Scenes From 'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes' Were Directed Over Skype

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" swings into theaters this Friday along with some of the most state of the art motion capture visual effects.

While the film's technology allowed actors like Andy Serkis to bring the planet of the apes to life, it also allowed director (and avid "Planet of the Apes" fanboy) Matt Reeves to tinker with the film's ending via Skype.

According to /Film, Reeves was able to redo the end of the film by directing Serkis over the message service:

"This is the first movie where I've ever directed scenes over Skype. And mo-cap enables you to do that. And actually that last shot, when I realized that that was not the right ending, I went to [visual effects studio] Weta and I said, okay, so we gotta do something different. And they're like, well you're gonna need a performance. So we did a thing where Andy was in London and he was at [his performance capture studio] the Imaginarium. And we hooked up via Skype and I looked at a big plasma and I talked him through what was going on in that last sequence as he's coming down those steps. And we basically did it over Skype."

Reeves used Skype to make last minute changes to other scenes as well. For example, Reeves was able to direct actor Jason Clarke and Serkis simultaneously while Clarke was in his hotel room shooting another film in Rome and Serkis was in London.

For Reeves, Skype allowed him to put together these minor reshoots with only six weeks until the premiere and with his cast and crew scattered around the world. It also allowed him to be one of the first to put a film together using the application.

"I don't know if we're the only one, or if we're the first movie to have done a scene on Skype," Reeves added. "But it's certainly the first time I've done it."