Unusually, the director's main influence in making this film was not grown out of a movie; his influences were more Anderson Cooper and Christine Amanapour than they were great movie makers or epic directors that had gone before him. David Russell was not wanting to make another war movie, or a "blockbuster" in the vein of Bruce Willis; in many ways he was the anti-Willis, because he wanted his explosions to be quieter and espoused a less is more mentality when it came to the scenes with more violence. His goal was to make the audience feel that they were watching the handicam footage of a journalist on the front line; they would feel fear, intensity, and anticipation. To achieve this, he did not use the traditional rolling movie cameras at all, filming instead on steadicam and hand held devices, so that a journalistic CNN feel was achieved instead of an action movie one.
Another way in which he achieved his goal of making the movie seem like a journalistic piece was by filming explosions from just one angle. This was a more realistic way of filming because it gave the impression that the explosions were happening as part of a backdrop to the story rather than being the focal point of the scene. In fact, the movie did not feel like it was comprised of scenes, rather, that it was an ongoing piece of reportage from a war zone.
