MADE BY WAJEEHA YASIN

1. Reference films
By Wajeeha Yasin

2. BLACK SWAN
 Black Swan is the perfect example for the kind of film I am making.
The story revolves around a ballerina named Nina, who is desperate
to gain perfection in her dancing skills and wants nothing but to
make it big in her career. This film depicts how an insane obsession
for something can have a negative effect to an individual’s life.
 Constantly running after her obsession, Nina becomes victim to
multiple mental illnesses – Paranoid Schizophrenia (having anxiety,
anger, or false beliefs that others are trying to harm her),
hallucinations, the inability to tell real from imagination, and
uncertainty about her sexuality. All this can also come under an
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. However, the audience is not told
with exact words about her diseases, the audience has to figure it
our own their own by the clues and hints given in the film. Her
obsession for perfection leads her to cause pain to her self
physically and mentally, as she battles the demons of her own
mind. Her dance mentor tells her not to run so much after
perfection, and the only person standing in her way was her own
self. She becomes consumed in her own desperation, entrapping
herself in her own hallucinations.

3.  In this film, the conflict arising is between the protagonist against her own
self. This is exactly the same case with the character in my film. Both
characters need to battle the poison in their own minds, imagining events
that never took place or people that weren’t real. Other similarities
between the characters are that they both have insecurity issues, they
don’t have a good relationship with the parent/s, they are scared and are
not in control of the way they think or act, and they both are social
outcasts; that is, they do not have a big social circle. In fact, they hardly
have any friends at all. Nina is seen as being awkward around others,
usually sitting by herself in corners, while the other ballerinas around her
whisper and gossip about her.

4.  The treatment of Black Swan has been done very brilliantly, depicting the insecure, scared
and fragile personality of Nina through extreme close-ups (which are used to create a
sense of emotion in the audience), dim lighting (to create a dark and gloomy feel), shaky
camera movements (to depict what the character felt in her mind), and several shots
being shown in slow motion (to make the shots look bolder and more intense). Another
very important factor in the film is the music. Most of the recurring soundtrack is the ‘Swan
Lake’ ballet theme. The music adds a gloomier feel while Nina is shown dancing. In any
psychological thriller film, there is an element of horror attached to it. This is why the music
plays a vital role in creating the actual feel of the film. Similarly, my film will also need to
have a recurring soundtrack that is very eerie and somewhat gloomy at the same time.
Very bold and striking shots such as the ‘infinite mirror’ effect (depicting the discomfort and
anxiety present in Nina’s eyes in endless mirrors) create the aesthetics of the film, making
the audience really experience how shattered the character’s personality is. Mirrors are
shown constantly in the film, the first reason being because most scenes take place in the
ballet studio, and secondly because the mirror depicts a true reflection of the character,
not only physically, but emotionally as well.

5.  This film also shows how the glamour and beauty of the ballet world is not as
glamorous backstage. Where ballet is seen as an elegant and beautiful dance,
in Black Swan, it is shown as very eerie, dark and somewhat depressing. Bold
shots, for example, the dance sequences, are almost necessary to use in a
psychological thriller film. Such shots make the audience entranced and
captured in the moment, and they will hold on to every action made by the
protagonist. One more key similarity between my film and Black Swan is that the
main problem that the protagonist faces is to combat the complexities of
Schizophrenia. The behavior of both the characters as symptoms of the disease
will be apparent in the film, in the form of anxiety, depression, erotic behavior
(for example, Nina keeps scratching her skin), etc. Mainly, the thoughts and
emotions of both the characters will be very much alike, that is, the feeling of
being alienated by peers, coming under the pressure of their own desires, or the
missing element of an emotional connection to someone in their life, be it
friends, family or anyone else.

6.  Another factor in Black Swan is how Nina has to touch both pure and evil sides
of her personality to perform the role of the white, and black swan, both, in her
dance show. She knew that was the only way she could give a ‘perfect’
performance. And in doing so was her own destruction, as practicality was lost
and got taken over by obsession and desperation, causing her to lose control
over reality. The way both sides of her personality are shown really tells the
audience how helpless she was against her longings.
 Black Swan was the main inspiration for my psychological thriller film, as it holds
elements of fear, emotion, desire and sadness all at the same time. In my own
film, I will be using very similar lighting, and similar camera shots and angles to
portray the brokenness and weakness of my character’s personality, as well as
creating the same gloomy feeling you get when you watch the film.

7.  The pain and the suffering of the protagonist is what makes the audience
connected with the characters, the story and the film overall. Despite the
insanities and complexities of the narrative, the audience will still want more
to see, by feeling sympathetic to the lead character.
 In the end of the film, Nina finishes her dance routine, earning her
tremendous applause from the audience, but we later find out that she
had stabbed herself before the routine, hallucinating that she had stabbed
her understudy. But even when she was bleeding, the only thing she cared
about was that she danced perfectly. This shows us that her disease makes
her lose control of herself, and lose control over what things were more
important in her life.

8. A BEAUTIFUL MIND
 A Beautiful Mind is a little different from my other reference
films, since it is a biopic based on a real person: the Nobel
Prize winning mathematician John Nash. Unlike Black Swan
and Shutter Island, A Beautiful Mind is not entirely fiction
and is upon actual people and true events. John Nash
was desperate to find the one truly innovative idea in his
life that would make him a legend for years to come. He
comes to Princeton University under the Carnegie
Scholarship for mathematics. This is where he meets his
friends, including his roommate, Charles. Years later, when
he starts teaching at MIT, he meets his student, (also, his
wife-to-be) Alicia. During this time, he also gets appointed
by the government to crack encrypted enemy
telecommunication. Because of his obsession, he spends
long hours going through news papers, magazines, articles
etc., trying to crack open patterns. He then left his findings
in a ceiled envelope in a mailbox. Till this point, we are not
aware of any signs of mental illness that he has. We are
made to believe that the government agent William
Parcher is also a real person.

9.  John gets married to Alicia, and he always mentioned his good friend
Charles to her, while she complained why she never got to meet him or
even see him. Further, still, in the film we are shown how John and Charles
talk to each other and hang out like friends, and we are shown Charles’
child niece Marcee as well. Scenes in which John is conversing with Parcher
at the Pentagon are also shown, which is why we very undoubtedly believe
in the actuality of it all. By the middle of the film, however, we are given
clues as to what the conflict might be. But first, we are shown that Parcher is
attacked by Soviet agents, and Nash flees without harm. When he reaches
home, he becomes very paranoid and scared that the agents will come to
harm him and his wife Alicia as well. At this point, we are made to believe
that this is the real conflict of the film. However, since John made an oath
to secrecy about his Pentagon assignment, he refuses to tell Alicia
anything, which is why she becomes curious and worried.

10.  The turning point of the film came when John was giving a lecture in
Harvard University, but tries to flee after seeing men in suits who he thought
were soviet agents after his life. He gets caught, and we are shown that his
friend Charles is just standing and watching, and he does not even try to
help. At this point, we start to wonder if Charles is the antagonist in the film.
But it is later on that we realize that the actual conflict is between the
protagonist and himself, since John turns out to be a victim of
schizophrenia. By this point, the audience is left in shock as we find out that
all the scenes with Charles and Marcee, and the scene with Parcher at the
Pentagon, were part of Nash’s imagination, and never actually took place.
This is one of the main similarities between my film and A Beautiful Mind. At
first, the conflict will be depicted to be something else, also defining the
main theme of the film.

11.  However, it is later on in the film that the audience will be told the real
concept by revealing the mental illness that the protagonist is a victim of.
This is a common technique in psychological films, since it adds a sense of
mystery and suspense, as well as leaving the audience stunned. In my film
as well, the real conflict will be revealed to the audience much later on in
the film. There will also be at least one character in my film that the
audience will be made to believe is a real person, but later on will be
shown as the protagonist’s imagination. The way John Nash’s disease was
revealed in this film was very well done, because it starts as a different story,
turns into yet another different story, and then turns out to be something
completely different altogether. It leaves a very beautiful impact as now
the audience is engrossed and entirely involved in the film, eager to find
out how everything will be resolved. This is the main element that will also
need to be present in my own film.

12.  After this turning point, the sense of thrill needs to be replaced with a sense
of drama and curiosity. The drama aspect is shown in the way Alicia cares
for John and helps him through all the difficulties in his disease. It takes John
a long time to truly accept that Charles, Marcee and Parcher were
figments of his imagination. He purposefully stops taking his medicine and
signs of relapse are shown when he hides in his shed house, still working on
his imaginary Pentagon assignment, still talking to his imaginative people.
The entire film is very beautiful because of its simplicity. There are no after-
effects (not even when depicting the protagonist’s hallucinations) or any
strong music. The music is very simple as well, fitting to all the scenes
perfectly, without needing to add any influence to the narrative, as the
narrative itself is very strong on its own.

13.  In my film, the beginning of the film will also not have any after-effects, and
will be very simple and straight. Some shots and camera angles in A
Beautiful Mind are very distinctive and influential, as they add emotion and
intrigue to the narrative and scenes. Such shots include the close-ups of
Nash working on his math equations on the glass of his bedroom window.
Such shots will also be visible in my own film. This film was set in the year
1947, and all the years that passed by were shown and written as subtitles.
The clothing of the characters is also shown to change over time, as well as
the models of cars and the enhancement of technologies like the phone,
radio and microphone. Even though A Beautiful Mind is a psychological
drama/biography film, its elements and codes and conventions are similar
to any psychological thriller. The only difference between the two genres is
how the end is revealed.

14.  After John finally accepts that he was mentally ill, he starts ignoring his
imaginations and starts teaching at University again. Some days are shown
when he has extreme difficulty in ignoring the imaginary people, making a fool
out of himself in public. After this, the pace of the movie is slower. Like any
drama film, the ending is slower. But the quality of the drama genre is that the
end is more effective when it is slow. In the end, we are told that many years
pass and John becomes a very successful educator, also receiving high honour
by earning the Nobel Memorial Prize for his work on game theory. We are also
shown that his wife Alicia is there with him till the end, despite the hardships and
difficulties their family faced because of Nash’s disease.
 This film ends on an emotional and touching note, as John Nash fights his
disease and becomes successful in his life, giving the audience a sense of hope.

15. REFERENCES:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Swan_(film)
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film)