‘Green Zone’ piles on the cameras

Paul Greengrass’ films are known for kinetic action and lightning-quick editing, and his latest, the Iraq war thriller “Green Zone,” is no exception. Greengrass and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd shot the action sequences in long, continuous takes with multiple cameras that had staggered start times, so one camera would be filming while another was reloading. “This allowed the actors to inhabit their environments more fully,” explained editor and co-producer Christopher Rouse, who had to then break the raw footage down into categories (coverage of a single character, for instance) before cutting the scenes together. Up to 20 minutes of action needed to be boiled down to a few minutes on-screen, with individual shots ranging from a few seconds to as little as six frames. “Like the actors, I try to inhabit the scene so that I’m making intuitive choices rather than purely cognitive ones,” Rouse said.

-- Patrick Kevin Day