Micro-features Essay - (Draft 1)

Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Katniss and Peeta's Beach Scene

Mise-en-scene immediately affects the audience with the colours used. The blue tint of colour used to help create the calm atmosphere that is in created in the scene. The colour blue symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence and faith, most of which are noticed within the scene. 

Also, the positioning of the characters and the setting are a big part of mise-en-scene. The scene is set on a beach, with the waves gently flowing and the sunset fading. This is an ideal and romantic location for the audience. Katniss and Peeta (the characters in the scene) are positioned sitting close to each other. This could connote that they have some sort of close relationship. They are relaxed by the way they are sitting which shows they are comfortable in each other’s presence.

Both of the characters are wearing the same costume, a black, white and grey jumpsuit. The colour black means power, elegance, and death, while the colour grey is associated with loss or depression. This links to the story because there is a lot of loss and death. Their costumes are also worn out (dirty and partly ripped in places).

The only prop used in the scene is a gold locket, which Peetagives to Katniss. Inside it are pictures of her loved ones. The locket gives her a reason to keep going. It is attached to a necklace, so when it is warn; the people in the photos are close to her heart. The colour of the locket is gold, which is precious metal which is associated with love, compassion, and courage. This links very well to the photos inside, because they are if the people she loves most, who are also the most precious to her.

As it is set on a beach, the sea gives off a really calm mood to the audience, making them feel at ease and relax with the sounds and look of it. 

During the kiss, Katniss and Peeta’s body’s turn into silhouettes in some way. The light background makes their bodies look dark. It will make the audience concentrate and observe the image so that they can directly relate to it and hopefully feel the moment.

There is a lot of dialog and interaction between the two characters during the scene. They both speak with soft voices, which shows how they are comfortable with each other, but also to show the audience that they are being secretive and they are planning something that they don’t want the other characters to know about.

Throughout the scene, there are lots of pauses from each character. This is for dramatic effect and creates suspense for the audience keeps their attentions because they want to know what comes next.

As we know Katniss and Peeta already seem close by the way they are sitting on the beach. But then they kiss, which shows us that they are more than just friends. For the audience, this scene is perfect, the setting, and kissing on a beach when the sunset goes down. The audience will crave this. 

Katniss is much more negative than Peeta in the scene. She sees things in a much more realistic way and notices her surroundings. From this the audience realise how smart she is. Once she has her minds set on something, she will not change it. It shows her determination.

The overall acting is very natural and realistic. We understand this from the pauses in the scene and especially their facial expressions when they pause; it looks like their characters are really thinking about the certain situation. When Peeta gives her the locket, she doesn’t say anything, her facial expressions give away her reaction. The way she looks at the locket makes it seem like she is thinking about them which makes the audience feel sympathy for her because she may never see them again.

Katniss says one line that caught my attention. When Peeta is telling her that without her he’ll have nothing, Katniss says “Peeta...” in a very realistic way. It sounds like her voice is about to crack like she is going to cry. This lets the audience see a softer side to Katniss and how she really does care for Peeta.

The conversation gets really sad during the end, when Peetasays he has no one. He puts on a smile even though he is sad. He does this to stay strong for Katniss, because he doesn’t want her to see him sad. The audience feel lots of sympathy for him because they know he isn’t happy but he still smiles through it. Also, Peeta looks to the floor a lot during the scene. This could be because he feels intimidated by Katnissas she is seen as the better fighter. He could also feel embarrassed because he is in love with her, but she isn’t in love with him. 

Katniss looks at the ground after she kisses Peeta, this could be to hide her true feelings from him, but could also mean that she regrets doing that because if they get too attached to each other while they are in the arena, and one of them dies, then the other will be in a very bad state.

After Peeta tells Katniss that no one needs him, she pauses and hesitates, then say “I need you”. She said this so he had something to fight for when he is in the arena. If she didn’t say it, he wouldn’t have anything to live for and would probably give up. However, she hesitated before she said it, debating whether she should say it or not. This makes it seem like she actually has feelings for Peeta and was nervous about telling him.