Biography

Dutch Merrick is past President of I.A.T.S.E. Local 44, Hollywood Property Craftspersons, where he served 14 years on the Executive Board. He grew up at Van Nuys Airport, where his mother was a flight instructor - and before that a race car driver. His father was a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy who had earlier worked as a machinist at Disney, building rides for the theme park. The son of a fifth-generation UAW family from Detroit, Dutch came to Hollywood already fluent in the language of craft and organized labor. Technical precision, creative ambition, and an inherited sense of humor became the foundation of a career spanning forty years in the firearms world, thirty years in film and television, and twenty years behind the camera as a writer and director. Growing up as a competitive action shooter - an IPSC competitor since age 15 in the Southwest Pistol League - he was a natural for his future role as a studio armorer. His first film job was as a gun wrangler on an ultra-low-budget feature. Over the three decades that followed, he has worked as an armorer or prop master on many notable productions. He served as key armorer in Season 2 of HBO's Euphoria under creator Sam Levinson, was part of the armorer team on SEAL Team across its seven-season run, and has prop and armorer credits on features including The Island and S.W.A.T., television series including CSI: NY, and five seasons as prop master on Penn & Teller: Fool Us - one of television's most technically demanding productions. He has also served as prop master and/or art director on more than 500 television commercials for directors including Michael Mann, John Frankenheimer, Samuel Bayer, and Kinka Usher, including more than 250 spots with Joe Pytka. In the aftermath of the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in 2021, Dutch became one of the industry's most sought-after voices on prop gun safety. He was interviewed by major national and international outlets - ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, Variety, and others - more than 135 times, and has been a guest lecturer at Dartmouth College and USC. In 2006, Dutch wrote, directed, and produced One Minute - the Shortest Film About Our Longest War, shot on 35mm with more than 50 crew volunteers. The film was accepted into 11 film festivals and won three Audience Choice awards for Best Short. He then produced, wrote, and directed the first-ever weekly YouTube news program for a U.S. presidential campaign - The Kucinich Presidential Campaign Update - 17 consecutive episodes, nearly half a million views. Six months as media director for the 2008 Ralph Nader presidential campaign followed, crisscrossing the country with a crew of union filmmakers. Dutch served as president of the local station board of Pacifica Radio's KPFK 90.7 FM. He is known on set for his legendary puns and has performed spoken word on a number of occasions. He is currently in his third draft of Mastering Hollywood, One Prop at a Time, the first history and how-to book on film and TV prop mastering.
- IMDb mini biography by: Dutch Merrick

Dutch has received attention for authoring the appliance parody book, "Toasty's Day Out". The little-book-that-could has developed a cult following in Hollywood and has been read and enjoyed by many celebrities such as Britney Spears, Elizabeth Hurley, L.L. Cool J and Colin Farrell. While the book was self published and crafted by hand, Dutch says he never imagined the book would get as much attention as it has.
- IMDb mini biography by: James Legoy, Director of Photography

Prop Gun Set Safety: In the aftermath of the Rust shooting that claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021, veteran prop master and armorer Dutch Merrick built what has become the industry's leading training program for on-set firearm safety. With forty years in the firearms world and thirty years in film and television - and more than 135 national and international television appearances as an expert commentator during the Baldwin/Rust coverage - Merrick brought a credential set no one else could match: CRPA-certified firearms instructor, certified range safety officer, California Department of Justice Dangerous Weapons Permit holder, and former president of IATSE Local 44. His company, Prop Gun Set Safety, has conducted workshops in six U.S. states under the IATSE Training Trust Fund - including Hollywood and Burbank - drawing students from every corner of the country and from multiple continents. The curriculum has earned a rare distinction: official endorsement from both the CRPA (California Rifle and Pistol Association) and the Brady Organization to Prevent Gun Violence - two organizations rarely found in agreement, united by the belief that every film professional should be trained in prop gun safety. He is the author of the guidebook Prop Gun Set Safety for Film and Television. Level 1 delivers the foundational curriculum: safe handling, prop gun protocols, chain of custody, and an in-depth examination of the contributing factors and root causes behind the industry's most devastating tragedies - from the death of actor Jon-Erik Hexum on a television set in 1984, to the death of Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow in 1993, to the Rust shooting in 2021. These were not isolated incidents. They were failures that a better-trained industry could have prevented. Level 2 - The Wrangler Experience is something rarer. Students become film crew for a day on a fully professional film set, making a mini-movie that recreates gun-play from iconic films - real action sequences, real blank-adapted firearms, real direction, and gunfire galore. Students leave with actual footage and wrangler-level knowledge they've earned on a working set. Merrick is regarded as one of the leading voices for improving prop gun safety in film, television, and theater.
- IMDb mini biography by: Dutch Merrick

Fix it in Prep!

Fix it in Prep!

The role of a prop master and armorer is to create as realistic an environment as possible, so that the actor can fully immerse themselves in that world and be another person entirely. The actor acting in a role is not being themselves. They're being another person in another place and time. So we helped shape and craft that arena for them to play fully while at the same time making it safe.