FEB 14: 9 Secrets About The Making Of “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1”

Read some amazing behind the scenes information as well as view some new behind the scenes stills from Kristin Harris at BuzzFeed! You can read the article HERE, but below are our highlights. We've picked just a few -- but you should really read this. It's amazing.

1. The film starts off with a period of time that didn’t originally exist in the book.

“In the beginning of this adaptation, you’ll see that we made a jump from the book. The book opens with Katniss walking through the ruins of District 12, and we kind of only hear in her thoughts the backstory of her time in District 13. Pretty quickly we knew that wasn’t going to work and we were going to have to see Katniss getting acclimated to District 13 and meeting President Coin for the first time as opposed to jumping in the middle of the action.” —Francis Lawrence, director

“Coming off of Catching Fire we had the question of, where do want this story to begin? And we made the choice to have it begin one or two weeks after she had been lifted out of the arena.” —Nina Jacobson, producer

 

3. Not wanting to have a film without Effie Trinket, they replaced the character Fulvia in the book with Effie’s character on film.

“For fans of the book, they know that Effie’s role [in Mockingjay] was basically given to a character named Fulvia, who became Plutarch’s assistant. It just seemed impossible when we were doing Catching Fire that we wouldn’t have Effie Trinket here. There was a little convincing of Suzanne Collins, but after seeing Catching Fire she said… —Lawrence

 “‘Fulvia who?’ (laughs). But it was a big decision what to do with Effie, and what we thought was most interesting was to see her forced into this role of rebel, forced to leave the Capitol and the things that she’s held dear but that she’s clearly questioning at the end of Catching Fire. —Jacobson 

 

4. The actors shot inside an actual replica of the hovercraft to make the scene as realistic as possible.

“We built the interior of a hovercraft that would be attached to a large crane with our actors inside, lifted up 60 feet in the air. It would actually land so you could see them get dropped down and walk into our location while the hovercraft lifts off, helping to create the reality that these hovercrafts really exist.” —Lawrence

 

5. The hospital scene was a turning point for Katniss, making her realize that she had what it took to be the Mockingjay.

“The hospital scene in District 8 was an important one. It’s kind of an anchor forMockingjay — Part 1, because it really solidifies Katniss’ position as taking on the role of the Mockingjay. She doesn’t really believe that she’s going to be able to help or truly mean anything to them, but here she starts to see that she can make a difference.” —Lawrence

7. They got to destroy a real factory when they demolished District 12 on-screen.

“The production designer and location manager found this factory about an hour outside of Atlanta that was being demolished. We got permission to put a hold on the work and they let us do the demolishing for District 12.” —Lawrence

While these are just our favorite highlights, check out (and it is amazing!) HERE.