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Francis Lawrence
Director Francis Lawrence with Jennifer Lawrence and Willow Shields on the Victors Village set
Thanks to Cinema Blend, we've got a look at four new behind the scenes stills from the set of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Sam Claflin & Co on the cornucopia set
Elizabeth Banks, Willow Shields and Paula Malcomson in the Everdeen house
Stanley Tucci and Sam Claflin chat between takes
Here's one more bonus still thanks to Lionsgate!
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay director Francis Lawrence spoke with USA Today about the sudden loss of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman:
The Atlanta cast and crew of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay were devastated when they learned of cast member Phillip Seymour Hoffman's sudden death, says director Francis Lawrence.
"It was obviously very rough for all of us," Lawrence tells USA TODAY. "He was a friend. He was an amazing actor, an iconic actor. He was someone I really looked up to."
On the Atlanta set, filmmakers gave shocked and bereaved cast and crew members time to process their grief. "We shut down for a day to give people time to deal with the sudden shock of it all. And to try and sort of figure things out a little bit," says Lawrence.
After coming back to work, the entire cast and crew gathered for a special moment to pay respects to Hoffman.
"We as a cast and crew definitely honored him," says Lawrence. "We gathered everyone together and had a big moment for him. We still think about him every day. It's hard not to imagine him being here."
"It's something so sudden, so shocking," Lawrence added.
Hoffman starred as head gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The Academy Award winner had been shooting his role in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 in Atlanta. A European shoot was to follow.
Hoffman's death is not expected to affect therelease dates of Mockingjay, Part 1 on November 21and Mockingjay, Part 2 on November 20, 2015.
Lawrence said Hoffman was "mostly finished" with his work on the Mockingjay set.
"There was very, very little that was left. Even if (Hoffman) had a number of days left," says Lawrence. "Most of those moments were appearances in other scenes. Most of his dialogue was done."
Clearly, working with the loss of the key character will lead to some continued difficulties.
"We're still figuring some of that out," says Lawrence.
Happy The Hunger Games: Catching Fire DVD and Blu-Ray release day! Lionsgate has released some new behind the scnes stills from the movie to get you all warmed up for your marathon of Catching Fire this weekend. That is what you're doing, right??
If you haven't purchased your copy yet, check out our review of all the different choices for purchase here OR try your luck and enter our GIVEAWAY. We're giving away the Target 3-disc combo pak.
Thanks to Quarter Quell.org for the tip!
I think we can all agree that The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was visually stunning. Francis Lawrence delivered the follow up to The Hunger Games with grander scope and scale than the first installment, showing us a whole lot more of Panem. But you probably didn't realize just how much of Catching Fire's Panem was actually created by the visual effects department.
Flickering Myth just posted an amazing interview with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire visual effects team where they discuss all the technical aspects of creating the film's digital world. Trevor Hogg chatted with production visual effects supervisor Janek Sirrs, visual effects producer Mitchell Ferm, and visual effects supervisors Adrian de Wet, Stéphane Nazé, Paul Butterworth, and Guy Williams about bringing to the big screen a spinning island, raging monkeys and a futuristic society that stages lethal survival games.
What We Learned:
Effects in movies are a bit like magic tricks that rely on deception and misdirection; having visual effects, special effects, and stunts keep the audience guessing as to what exactly they are looking at, or how the shots are achieved.
The Arena is not really the Arena:
The jungle arena could never exist in reality or be built as a practical set, so a good amount of VFX work went into creating a virtual environment for a hyper-reality that we’re hoping people would swear was shot on location.
We couldn't have created a full-on practical spinning Cornucopia island for the scene where Plutarch rotates it, so that action sequence had to be fabricated from a full-size static set, a smaller SPFX-spinning partial set piece, and a completely digital island, all working in conjunction with one another.
We constructed a 360° blue screen around a rotating Cornucopia partial set piece [dubbed the ‘spinning biscuit’]. All that churning water is CG.
All the water-based action scenes at the centre of the Arena were shot almost entirely at a waterpark outside Atlanta, where we constructed a full-size island, two spoke-like rocky paths leading from it, and a couple of the pedestals that the Tributes emerge up into the Arena on. In the final shots, the entire surrounding ocean water, beaches, and jungle blowing in the breeze have all been added digitally. It takes a bit of will power to continually overlook Katniss running past childrens’ water slides, and ornamental fountains, for many weeks [during shooting], until the real jungle environments finally start to show up in shots, and the sequence becomes what was originally intended.
Ironically, the real Hawaiian shorelines didn’t feel tropical enough to match the hot/humid environment we were trying to convey, and their look was based more upon jungles you might find in places like Costa Rica, right down to the condensation on the wet leaves, and hanging mist rolling down from the hillsides. The challenge with creating the digital jungle was really just the sheer complexity of the foliage. Trees had to be modelled and rigged down to the individual leaf and frond detail level so that we could get them to realistically flutter, and sway in a simulated breeze [without which the jungle would have simply looked dead].”
The Avenue of The Tributes is almost all digital
The chariots in the Avenue scene were all shot in a big empty parking lot at the Atlanta Speedway, and the only pieces of physical set construction were a partial archway [and immediately adjacent bleachers] that the chariots emerge from, and the Presidential seating area. Everything else – the other archways, bleachers, crowds, and surrounding buildings were all added digitally. We only had six practical chariots so you’re often looking at digital Tribute doubles and horses/chariots in the wider shots. Only the actors, chariots, and a few small sections of bleachers for that sequence were real, shot against green containers stacked a few stories high.
All the Capitol buildings, details, road surface, skies, and mountains are digital. The cheering, waving crowd in the bleachers are a mixture of crowd elements shot over a couple of days of second unit photography, and motion captured digital extras.
And of course we created the fire effect on Katniss and Peeta’s costumes. We took our inspiration from the ornate patterns on the costumes themselves that we imagined as radiant hot metal elements. We added licks of gas-like orange flames, flying embers, and a hint of dirty smoke to complete the look.
Katniss' Arrow Count Continuity Was A Huge Task (and they sort of failed - we counted!)
An interesting continuity task involved keeping track of the arrows in Katniss’ quiver. Whilst Jennifer sometimes had a number of real arrows in her quiver on set, she could never actually fire a real arrow for safety reasons, so all of the arrow firing was mimed and CG arrows added. We always needed to make sure she had the right number of arrows in her quiver at any point in time, always accounting for ones that she had fired along the way. You’d be surprised at how long it took to lock the arrow counts down!
There is SO much information in the article, so please head over to Flickering Myth.com to read the entire thing - it's a massive article. They talk about everything from the practical aspects of making Katniss' mockingjay dress transformation believable to the holograms in the training center and the slight redesign of the hovercrafts.
Francis Lawrence directs Woody Harrelson and Lenny Kravitz and extras on the Catching Fire setWe're less than 2 weeks away from the DVD release of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire on March 7th. To help us celebrate, Lionsgate sent us two new behind the scenes photos from the set of Catching Fire featuring Francis Lawrence at work.
There will be a lot of news coming your way in the next few days so stay tuned!
Pre-order your Catching Fire DVD HERE.
Sam Claflin, Liam Hemsworth and Francis Lawrence were all spotted on the Mockingjay set in Atlanta, GA yesterday. Looks like the snow day break is over and they're back to work on the movie.
The Hunger Games director Gary Ross brought Phil Messina on board as Production Designer, and he is remains with the franchise, creating the world in Catching Fire as well as both Mockingjay movies, currently in production. He recently spoke with FlickeringMyth.com about the films, some of the challenges, and hat it was like working with Francis Lawrence who "has become a dear friend of mine."
How it all started:
Gary called me which was in the middle of night my time and said that he was going on this film called Hunger Games [2012]. I had never heard of it. Gary was probably the most excited about it than I had heard of any one director and he had the script emailed to me. I had to go work in the morning but I read it all night. Suzanne [Collins] was part of the process the entire time so there wasn’t a dichotomy between script and book. When questions came up in our work about how things were organized or what things should look it we often went back to the book. In fact we still do. I’m working on Mockingjay 1 [2014] and 2 [2015] right now so at the end of this I’ve would have done all four Hunger Games films. I have dog-eared pages of all three books in my office that we’re constantly referring back to try to keep it straight.”
Working with director Francis Lawrence on Catching Fire:
“When I found out about the second film Gary was going to direct it and he was the one who asked me back,” recalls Phil Messina. “When he decided not to do the film it was an odd couple of weeks where Producer Nina Jacobson was persuasive in saying, ‘We want the continuity since we’re bringing in an unknown entity at this point.’ They hadn’t hired a director yet. I was caught by surprise and they were all reacting in real time. I was literally reading the movie headlines a couple times a day to see who was in the lead to do our film. I had not worked with Francis [Lawrence] before nor had any contact with him. I took our first meeting as if I was interviewing for the job. If Francis wanted to go in a different direction or it wasn’t going to work out personality wise I would have bowed out. We had a wonderful connection and he has become a dear friend of mine.”
Photo courtesy litegear.com
On creating Panem:
“There are a lot of different ways you can go,” explains Phil Messina. “There is the Star Trek, Star Wars and Oblivion that's high tech futuristic which is an amazing look. But with ours it was important for it to be accessible, and feel like a world that could easily develop in the not so distant future. Suzanne described this world as having no satellites or Internet. It’s not so futuristic, but a parallel society that would have developed given a different set of circumstances. That’s what I found interesting in the world. How do things develop if XYZ...? Those are some of the factors that we’re dealing with every day.” Cities don’t grow from one place. What we tried to bring to it was a visual harmony of a singular idea but also things are built at different times. It doesn’t all go up in the same five or ten years. It had developed over a certain amount of time. In Catching Fire we have more of the Capitol shown than in Hunger Games, but in Mockingjay, especially in the second film, it's like being on the streets of the Capitol. We’re using some locations in Europe, especially in Paris and Berlin. We tried to use places that felt architecturally relevant to our film and also felt real. One thing that Francis wanted was to be on real streets; he didn’t want to be on the back lot with fake buildings so we are in a lot of real locations and I find that exciting.”
On the Districts:
“Every district has a specific purpose which has a specific resource that serves the capital,” states Phil Messina. “Katniss [Jennifer Lawrence] is from the mining district which Suzanne wrote as being in the Appalachian Mountains so we naturally drew from the coal mines from West Virginia." The production designer drew upon his own childhood. “For the textile district I grew up in a mill town called Lawrence, Massachusetts which at the turn of the last century was the textile centre of the world. In Catching Fire when we had to create the textile district for a brief scene I knew exactly where to draw from. The transportation district we used a lot of trains. We tried to stay mostly in the U.S. and not to draw from too many European influences. We tried to make it American feeling. Logging and lumber is from the Pacific Northwest. Suzanne had marked out a map of Panem where each of these resources came from and were based on American history. It became easy to think of the next step and start creating the visuals for them.” (insert personal freak out - WHERE IS THIS MAP??)
On Catching Fire:
"It looks beautiful and the world looks real. The shot selections were great and it tells a story.” Messina adds, “I’m proud about the work I did with Gary on the first one and I’m proud of the work I’ve done on Catching Fire with Francis. I’ve seen Catching Fire several times already and it’s fantastic. I’m glad to continue to be part of this franchise.”
Read the rest of the really interesting interview HERE. Phil talks more about the Hunger Games weapons, working with CG and shooting in the jungle.
SoundWorks Collection talks with Catching Fire Director Francis Lawerence and Jeremy Peirson (Re-recording Mixer, Sound Designer, Supervising Sound Editor) about the sound teams work to create the sounsdscape of the film, and why they chose Dolby Atmos. Dolby Atmos creates a more lifelike audio experience with localized sounds in front, beside, behind, and on top of the audience. According to Lawrence, Atmos is “the best sound system out there, the best system to work in, and the best soundscape.”
Francis Lawrence took part in a Q&A on Reddit last night (AKA my favorite F-Law interview, EVER). Check out Francis' answers to some of your burning Catching Fire and Mockingjay questions. There are SO many Mockingjay answers (and answers disguised as non-answers and massive hints) in this interview! Read on:
I am a huge fan of both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire movies! My question is were you a big fan of the books when they came out in 2008? And were you expecting the films to become as popular as they have?
I was a big fan of the books. I was actually making Water for Elephants when I read the first book. And I enjoyed it a lot. I thought it was a really interesting world, really great story and great characters, but no one can ever guess that something is going to be as big of a phenomenon as something like the Hunger Games series. You can never predict those things. You really can't. I imagine you can guess a little from book sales and the kind of book sales data that can gather, but you can't really predict it, it's a mixture of themes, ideas, stories, the cast that is in the movies, all of that somehow comes together and either creates magic or it doesn't.
How was it working with IMAX cameras on Catching Fire?
The results are amazing. Working with them was tough. We were working in the rainforest, which is a tough environment anyway, but then lugging these two IMAX cameras around the rainforest wasn't easy. They are big, heavy, they run through film really quickly, and they are very loud, so all dialogue shot using IMAX cameras has to be replaced. So it's tough, and it's slow, but the results are amazing.
Hi. I wanted to know what was the reasoning behind leaving out the scene where Plutarch shows his watch to Katniss during the ball?
And what was the reasoning for completely changing the type of cat use for Buttercup? Yes, the THG: CF cat was closer to the correct type for Buttercup but he'd already been established as a different cat in the first movie.
There's a very easy reason. We shot the watch, we tried the watch in the cut, and we took it out. Because we don't have the option of having Katniss wonder and doubt the meaning of the watch in the film, it becomes way too clear what the watch means in the movie, and that would have been a mistake.
This was a request by both Suzanne Collins and Nina Jacobson that they wanted the cat situation to be fixed, to cast the appropriate looking cat, and I was happy to oblige.
Judging by Catching Fire, you seem like a really faithful fan of the books. What's your own personal favorite scene from the book and was there one favorite you wanted to bring to the screen but for whatever reason, couldn't make it work?
Again I've always been attracted to the first stop on the Victory tour. I think that's where the story really kicks into another gear and you start to understand that the stakes are far greater than just Katniss's. And there were some scenes with Peeta and Katniss on the roof of the Tribute center that I always liked from the book that we were unable to get into the film.
SO much more about Catching Fire and Mockingjay after the jump!
The interviews keep coming! Here's a batch of the latest interviews we've found with Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Francis Lawrence, Jea Malone, Sam Claflin, Elizabeth Banks and Lenny Kravitz.
Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth talk to Le Figaro about Katniss, kissing both Peeta and Gale and they clarify the threesome rumors:
Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson burp in sync while talking to E! Online.
Francis Lawrence Talks to Fast Company about Catching Fire:
Many more after the jump!
Here's a round-up of the latest interviews with the Catching Fire cast from their Eurpoean tour and the Los Angeles premiere.
Many, many more after the jump!
Francis Lawrence talked to Aint It Cool News about Catching Fire, and a lot of really interesting information is included in this interview. One of the key takeaways: A short rooftop scene was shot for the movie and cut out. Let's cross our fingers for the DVD/Blu-ray extras! Read on:
Mr. Beaks: The political intrigue leading up to the games is much more interesting this time. You definitely take your time getting us into the arena. Were you worried about pacing at all in letting it play out somewhat deliberately? I'm thinking specifically of the scenes with President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and Plutarch (Philip Seymour Hoffman).
Francis Lawrence: What's interesting is that stuff that was added. In the books it's one point-of-view; you're with Katniss 100 percent of the time. But CATCHING FIRE is totally an antagonist-driven story. Everything that's happening is happening because Snow is deciding some event is going to happen, and Katniss is acting because of that; then something changes, and Snow reacts to that. It was important to see those scenes and sequences we always thought were happening behind the scenes with Snow and Plutarch. Those were backwards engineered, where you know certain events are happening in District 12 or within the games, and then you have to think about "If the two of them are working together trying to figure out what to do with Katniss Everdeen, where are those scenes taking place? How are they coming to those decisions?" It was really fun stuff to develop because it wasn't in the book.
Beaks: That chess match continues into the games. There's another level to the games this time. In adapting the story, did you feel you had to simplify or clarify these machinations?
Lawrence: No, but you have to be super careful. Without giving too much away, there's a lot going on and a lot of plans that you're unsure of for a while. It's making sure that you're threading that story through in a way that you can look back and go, "Okay, I can see how that would happen under my nose" - as it all happens under Katniss's nose. We had to make sure that the story was working on those fronts, but we didn't want to be too obvious with anything. Then it becomes expository and boring and too on-the-nose. It loses its mystery.
MORE after the jump!
This is such a bizarre interview but, almost like a trainwreck, we couldn't look away. Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks and Francis Lawrence are interviewed by "Caesar Twitterman" aka Daniele Rizzo, a German comedian.
Exterior of the Catching Fire after party courtesy The Hob.org
Aerial view of the after party tent from our hotel room window.
Imagine the most epic party you can, sprinkle that with celebrities and models dressed as Capitol people, add a pinch of delicious food catered by Wolfgang Puck then a splash of open bar, and you’ll have the recipe for the Catching Fire premiere after party in Los Angeles on November 18th.
Dan (aka Appius Knoll) and I (Molly, aka Lollia Grey) from PanemPropaganda.com were lucky enough to be invited by Lionsgate to attend the Los Angeles premiere of Catching Fire and the after-party (aka The EVENT OF THE YEAR!) Firstly, the after party invite was the coolest invitation we’ve ever received - a holographic, image of Katniss that changes as you move it. (Check it out in action in Aldrin's video at the bottom of this post.) And YES, we got to keep it!
We walked into the party through a row of men beating giant timpani drums - an excellent touch lifted right out of the movie’s chariot scene. See Tiffany from Mockingjay.net's video above. That's quite a welcome! This wasn’t just a party, it was like walking into the Victory party at Snow Mansion. Models dressed as Capitol citizens were everywhere, in over-the-top costumes, make-up and wigs. They stayed in character the whole time, snapping pictures with the guests. There were white roses everywhere, food stations and bars wherever you turn, tables piled with colorful desserts, beautiful lighting, and furnished lounge areas set up throughout the event tent.
Capitol people! Photo by Mockingjay.net
Photo courtesy TheHob.Org Donald Sutherland was the first cast member we saw at the party, signing autographs and taking pictures with guests. Next, we talked with Francis Lawrence and thanked him, from the whole fandom, for making such an incredible adaptation of our beloved book. He’s really thrilled that the hardcore fans are loving the film adaptation so much. And he’s really nice and a totally normal guy. He told us to make sure to see the film in IMAX. Whatever Franny says, Franny gets. We’ll be seeing the IMAX version tonight!
Speaking of the book, Suzanne Collins was there!! We missed her at the party, but our friend Tiffany from Mockingjay.net spoke with her. Jeffrey Wright introduced them, whatever, no big deal. (SQUEE!!)
The most surreal aspect of the party was seeing celebs just walking around like normal people, grabbing a drink, looking just as shy and awkward as anyone else at a party of 1000 people they don't know that well. And not. Our inner dialogue went something like this: "Oh hey, Chord Overstreet, what'cha doin'? Oh, just moonwalking around the bar, are you? Ok, you have fun with that. Good times. Joe Jonas. Whateves. Yep, that's normal. Nice hat, Matt Damon. Howdy, every tv commentator from every entertainment show, ever. Oh, Hi Dave Karger!" OK, I actually verbalised my hello to Fandango's Chief Correspondent Dave Karger and he is an absolute sweetheart.
Dan and I (Molly) From Panempropaganda with Bruno! Thanks to Sheila from HGGirlonFire for snapping it.We met Bruno Gunn, and he’s as awesome as he seems on twitter. Almost everyone from the cast was there: Elizabeth Banks, Alan Ritchson, Lynn Cohen, Jeffrey Wright, Woody Harrelson, Jena Malone, Willow Shields, Meta Golding, Trish Summerville, E. Roger Mitchell, Megan Hayes, Elena Sanchez, Nelson Ascencio, Bruce Bundy, Patrick St. Esprit (Thread). Some of our former Hunger Games tributes were walking around the party too: Jackie Emerson, Dayo Okeniyi, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jack Quaid were all wandering around having fun. Even some of our Mockingjay cast members were there! We saw Evan Ross (Messalla) hanging out with his girlfriend Ashley Simpson and Wes Chatham (Castor). Sadly, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth went straight from the premiere to New York City to do more press and a screening on 11/20.
Sam holding court - and that's Amanda from The Hob, too! Photo by The Fandom.netSam Claflin was holding court at a lounge area surrounded by security. If this is the barometer of his future fame, this guy is going to be a HUGE star. There were so many people crowded around, trying to get a moment with Sam. It was insane. We happened to be walking by when this epicness happened:
When Finnick met Annie. Sam Claflin meets Stef Dawson. Photo by The Hob.org
This is the moment our Finnick met our Annie! Sam and Stef Dawson had never met until the this moment at the after party. Someone brought her over, and they had an adorable meeting surrounded by dozens of fans. When we talked with the very lovely Stef Dawson later, she confirmed that this was their first meeting. She was totally gracious and hung out and chatted with us for a long time. She’s really excited to get started on Mockingjay and super happy to be a part of the “family.” She is like a delicate, gorgeous little fairy. She’ll be just PERFECT as Annie.
Stef Dawson, Molly (that's me!) from PanemProp & Tiffany from Mockingjay.Net.As the night wound down, we got a chance to meet Sam Claflin. He has to be one of the kindest celebs around and seems as though he’s having the time of his life. He hung out talking with us until his handlers dragged him away to go back to his hotel (it was after 1:00am), he even showed us photos of his dog Rosie on his cell phone (she’s adorable)! And I got a huge hug, which I will not soon forget. Sigh. Not over it.
Sam is an epic hugger. Thanks to Amamda from TheHob.org for snapping the picture!!
We closed down the party with E. Roger Mitchell. Being the last to leave the Catching Fire After Party with our Chaff was a pretty awesome way to end the night.
Dan and I from PP closing down the after party with our Chaff, E. Roger Mitchell!
Check out Aldrin from HungerGamesDWTC's fantastic vlog of the party. He really captured it!
Special thanks to our amazing fan site friends at Mockingjay.net, The Hob.Org, HGGirlOnFire, HungerGamesDWTC, VictorsVillage, HungerGamesTrilogy.Net, HungerGamesMovie.Org, TheFandom.Net, WelcomeToDistrict12.com, and MyHungerGames! Most of these pictures and video are from their cameras - so thank you guys for snapping such great pictures. And be sure to check out THEIR after party coverage as well.
And huge thanks to Lionsgate for an unforgettable weekend.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire had it's New York premiere last night. We've got the red carpet interviews here for you. We'll update this post with more as we find them.
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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire had it's New York premiere last night. Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone, Francis Lawrence, Elizabeth Banks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Meta Golding and Lynn Cohen were all in attendance at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater for last night's screening. Where was Josh? We know he's in New York to host SNL this weekend so it was strange that he didn't hit the red carpet. Rehearsals?
With The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opening in theaters on Friday, Nov. 22, TIME book critic Lev Grossman recently sat down for a long and wide-ranging conversation with Hunger Games creator-writer Suzanne Collins and Catching Fire director Francis Lawrence.
This is the third in a five-part series:
The descriptions of combat in the arena are so visceral, so graphic – how did you know how far you could go, in terms of describing violence to a young audience?
Suzanne Collins: I think probably my own experience as a child. I had been exposed to these things very early through history, through my father. He I think knew the level that was acceptable at different ages to explore a different topic or something with this. That was probably my guideline through all nine of the books.
I think that it’s very uncomfortable for people to talk to children about war. And so they don’t because it’s easier not to. But then you have young people at 18 who are enlisting in the army and they really don’t have the slightest idea what they’re getting into. I think we put our children at an enormous disadvantage by not educating them in war, by not letting them understand about it from a very early age. It’s not about scaring them. The stories didn’t scare me when I was a child, and in these cases they’re fictionalized. Gregor is set in a fantasy world and The Hunger Games is set far in the future. I don’t get the sense that the young readers are frightened by them. I think they’re intrigued by them and in some ways I think they’re relieved to see the topic discussed.
Francis Lawrence: Yeah, and to see you not hold back. I think that’s also part of it. It’s that you don’t hold back; you show the consequences.
SC: It’s something we should be having dialogues about a lot earlier with our children. It exists, but people get uncomfortable and they don’t know how to talk about it. There are children soldiers all around the world right now who are 9, 10, carrying arms, forced to be at war and whatnot. Can our children not even read a fictional story about it? I think they can.
See Part 1 and Part 2 of the series. More of Part 3 after the jump.
Check out Part 2 of Time's 5 part interview with Catching Fire author Suzanne Collins and the movie's director Francis Lawrence. Read Part 1 HERE.
TIME: Francis, what sold you on Catching Fire? What made you want to make this movie?
Francis Lawrence: The stories in general I loved. The theme and the idea of the consequence of war and what that does to people and how people are affected by war and by violence. I just thought that there’s not many of these YA stories that really come from a real idea and a strong, topical, relatable idea. Then I had the opportunity with Catching Fire to sort of open the world up. Part of what I love to do is creation, and there was a bunch of world creation done in the first one, but there was more opportunity — we were going to see more of the Capitol, more of 12, lots of other districts. There was a brand-new arena that had nothing to do with the first arena. So there was a lot visually for me to sink my teeth into.
Did you feel as though you wanted to keep to the same kind of visual style and visual vocabulary that [Hunger Games director] Gary [Ross] had established?
FL: I think it would have been a little bit of a mistake to entirely throw out an approach to a movie when it’s a franchise. I would never do that to a franchise. But in saying that, I thought there were some opportunities to open up the scope in terms of the costumes and the visual effects and just geography in general. I liked Gary’s naturalistic approach. I have my own version of it, my own style. I don’t shoot the way he does, I choose different kinds of lenses, and part of that is to feel more intimate with characters while still maintaining a sense of place. So I have a different approach, but I kept the same production designer on, because he designed the Capitol, and those aesthetics should carry through. And even the other districts, there should still be aesthetic unity all the way through that I wanted to make sure we maintained.
Read more after the jump.
