When Effie Trinket announces, "Primrose Everdeen" as the girl tribute from District 12, the level on her microphone peaks because of the plosive P in Primrose. The ugliness of this sound matches the life-shattering nature of this moment, both for Prim herself and for her sister Katniss, who is the main character.
The same effect is also present when Effie announces Peeta Mellark as the boy tribute (the plosive P of Peeta causes the microphone level to peak), but it doesn't have nearly the same volume or intensity. For Katniss, Peeta's being selected as tribute isn't as disconcerting because (at this point, anyway) the relationship between them isn't as strong as the one between Katniss and Prim.
I was also able to confirm a suspicion I had about the film's look. Especially during the reaping, the shots in District 12 are rather de-saturated, with a minimal number of colors:
This palette heightens the contrast between District 12 and the Capitol, which has both a larger variety of colors and a greater vividness of them. Here's a shot from the tribute parade:
I also saw something I hadn't noticed before. When Katniss is under the effects of the tracker jacker venom and hallucinates about the mining accident that killed her father, there's one shot where every miner has her father's face:
While this shows the disorienting nature of the venom, it also illustrates the profound effect that Katniss's father's death had (and continues to have) on her. In the hallucination, it's literally amplified.
[For what it's worth: I've also written short posts about the book trilogy and the movie version of Catching Fire.]
