Neal Zoromski, a long time Hollywood prop master, declined an offer to work on “Rust” after being asked by producers to fulfill two roles on the movie set, an approach that he thought was “flawed.”
Zoromski said he was asked to take on two jobs, one as an armorer and another as an assistant key prop master.
“That premise is flawed,” Zoromski told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “It’s just an awful lot of landscape for even a seasoned professional to cover.”
Zoromski explained that, “if you are loading a gun, you’re right up next to the camera. If you’re an assistant key prop master, then you are in the background loading the wagons, checking the bridles, making sure the trunk is being loaded and offloaded and repeated over and over again.”
“There are so many things that go on in between the foreground and the background and to have to cover that amount of territory, and to do it well, is challenging for even a seasoned professional,” he added.
Zoromski said he had misgivings about the job as he spoke to various people on the production team about numbers, budgeting, and staffing questions that needed to be addressed.
“We were in the process of negotiating over several days, we had sort of been up and down with numbers and staffing numbers,” Zoromski said.
Zoromski said he expressed his concerns and needs during the negotiation but they were not immediately addressed when presented to producers and staff.