The Hurt Locker military reservation in the Mojave Desert in California. He was taught to use C4 explosives, learned how to render safe improvised explosive devices, and how to wear a bomb suit. Mackie plays Sergeant J. T. Sanborn. Describing the experience of filming in Jordan in the summer, he said, "It was so desperately hot, and we were so easily agitated. But that movie was like doing a play. We really looked out for each other, and it was a great experience. It made me believe in film." Several hundred thousand refugees of Iraq live in Jordan. Bigelow cast refugees who had
The Hurt Locker the lens can give you that microcosm/macrocosm perspective, and that contributes to the feeling of total immersion." In staging the film's action sequences, Bigelow did not want to lose a sense of the geography and used multiple cameras to allow her to "look at any particular set piece from every possible perspective." "The Hurt Locker" was edited by Chris Innis and Bob Murawski. The two editors worked with almost 200 hours of footage from the multiple hand-held cameras in use during the shoot. Adding to the challenge, Boal's screenplay had a non-traditional, asymmetrical, episodic structure. There was no traditional "villain",