Mockingjay Part 1 on Blu-ray: the VFX featurettes

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 included seamless visual effects – everything from vast environments, dynamic hovercraft flights and landings, to dam bursts and even digital make-up. Blu-ray, DVD and digital downloads of the film are now available – we take a look at what’s included on the Blu-ray release in terms of visual effects info.

The two-hour plus featurette The Mockingjay Lives: The Making of Mockingjay Part 1 is the main source here for behind the scenes footage, and is actually a collection of smaller vignettes. Effects aficionados will want to check out ‘D13: Rebellion Tactics: Stunts and Special Effects’ and ‘Perfecting Panem: The Post-Production Process’.

– Above: Some of DNeg’s VFX breakdowns for the hospital attack.

‘D13: Rebellion Tactics: Stunts and Special Effects’ has plenty of previs and on-set footage from some of the film’s biggest action sequences – such as landing scenes of the hovercraft, the hydro electricity dam explosion and the tree climbing and explosion in District 7.

‘Perfecting Panem: The Post-Production Process’ is an interesting collection of how editing, visual effects, sound mix and score for specific sequences in the film. Overall VFX supervisor Charles Gibson and Double Negative’s Adrian de Wet are the main commentators here for the visual effects sections, explaining how many shots were accomplished – such as the practical hovercraft section that was lowered by cranes that served as the basis for landing shots, the attack on the District 8 hospital and the raid on the Capitol.

– Above: a sneak peek at the special effects featurette looks at how the practical hovercraft set piece was lowered by cranes.

Throughout, the ‘Perfecting Panem’ vignette showcases a number of before and after scenes from DNeg – one is how they modeled and animated a CG mockingjay bird. It’s also great to see many of the VFX artists from the studio’s London and Singapore offices appearing on camera. Other highlights are nice breakdowns of MPC’s tree-climbing and explosion work, Scanline’s dam destruction fluid sims and Lola VFX’s incredible ‘gauntness’ work for Peeta.

You can buy the Blu-ray at Amazon.com.