A couple of weeks ago, news started to hit that Oscar winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh was helping out his friend, director Gary Ross, working as second unit director on The Hunger Games adaptation in the works. It was interesting news because Soderbergh is a huge name and yet was working second unit on a film that most don’t even care about.

Frequently most Hollywood news tidbits get overblown, and little stories like this get made into much more exciting stories than they should be. It all started because Soderbergh showed up on set, and various crew started tweeting about his appearance, which was kindling for the rumor mill until The Playlist confirmed his involvement. So then what is the real story behind all of this?

This is what Soderbergh said:

“Back in April, [The Hunger Games director] Gary [Ross] — who is a close friend of mine [and] I’ve exchanged creative favors with non-stop over the last 15 years — when he got the boards for the shoot … called me and said, ‘Hey, first week of August, I got these two days of second unit, Is there any way you can come down and help me out? Because I’d rather have you do it than hire somebody who I don’t know,’ ” Soderbergh recalled. “I said, ‘Actually, that works out.’ We’ll just be finishing Contagion and prepping Magic Mike, and yeah, it could be fun.”

Sodebergh came down and helped out for a few days, also reiterating that he isn’t adding any of his own style, of course, since that’s not a second unit director’s job. His “duty” was to “come in and duplicate exactly what Gary and [cinematographer] Tom Stern … are doing, to mimic as closely as I can to their aesthetic.” He adds, “if I’ve done my job properly … by design, you won’t be able to tell what I did because it’s supposed to cut seamlessly into what they’re doing.” Sounds about right; I’m surprised anyone thought otherwise. It might be because most don’t seem to know what exactly a second unit director does.