sometimes you don’t have a manual of a weapon that’s 100 years old, and you have to find a way to do it without damaging the weapon or the person who’s shooting the weapon, you don’t want them injured either. So it’s R&D, lots of research and development, and lots of trial and error until it’s finely tuned so then it’s ready for set. What I’ll do is I’ll empty some. The way we used to dump these, you just basically… It’s more fun to just shoot it off, but sometimes that’s the way it is. To load the P90 — people have trouble with it — but basically, if you’re right-handed like I am, you have the back end here. It will only go into this area that’s more open, like a normal vertical magazine. So the way you do it is you basically push down, put the round, and back. So you’ll see it rotate. Watch the round rotate as it goes in. So it’s going 90 degrees at this point. And then you just keep loading it until it fills the magazine. And people say, “Well, how do you know when it’s full?” Well, it’s a see-through magazine. And I’ll show you in a few seconds, it has numbers on it. So for those people who can’t count, you just have to look at the big number of the 50 and let you know that it only holds 50 rounds, that you cannot put any more in. We don’t always fill them to 50 rounds. But if we’re doing big takes, we max out. You can see the nice 5-0 there. So you can see the 10, 25, and 50. And you can also see through the side of the magazine too. And from the top. So no matter how you look at it, as it sits on top of the weapon, it will diminish coming back towards you at this point. That’s a full magazine of 50 rounds of 5.7 millimeter.

Rob Fournier:1
Rob, why is there no machine that can do this for you?

Rob Fournier:
The problem with the machine is… The reason we don’t use a machine is because we’ve tried that in the past and it doesn’t work. Manual labor is still the best way to load the magazine. We do have loaders for certain handgun magazines like a Glock, where as the spring gets compressed, the more rounds you put in, it’s harder to put the rounds in. So we have a little thing that helps us drop and push down on it. But for the P90, it’s still old-fashioned manual labor. Use the hands.