All right guys,
The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 hits theaters this Friday.
So our pick for this week's episode of things you didn't know was a no brainer.
Seven shocking secrets about Stanley Tucci.
(Laugh) >> Psyche, people still say that right?
Psyche, they don't?
Okay, well never mind.
Here are seven things you didn't know about the Hunger Games movies, probably.
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The Hunger Games books were huge, but then the movies because even huger.
But most people don't know that there was a ton of financial pressure
on the filmmakers just to get the first one made.
Lionsgate alloted The Hunger Games a pretty modest production budget,
relatively speaking at least.
They had about $80 million which, quite honestly, is so much money.
But for a movie this size, the budget is usually two or three times that amount.
Fireballs and CG tracker jackers ain't free, you know.
It seems kind of crazy to think that they were nervous about profitability now that
we know The Hunger Games has gone on to make eleventy billion dollars and break,
like, all the box office records.
But, now we all know, J-law brings the boys to the yard.
And the girls.
And the adults.
And actually the tweens, as well.
Pretty much everyone, really. >> Thank you.
>> Next thing.
The Hunger Games had to rely on a lot of movie magic to stretch that $80 million.
I think we all realize that there's a fair amount of computer-generated smoke and
mirrors in the film.
But most people don't know that the first Hunger Games actually has as
many CG shots in it as some animated feature films.
It clocks in at around 1,200 CG shots, which is more than director Gary Ross had
in The Tale of Despereaux which he worked on a few years prior to Hunger Games.
You might be surprised to know how much CG trickery there is,
even in this scene with Caesar Flickerman's audience.
There are only about ten rows of real people there and the rest is green screen.
Making the bulk of the audience CG definitely saved them a lot of money on
outfitting all those extras in crazy future wigs and funny future hats.
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>> Jennifer Lawrence had to do a lot of training before she could meet
the physical demands of playing Katniss.
She trailed with the personal trainer, a martial arts team, and a sprinting coach.
After all, Katniss is running about 85% of the time in these movies.
Lawrence also had to learn archery with a few different types of bows.
But despite all of her experience with firing real arrows from a real bow,
most people don't know that we almost never really see J-Law do it in the films.
For safety reasons, they don't use real arrows on set.
After all, if your principal kills the camera operator with an arrow to the dome,
you have to stop down, you lose half a day, and
then you have to get all these pickups later and it's a whole thing.
For the most part,
the arrows Katniss shoots are added in post-production digitally.
They only had Jennifer Lawrence learn how to use a bow and arrow for real so
that her behavior and mannerisms and were ingrained and looked real for
when she'd have to fake it on film.
Take this scene, where Katniss, Peeta, and Finnick are fighting all those CG monkeys.
In reality, she's fighting nothing with nothing.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win an Oscar for
your performance in a different movie.
But you get the point.
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Who here saw Catching Fire in IMAX?
If you did, you may remember that pretty much the entire time they're in
the arena the movie was actually shot on IMAX.
They shot so much of it on IMAX that they even had to do a lot of handheld IMAX
camerawork, which is pretty much unheard of.
IMAX cameras are gigantic and heavy, but worst of all, they're really, really loud.
Most people don't know that for every scene shot on IMAX,
they had to do all the ADR in post.
The dialog had to be looped completely,
because the camera noise pretty much ruined the on set audio.
Guess that explains why Lionsgate bailed on an IMAX release for
Mockingjay Part 1, hm?
Moving on.
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You guys know that Stanley Tucci plays Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games and
he was really hands on in coming up with Caesar's look too.
Tucci actually had those giant teeth made himself along with some fake noses for
Caesar which they ended up not using.
But when it came to creating Caesar's pulled back look of someone who has had
some work done Hunger Games makeup designer Ve Neill was the mastermind.
Her secret to making it look like Caesar had gone under the knife?
Scotch tape.
Like, a (Bleep) ton of it.
Basically, she creates a sort of tape crown on Tucci's head, then they use more
tape to yank the sides of his face up, and then put the wig on top of the tape.
It's super uncomfortable to wear all day, but the Tucc can handle it.
By the way even though we were kidding about making this episode all Tucci
in the intro, I'm more than down.
If you guys want us to do a Tuccipalooza here on Cinefix
let's get a hashtag started.
I say December should be all Tucci all month long.
Who's with me, I'm fired?
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Yeah, no, that's fair.
Let me just wrap this up and I'll show myself out.
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Let's talk about the reaping in the first film.
Definitely an uncomfortable scene.
But the extras in this scene don't just look super uncomfortable because they're
that good.
They were actually suffering through sweltering heat that day.
We´re talking over 100 degrees.
A lot of the child extras had traveled a long way just to be in the movie.
So, during a break, the cast signed autographs for them all as a thank you for
showing up, and, for not melting between takes.
Because melting beween takes was really bad for continuity.
So I'm told.
The cornucopia scenes in Catching Fire were shot at a manmade circular pond in
Georgia that was originally made for the Atlanta Olympics.
The water was only 50 degrees and the location was so cold that they had to wait
for frost to thaw off the cornucopia each morning before they could shoot.
And since she's a woman of a particular age, production decided to spare
Lynn Cohen, you know Mags, from getting into the cold water.
And figured out how to work around the limitation.
Well the thing is it didn't quite work out.
Sam Claflin who plays Finnick spends a good deal of Catching Fire
carrying Cohen on his back.
Originally he was supposed to run across these rocks at the cornucopia
carrying Max.
But on the first take of shooting the scene Claflin's ankle went wonky.
I mean he was sprinting across rocks with an old lady on his back.
And he fell into the extremely cold water taking Lynn Cohen with him.
The filmmakers wound up cutting the shot from the film probably because they
didn't want to risk doing a second take.
So much for keeping poor Mags dry.
Well, that's it for this episode.
Hit the thumbs up if you ever want to see a part two and
let us know if you guys are pumped for Mockingjay Part One this Friday.
Are you going to get advanced tickets?
Are you going to dress up like Effie?
If you are, you're way too excited, I think.
Like, that's an unhealthy level of excitement.
But, you know, knock yourself out, I guess.
(Sound) Thanks for watching, and be sure to check out Cinefix.com and
subscribe for more truish things about movies and
sometimes mockingjays right here on Things You Didn't Know.
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