With reporting by Josh Horowitz

Philip Seymour Hoffman's sudden death in February of this year came as a shock to the world, including the cast and crew of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1," which the actor was midway through shooting.

Director Francis Lawrence revealed to MTV News that in fact, Hoffman had been scheduled to shoot the day after his body was found.

"When we found out we shut down for a little while and wanted to give everybody a little sort of time to breathe and we needed to figure some things out," Lawrence said. "We needed to figure out schedule, we needed to figure out what we were gonna do with the story and his remaining scenes, but we also needed to give people some breathing room emotionally. There was no way we could just kind of jump right back in."

Lawrence has already said that none of Hoffman's performance in the second part of "Mockingjay," in which his character also appears, will be CGI. "Part 1" bears a title card at the end of the film dedicating the movie to Hoffman.

The first day back on set, Lawrence said, was light on shooting and had a different mood than usual.

"Before we started the shoot we just kind of gathered together and said something for him," he said. "We usually have a pretty lively set, but it took a little while for people to start laughing and having a good time again. It was tough."

"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1" opens in theaters November 21.