This week’s Road To Oscar installment offers a pair of perspectives–those of cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, BSC and editor Kirk Baxter–on the Kathryn Bigelow-directed A House of Dynamite (Netflix), a film which is also centered on multiple perspectives. The latter POVs–each unfolding in a 20-minute-or-so segment covering the same nuclear crisis–come, respectively, from intelligence officials in the Situation Room, high-level military advisors, and finally the President of the United States himself (portrayed by Idris Elba).
A nuclear missile has been launched towards Chicago from an unknown adversary overseas. A race begins to try to prevent the warhead’s impact, to determine who is responsible for the attack, if there are more missiles to come, and how to respond. The pressure on decision-makers–and those supposed to provide them with relevant intelligence–is enormous as Noah Oppenheim’s screenplay at the same time underscores how tenuous the system is that’s designed to protect us.
The story and the situation it presents are deadly serious. But in the real world, the public at large pays little or no attention to this existential threat–an indifference that Bigelow and her collaborative colleagues, including Ackroyd and Baxter, set out to help rectify through their narrative artistry.
Going into A House of Dynamite, Ackroyd and Baxter were at opposite ends of the experience continuum when it came to collaborating with Bigelow. A House of Dynamite was the first feature film on which Bigelow and editor Baxter came together. They had, however, worked with each other once before–on an Apple commercial in 2021.
Ackroyd had earlier teamed with Bigelow on such features as Detroit and before that The Hurt Locker for which he earned a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination in 2010. The Hurt Locker won the Best Picture Oscar with Bigelow becoming the first woman to receive the Academy Award for Best Director.
The cast for A House of Dynamite includes Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Gabriel Basso, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Jared Harris and Kyle Allen.
Barry Ackroyd, BSC
Ackroyd is no stranger to narratives centered on harrowing experiences as reflected in a fair share of his work over the years, including the aforementioned all-too-real projects with Bigelow–from The Hurt Locker about an elite U.S. Army bomb disposal team facing life-threatening situations in Iraq, to Detroit which thrusts us into the civil and racial unrest that rocked the Motor City in the summer of 1967, zeroing in on an incident where police brutality claimed the lives of three young Black men. Now, with A House of Dynamite, the stakes have risen sky high to a global level with the prospect of nuclear annihilation.
Ackroyd noted that in telling these stories, he and Bigelow often bring a mix of documentary sensibilities, multiple cameras and perspectives while striving to put the audience squarely in the action, sometimes in “an awkward, uncomfortable place.” The cameras are deployed to help the audience make sense of that place where they find themselves. “It’s hard to explain,” acknowledged Ackroyd, but it’s in some respects cut from the same cloth as the documentary work of the Maysles brothers or D.A. Pennebaker–making the unfolding events feel like they are “really happening” and enabling viewers to personally feel the intensity. The cameras take on a straight-forward observational point of view while still carrying a dramatic cinematic impact.
Ackroyd recalled that when he initially got together with Bigelow on The Hurt Locker, she gave him the gift of multiple cameras which were deployed simultaneously to contribute to this observational feel, capturing the varied perspectives of the characters. Meanwhile Ackroyd brought to the party a documentary-style approach and realistic “sense of life” that he had honed working with directors such as Paul Greengrass and Ken Loach. Ackroyd and Bigelow embraced all this, freeing the actors to move about. “I was familiar with this when working with Ken Loach. We didn’t put marks down on the floor,” recalled Ackroyd, adding that he and the actors have to find where they had to be–rather than the Hollywood norm dictating that we had to know up front where everyone needed to be at all times. Shooting in this manner requires “a different level of concentration, a different level of expertise.” And this dynamic, said Ackroyd, is “why we connected during The Hurt Locker”–and it’s an exploratory bond that he and Bigelow continue to enjoy and refine.
“What could have been a static film becomes lively, an active life experience,” said Ackroyd who deployed the ARRI Alexa 35 on A House of Dynamite. He noted that the motivation for creating this drama-enhancing immersive experience isn’t just to make the harrowing even more visceral but rather to foster an audience empathy for what the characters are going through as they face unthinkable adversity. For Ackroyd that’s the essence of filmmaking or for that matter, a book, a poem or a painting–a piece of art that helps humans sort things out and relate to other people.
That’s why Ackroyd describes putting his eye to the camera as being “a privilege,” offering “a unique experience every time.” He said Bigelow is “a wonderful filmmaker” whose work opens up people’s minds and hearts.
Besides earning an Oscar nomination, Ackroyd’s work on The Hurt Locker won him a BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography and a British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) Award. The Hurt Locker also scored Ackroyd his first career ASC Award nod in 2010. Four years later, Ackroyd garnered his second ASC Award nomination–for director Greengrass’ Captain Phillips, which also received a BAFTA Award nod.
In addition to his work with directors Bigelow and Greengrass (which also includes Green Zone and Jason Bourne), Ackroyd’s filmography includes director Adam McKay’s The Big Short, Jay Roach’s Bombshell, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Old Guard, Kasi Lemmons’ I Wanna Dance With Somebody, and assorted collaborations with Loach (My Name Is Joe, Bread and Roses, The Navigators, Sweet Sixteen. Looking For Eric, and The European Film Award for Best Cinematography-winning The Wind That Shakes The Barley)
Kirk Baxter
Editor Baxter has a pair of Academy Award wins–for director David Fincher’s The Social Network in 2011 and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2012 (both shared with editor Angus Wall). Baxter’s first Oscar nomination (also shared with Wall) came in 2009 for Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
As for the alluded to Apple commercial–namely the two-minute “Hollywood In Your Pocket”–it served as Baxter’s introduction to Bigelow. A founding partner of edit house Exile–through which he cuts varied high-profile commercial and branded content assignments–Baxter was duly impressed with Bigelow’s creativity, work ethic and adept direction of the ad, and the two struck up a rapport. Based on that experience, Bigelow invited Baxter to take on A House of Dynamite. “She sent me the script and it was a total no-brainer. I instantly said ‘yes,’” recalled Baxter.
A House of Dynamite marked a first for Baxter. “I had never cut a [feature-length] film in complete story order before. It made a complex process [of the same events told from three different places and perspectives] simpler to follow and understand.” Bigelow was working out of an office next door to Baxter’s cutting room. They engaged in an extensive selection process of takes before Baxter started editing. Bigelow would talk through selects with Baxter as they bounced ideas off of each other as to what excited them. Baxter described it as a “very easy and organic relationship” as they were often simpatico on what they were attracted to in terms of the material. “Kathryn was excited to share with me what she shot.”
Bigelow would pop in and out of Baxter’s edit room. “That was the beauty of having Kathryn around. I rarely had to pull something apart to prove how it got there. She sort of bore witness to it.” Sequences came together and found their place with the editing supporting and enhancing the kinetic and emotional energy of the story. Once they arrived at an assembly which Bigelow had confidence in, Baxter went back and did due diligence to make sure the story rang true and consistent as it was being told three separate times. He described the process as narrative “forensics,” making sure the elements coincided–for example the audio you heard in the first chapter married to certain imagery was consistent with the second and third chapters in terms of sound and picture,
“Kathryn goes for a sense of honesty with everything that she’s doing,” related Baxter. “Rule number one for her is that it all feel real. That’s part of why she uses Barry as her cinematographer. He comes from a documentary background….He doesn’t put down marks for the actors to hit. He responds to what they’re doing. And I respond to what’s Barry is doing. It gives the work a ‘found’ and ‘witnessed’ feeling.”
Baxter added, “As much as Kathryn is shooting a documentary-style voyeuristic piece unfolding in front of you, I still strive to put it together in the classic sense of a thriller,” applying filmic disciplines to the process.
The storyline in A House of Dynamite impacted Baxter who said, “I had my face pressed against the glass in making this,” seeing the critical issue of nuclear weaponry and the devastating prospect of just “one bad actor” triggering mass destruction. It’s an issue Baxter will prioritize when he next enters the voting booth to cast his ballot.
As for whether his commercial editing has informed his feature and TV endeavors, Baxter observed that “editing is editing.” So much of it is adapting to the people with whom you’re working, being responsible and pliable to those needs, he explained. As he’s matured over the years, Baxter feels he’s become better at connecting and collaborating with people. In some respects, though, commercials have made him more adept at getting the most out of every frame. There’s a granular approach to commercialmaking since each second is so precious. To take that at times and expand it to movies can be beneficial.
Besides his two Oscars, Baxter’s work has earned other assorted honors, including a primetime Emmy nomination for his editing of the first episode of House of Cards, a BAFTA Film Award win for The Social Network, and eight ACE Eddie Award nominations–two of which came up winners, for The Social Network in 2011, and an episode of the animated series Love, Death & Robots in 2023.
This is the fourth installment of SHOOT’s 16-part The Road To Oscar Series of feature stories. Shining a light on such disciplines as directing, cinematography, producing, editing, production design, visual effects and animation, this series will appear weekly all the way through to the Academy Awards gala ceremony. Nominations for the 98th Oscars will be announced on Thursday, January 22, 2026. The 98th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood in Hollywood, Calif., televised live on ABC and streamed on Hulu.
