The long waited ‘Hunger Games’ based on the Suzanne Collins novel of the same name, premiered at the Odeon, Leicester Square last night. It is sure to be a massive hit once released to the public. This futuristic and adventurous film stars Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) and Josh Hutcherson (Peeta) along with other recognisable stars.
Directed by Gary Ross this deadly romantic action adventure observes Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) desperately fighting for her life to survive in the arena at the 74th hunger games. While trying not to lose her sense of humanity and decency she is correspondingly fending for herself and Peeta.
Will she succeed?
The Hunger Games is an annual event where a boy and a girl are chosen from each of the 12 districts surrounding the ‘capitol.’ The names are selected by lottery to complete a televised battle to the death. 23 other tributes face against Katniss including one from her own district or so she believes! The ultimate victor- last standing person wins and they receive food and supplies for their district, also the winner will thus be able to be reunited with their families again.
Furthermore, Katniss and Peeta are escorted away from district 12 into the wealthy city of the ‘Capitol’. There they are faced by the hostile judges of ‘The Hunger Games’. When each district has entered the arena Katniss is faced by impossible challenges battling against unearthly creatures such ‘tracker jacker nests,’ ‘mutants’, and ‘forest fires.’ These mechanically engineered manipulating mortals are controlled merely by the instant push of a button. Also dependent on the support of sponsors they will receive help from their sponsors with parcels of their necessarily essentials which will enable them to survive in the treacherous arena.
Katniss one of the main protagonists breaks the boundaries by befriending a contestant from another district called Rue. Consequently offending the ‘capitol’ by creating a friendship between herself and Rue she makes President Snow irate however he does not react to her actions.
Since the beginning of the film one notices a very sombre background which leads us to believe that the story will be gloomy. The background which is quite sparse suggests that the characters involved are quite poor. Their facial expressions, surroundings and conditions demonstrate their melancholy. At the start a sad and sombre humming is sung to show the poverty and the devastating circumstances these people live in.
In one scene the camera zooms in on the workers’ hands to show how these characters work hard for a living and in the brutal cold outdoors. A bird’s eye view is shown when Katniss and Peeta enter the ’Capitol’. This displays how vast and modern the whole part of the ’capitol’ is. Most scenes which were filmed were not choreographed. This is because the director (Gary Ross) wanted the scenes to be realistic, rather than being faultless. For example in the scene where Katniss is running away from the fire, they created it look original, as if she was running so the observer would contemplate that the scene is very realistic and they would feel Katniss’ emotions. The director quotes “Visually, it creates a language of unease”.
An immense amount of the film was made using Computer Graphics (CG). These processes last for long hours, especially if you required a large proportion of Computer Graphics. Sheena Duggal (vfx supervisor) facilitated with building the model construction in 2D before she displayed the layout in3D on the computer. For other minor Computer Graphics such as the clothing district twelve wore which was set on ‘fire’, they first drew the entire lateral view of the scene with the infernos burning brightly including the characters and then added it on the computer along with the set in the background. The next scene is when the crowd from the ’Capitol’ are waiting impatiently to watch the tributes being interviewed by Caesar Flickerman. Here an almost unnoticeable computer graphics is arranged. There were only ten rows of practical crowd and the rest was just the same individuals copied and added to the rest of the seats via CG. This effect makes the crowd look so convincing it is incapable to tell the difference between the practical crowd and the CG. The part where the ‘mutants’ attack Peeta and Katniss is also made via CG. The method it is done by is very dissimilar to the other CG scenes. Sheena Duggal makes the mutants have a human nature to them. She uses unconventional cutting patterns to create the mutants.

The music is used at an excessive quantity in The Hunger Games, mainly to express the varied emotions for each of the characters. We can see that the film itself does not have much dialogue and hence instead they show it to be true and how it would be in actual life. So the music has a great impact to this film. It is used in various techniques, sometimes to show the body language and other times to show the feelings of the main characters. For instance in the scene where she is coming into ‘The Capitol’ the composer demonstrates the feelings of Katniss discovering a new location jam-packed with wealthy citizens. The music creates a sense of suspense which grasps the spectator into the film and undergoes what the characters are experiencing. In another scene where Katniss is sneaking into the forbidden and prohibited forest at district 12 the music which has been played shows that the forest is strictly forbidden under any circumstances.

In many extracts they have taken shots very carefully so as to make the film look lifelike and as if it is really happening right now. The Hunger Games show the moral and ethical issues in the districts of Panem and how everyone living around battle to stay alive. The film also contains an allegory which makes it more interesting and eye

To conclude I know certainly for a fact that The Hunger Games will be a massive hit once released to the public. With its different style of filming the film will be easily able to draw the viewers’ attention.