page_title: The Hunger Games (film)
section_title: Filming
hierarchical_section_title: The Hunger Games (film) / Production / Filming
caption_attribution_description: Upper Bridal Veil Falls
context_page_description: The Hunger Games is a 2012 American dystopian action thriller science fiction-adventure film directed by Gary Ross and based on Suzanne Collins’s 2008 novel of the same name. It is the first installment in The Hunger Games film series and was produced by Nina Jacobson and Jon Kilik, with a screenplay by Ross, Collins, and Billy Ray. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland. The story takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future in the nation of Panem, where a boy and a girl from each of the nation's 12 Districts are chosen annually as "tributes" and forced to compete in The Hunger Games, an elaborate televised fight to the death. Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister's place, and with her district's male tribute, Peeta Mellark, travels to the Capitol to train and compete in the games.
  Development of The Hunger Games began in March 2009 when Lions Gate Entertainment entered into a co-production agreement with Color Force, which had acquired the rights a few weeks earlier. Collins collaborated with Ray and Ross to write the screenplay.
context_section_description: Gary Ross, Sam Mendes, David Slade, Andrew Adamson, Susanna White, Rupert Sanders, and Francis Lawrence were listed as possible directing candidates, but in the end Ross was announced as the film's director in November 2010. Fireman's Fund Insurance Company insured the production, but as part of the underwriting process insisted on a thorough risk analysis of hazards as diverse as wayward arrows, poison ivy, bears, bugs, and a chase across fast-running water.
  Lawrence dyed her blond hair dark for the part of Katniss. She also underwent extensive training to get in shape for the role, including archery, rock and tree climbing, combat, running, parkour, and yoga, and had an accident on the last day of her six-week training phase, in which she hit a wall while running at full speed, but was not seriously injured. Other stars who dyed their hair for the movie include Josh Hutcherson as Peeta and Liam Hemsworth as Gale. Lionsgate hired Olympic bronze medal-winning archer Khatuna Lorig to teach Lawrence how to shoot.
  With an initial budget of $75 million, principal photography began near Brevard in Transylvania County in Western North Carolina in May 2011 and concluded on September 15, 2011, with a final budget reported as between $90 and $100 million, reduced to $78 million after subsidies. Steven Soderbergh served as a second unit director, and filmed much of the District 11 riot scene. The movie was shot on film as opposed to digital due (in part) to the tightness of the schedule; as Ross said in an interview with The New York Times, "I didn't want to run the risk of the technical issues that often come with shooting digitally—we simply couldn't afford any delays."
  Virtually all production photography took place in North Carolina, with Lionsgate receiving tax credits of around $8 million from the state government to do so. It was estimated that the state economy gained up to $60 million from the production, with over 5,000 people employed as extras, crew and support staff. Most outdoor scenes, both from the arena and from the outskirts of District 12, were filmed in DuPont State Forest; the Little River, with its multiple waterfalls, provided several locations for shooting the river running through the arena. To run across Triple Falls, Lawrence was attached to wires and ran on a board.
  Many of the urban and interior locations, in the Capitol and elsewhere, were filmed in Shelby and Charlotte; other scenes also took place and was filmed in the Asheville area. Ross and production designer Phil Messina drew on the buildings of the 1939 New York World's Fair and symbols of political power including Tiananmen Square and Red Square, when designing the Capitol architecture, which they wanted "to be set in the future but have a sense of its own past... it's festive and alluring and indulgent and decadent but it also has to have the kind of might and power behind it". For Katniss' neighborhood in District 12, the production team found Henry River Mill Village, an abandoned mill town which Ross said "just worked perfectly for the movie to evoke the scene"; Messina explained that "originally we talked about maybe building one house and the facade of the house next door and redressing it, and maybe doing some CG extensions... we ended up finding a whole abandoned mill town... it was absolutely perfect".
  For the costume design, Judianna Makovsky and her crew looked at a lot of photographs of coal mining districts from the 1950s in the search of a very American feel. The idea was to create clothing unique for every character and to differentiate strongly the people in Capitol and in districts  Grey and blue prevailed in the color palette for the district, while the people in Capitol were chosen to look bright in theatrical hats, flowers, ruffles, with powdered and eyebrowless faces.
caption: The scene where Katniss tracks down Peeta was filmed at Bridal Veil Falls in DuPont State Forest.
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