The Hunger Games

Coming to theaters on March 23, 2012, The Hunger Games is one movie I'm sure will be chock full of wonderful effects. Based on the trilogy written by Suzanne Collins, this film will follow Jennifer Lawrence in her portrayal of Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old girl sent into an arena with 23 other children to fight to the death. However, there is much more to this story than gory battles scenes.

The Hunger Games is also a book about politics within the 12 districts of Panem (what used to be the United States). In this warped world, the children chosen to fight are dressed up and taken on tour as celebrities. With Lionsgate's $80 million budget, I'm hoping that the scenes featuring the contestants in their absurd costumes as well as the sets for the Capital (where the Panem officials live) are over the top.

There are a slew of people listed on IMDB for use of special effects/visual effects which makes me think that a good portion of the budget was spent on visual effects (that plus the fact that there seem to be few well-known actors in the film, as the plot is centered around children). The title that appears at the end of the trailer, also raises my expectations for some really awesome visual effects incorporated in this movie.

A quote taken from a website reviewing the trailer reads:

"The visual style is amazing. We went from the gritty District 12 to the glossy and futuristic Capitol . Everything on offer was impressive, from the effortless special effects to the stylish and elaborate wardrobe." I know this is a movie I will be watching on March 23 to see all that they do with this futuristic world.

Sean Kinnear

The television show opening I chose to use for the first project is from the series American Dreams.

It was one of those shows that I would always look forward to watching every week and was very disappointed when the series was cancelled. When we started working on the opens on Wednesday, it made me wonder about what went in to creating the open as well as visual effects in the show.

Sean Kinnear is listed as visual effects crew on 36 episodes of American Dreams (the most out of any other crew listed). I decided to search for him on Internet Movie Database and felt surprised by the information I found. There never seemed to be a large audience of American Dreams viewers, at least out of my friends, and it was cancelled because of low ratings, so I was sort of expecting to see their crew working on small projects I'd never heard of. However, Sean Kinnear boasts such credits as visual effects for Soul Surfer and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

To me, it's proof that no matter where you begin in the industry, you can climb the ladder. From a show cancelled after only 3 seasons, with unnoticeable visual effects to the untrained eye, to a movie that earned $125,017,327 in the United States on opening weekend alone and is very obviously filled with beautiful effects, is certainly inspiring to all media-focused individuals our age.