The hunger games

The general story to the hunger games is that there are 12 districts, or parts of the country, where people live and every year a boy and a girl are selected from each district and have to fight to the death for the entertainment of the rich and wealthy. The survivor at the end will have earned the right to go back to their home district. In the film we follow the two participants from district 12, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark and their struggle to become the lone survivor and earn the right to go home to their families.

Plot

The first thing we see at the start of the film is a series of small text’s one after another, these inform the audience of how the hunger games works. This is done to make sure the viewer understands what is going to happen and how it will happen so that they are not confused later on.

Introducing the narrative

After the text explaining the hunger games is finished we are brought to a scene of two men, who straight away the audience can tell are among the rich and wealthy because of the use of mise-en-scene in their clothing and makeup. These men are dressed in fancy clothes and have extravagant hair. When the first man is talking about the hunger games he reveals that the 2nd, younger man on the right is in fact the “games keeper” which informs us that he is the person who organises the games each year.

This conversation is swiftly cut short as we are cut to a scene of a poor town with wooden shacks; with text on the screen informing us that this is district 12, and the sound of a girl screaming. At this point we can see an older girl comforting the young girl, telling her she is okay and the audience can only assume this is main character in the film.

Introducing character

We have a brief clip of where the film is partly located when we can see the wooden shacks or houses and the on screen text tells us this is district 12. From this very brief clip of district 12 the audience can take in a lot of information about what life is like there, such as the fact that the people are obviously very poor because they cannot afford proper houses at the least and are instead living in flimsy wooden huts.

Establishing location

The opening text instantly makes the audience want to read the text because it is obvious that it will be important to the story. The scene from district 12 also makes the audience alert to the film because of the loud cries that can only be heard because we are still looking at a shot of the district so the viewer will want to know why there is a girl screaming and crying.

Capturing attention

The first scene of the two men having a conversation uses a mid shot so we can take note that there are two people having a conversation. Once they start talking they use shot reverse shot with close ups of their faces to show who is talking. The scene of the district uses a long shot so we can see a lot of the scenery and therefor take more in about what the place is like. There is an extreme close up of the young girls hands wrapped around the older girls waist to show that she is being comforted, as well as a close up of her face as she is crying. The close up of the older girls face is used to confirm that she is there for comfort.

Camera shots etc.

There isn’t much non-diegetic sound apart from the music that is playing while the initial text is playing, the music is slow and meaningful which makes the viewer want to read the text that is on the screen. The most powerful piece of sound in the opening scene is when the young girl screams because it instantly alerts the audience and grabs their attention making them want to watch the film intently to find out what is causing these screams.

Sound