A House of Dynamite is a new political thriller from Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow. The film is set in Washington, DC, where various levels of the Department of Defense react and respond to an incoming missile that’s due to reach a major US city in less than 15 minutes. The film is presented in three chapters, each reflecting the view of a respective level of intelligence as they become aware of the threat. As each chapter concludes, the clock is reset and the story begins again from another perspective.
Idris Elba portrays the President of the United States, and is joined by a cast that includes Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Greta Lee and Jason Clarke. The film was edited by Oscar winner Kirk Baxter (Gone Girl, The Social Network), who previously worked with the filmmaker on Hollywood in Your Pocket, a long-format commercial for Apple that touted the capabilities of the iPhone 13 Pro. Baxter began work on the new feature back in December of 2024, working from the “shed” of his Suffolk County home on Long Island, NY, before moving into space in Tribeca, just blocks away from where he and Bigelow live.
Baxter (pictured) recently took time out from his work on an upcoming David Fincher film to shares insight into his editing process on A House of Dynamite, his collaboration with Kathryn Bigelow and some of his favorite scenes.
How did you come to work on this feature?
“I did a commercial with [Kathryn] for Apple called Hollywood in Your Pocket. That was a big commercial, like three minutes long, and we got on great during that. I think that sort of put me in her Rolodex. And then the same producer that was involved — where Kathryn’s represented for commercials — that producer called me up and said, ‘Kathryn wants to talk to you about a movie.’ Greg Shapiro, who produced A House of Dynamite, set the whole thing up and got me the script. I read it, loved it, instantly got on the phone with her, and that was that.”
You always seem to be working. Was it good luck from a scheduling standpoint?
“Yeah, I mean, more and more, everything interests me, but Dave Fincher has been pretty prolific and I’ve kept myself available for him. And then I have Exile, which is a commercial editing company that keeps me very busy in-between movies.”
What about this film did you find appealing?
“I was attracted to it for many reasons. I love the notion of the same story being told three times, working its way out through the layer of government. I thought that would be complicated in a fantastic way for an editor. And that was a big attraction. Kathryn Bigelow was a big attraction, but the structure of that script was a massive attraction as well. I liked the way it’s a thriller, because it was a page turner for me reading it, and I knew it would be that way when we made it. I had a sort of picture immediately in my head that you wanted to put it together very rapidly, moving at a breakneck pace. I love thrillers. I love watching them. I like making them. But I also enjoyed that this was a sort of more of a higher message than just entertainment.”
Were you cutting as the dailies came in?
“I didn’t come on until they’d finished shooting, due to scheduling, so that’s how I started on my own in December, cutting the first chapter. And I got to work in story order, which was a dream for something this complicated. That, to me, was almost a bigger gift (than) the actual project itself — getting to work (in) story order. Then we built a cutting room in Tribeca, like two blocks from where I live — three blocks from where Kathryn lives — with Kathryn popping in and out the whole time, and it was wonderful. She was so excited to be sharing the material with me. She shoots this sort of three-camera setup that’s so organic. It’s different every time, like a documentary in a lot of ways. They don’t block it out for actors. (There are) no rehearsals. No marks. So I would sort cut with multiple cameras and sort of do these pre-edits, and slowly sift down selects and bring Kathryn in and say, ‘Watch these. I really like this one.’ We just excite each other, and because we were doing story order, we were so excited to watch the movie we were making. We very much galloped through the process of making it, and then I knew that I would go back and do a more diligent pass that was sort of based on more editing neuroses of, ‘This is the exact piece of dialog that the President says at the end of the film. And I’m not going to know what that is until I cut the end parts.’”
What are you using for your editing setup?
“I’ve been using Premiere since Gone Girl.”
Director Kathryn Bigelow and editor Kirk Baxter
Do you have an assistant helping to manage the material?
“Oh yeah! There’s like four of them!”
Was the material unique to its respective chapter, or could you pull from different sections?
“There was a lot of head scratching from the assistants. Jennifer Chung, who has assisted me on a bunch of movies with Fincher, she was the first assistant on the project and came out from Los Angeles to New York to do this with me, which I was very grateful for. We had a conversation and she’s like, ‘I’m not quite sure how you want to do this? How do you want me to break this down?’ Because, let’s say scene 6, there’s like eight different things we could cut to, and all these different locations. And I said, ‘Just put everything in each folder that I could possibly go to.’ And I would select and organize and work it all out. I think the blurry nature of that meant that we were a bit free to go anywhere at any point, but within the confines of the script, meaning it was the story that was being told, the words that were being told. But whether we chose to be at Greeley (Air Force base in Colorado), watching people, or whether we want be on the ‘watch floor’ in Washington, listening to people, you could choose where you wanted that information to unfold.”
By the time you finished the third chapter, you probably wanted to go back and make some adjustments?
“Yeah! And I think what played a role in that is the working relationship with Kathryn. Like I said earlier, there was just so much enthusiasm to make it, and I wanted to keep that energy alive in the room. In the first pass of just creating a compelling story, that had a lot of kinetic movement, but also gave pauses for the actors on those emotional moments, which I called ‘the frozen moments,’ when actors sort of just get punched in the solar plexus, and become still. She very much liked the movie we had. And I was sort of going, ‘Oh, but this takes :15 to happen in that one, and here we're doing it in :08, and I want to get those things closer. And she was a bit like, ‘Ohhh-kay, but it’s really good.’ And I was like, ‘I’m not going to break anything. I promise!’ In most cases she was super willing and accepting and great.”
What was the status of the visual effects while you were editing? There are a lot of monitors on-screen.
“She did a lot of it live, so there was always something on the monitors, so everybody was responding to things live. It was great for the actors, but then we had to kind of recalibrate it all later. There was a lot of busy work on-screens, to swap out performances of actors, to get the chart exactly correct where the nuclear missile was. There was a lot of rejiggering. But in that first sweep through, everything was close enough to be able to just sort of gallop. Then there were visual effects. The very end of the movie was a visual effects shot. The missiles being sent out, those things were all visual effect shots…(But) I had no blank spots. I had the movie ready to roll.”
Is there a scene or a sequence that you feel is strong editorially?
“[There are] so many sections that I really love in the film. I love in the second chapter, going through The White House metal detector, and that kind of chaos of talking on the phone, sort of going, ‘I’m not talking to you.’ And then reaching up and sort of getting pressured to say what the odds are of the success. That whole string to me, it almost reaches comical timing…But editorially [what] really stands out was the countdown. The waiting [on] if the missile is going to be intercepted or not. I loved presenting that exact same timeframe, same piece of story three different ways, and using the same sort of template of audio that grows with more people getting on the line.
“In the beginning, you’ve got so many faces you can go to for the first chapter between Greeley and the watch floor. And then the second chapter, you’re inside [US Strategic Command]…You’ve got all these different places to go as well. And by the third, you’ve just got two faces, but you know that same storyline. I just loved slicing up the first one. We played (it) mute with no music, and the tension holds like there’s no oxygen in the room. And then the second time we use score, and the audience knows what’s going to happen, but you have this sense of hope that something’s going to evolve and get better, and it doesn’t. And the third time is just quiet devastation.”
You’re currently working with director David Fincher. Where are things at?
“Day 75 of shooting. (We) keep shooting until the end of January or some point in January, and I think they hope to release around October. It’s a big film.”