KS: Thriller research : Black Swan

'Black Swan'(Aronofsky,2010
Variously described as a psychological thriller or a psychological horror film, its plot revolves around a production of Swan Lake by a prestigious New York City ballet company. This is the particular subgenre and genre combination we have been researching also with a soft light theme of a ballet dancer which is transformed into a dark production of a horror/thriller style piece. With our idea of the dolls and a possessed young girl by haunting nightmares and influences we can draw similarities between elements from the 'Black Swan'. Although I was unable to find the opening of the film as it is a recent release the trailer has many styles of mise en scene and non verbal language I like. 

• Firstly the credits set against a dark feathered background works very well to create a calm yet sinister feels and so elicit great tension and power; we could use doll like iconography for a background to the credits in our opening sequence such a overlaying of ribbons. 
• The music is also particularly poignant building up in pace, starting with a calm atmospheric tempo of instrumental music then building up to a fast beat soundtrack to increase intensity and tension. 
• The make-up of the main woman is successful in producing an enchanting yet haunting face; we will be using heavy make-up similar to this when we portray our characters but with a darkened background lighting to create a more horror feel than the light-hearted ballet performance here. 
• I particularly like how the main woman is looking softly into the surroundings then grasps strong eye contact with the camera' drawing the audience in and creating a thrilled yet anxious feel to the sequence. I think when it comes to our opening, eye contact through close up framing is a great way convey emotion and grasp the audiences attention.
•  Again the film uses strong flashes of imagery and cleverly juxtaposes story lines with a montage edited feel similarly to 'Se7en'. The colours of the sequence are based on black and white contrasting shades which I believe works very well in portraying the difference between the black and white swan. If our narrative is based on dolls we could particularly use reds and pinks for the costume yet black and white for the mise en scene to connote the personalities and sides of the doll, the good vs the bad.
• Mirror reflections and smashed mirrors were also ideas we considered which are used here, however we would need darker directional light to intensify the setting. 

Lilli, look at the time 110-115 where the reflection in the mirror changes but she doesn't, I love this technique but I'm not sure if we could recreate something similar, also the music here with the mix of her heavy breathing and the wooshes of dramatic movement underline the psychological distress she is feeling. This is a great combination of digetic and non digetic sounds.