When a single, unattributed nuclear missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond in Director Kathryn Bigelow’s apocalyptic political thriller, A House of Dynamite.

Bigelow’s film begins when a radar station at Fort Greely, Alaska detects an inbound ICBM headed for Chicago. With the lives of millions on the line, the president and his entourage must use the limited time they have to try to shoot it down, and failing that, consider retaliatory options too horrible to fathom.

On October 11, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Bigelow discussed the making of the film during a Q&A moderated by Director James Gray (Armageddon Time). She also spoke about the film in a conversation moderated by Director Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher) following the New York DGA screening on October 26.

During the Los Angeles conversation, Bigelow spoke about the unique way they shot their scenes for the film.

“I try to make it feel like it’s very spontaneous and unraveling in the moment. But [Cinematographer] Barry Ackroyd shoots where he’ll light the entire set. We have these three sets: Fort Reidy, the White House Situation Room, Strat Com, and they’re completely lit. We don’t use marks, and the actor basically must come in and do their job. It doesn’t matter where the camera is other than, they’re placed where their job would dictate. We have technical advisers who work with us on all the details of their day. But there’s no marks and there’s three or four cameras going on — except in Strat Com, at one point there were twenty-four cameras going on because there were digital cameras for the teleconference. It’s a very fluid process.”

Bigelow’s other directorial credits include the feature films K-19: The Widowmaker, The Weight of Water, Strange Days, Point Break, Blue Steel, Near Dark, The Loveless, Detroit; the movie for television The Miraculous Year; episodes of the series Karen Sisco and Homicide: Life on the Street; and an episode of the mini-series Wild Palms. She was nominated for a DGA Award for her direction of the feature Zero Dark Thirty and made history as the first woman to win both the Oscar and the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for The Hurt Locker. Bigelow has been a DGA member since 1988 and has served as a member of the National Board and the Western Directors Council.