Legion - Split-Screen Effect

In our project, we had originally planned for our patient to be delusional; hallucinating an alternate level of reality as he speaks with his therapist. However, after considering how it would be difficult to apply a sense of narrative direction to this idea, we instead decided that perhaps the therapy session itself is in fact a simply another illusion created by the patient's distorted mind, and that the therapist is in fact simply one of the patient's personalities; a symptom of his schizophrenia. This would be achievable with relative ease by utilising a split-screen effect; allowing an actor to appear within a single shot more than once. This idea was inspired by a scene from the TV series "Legion"; a series connected to the X-Men films. The series follows David Haller: a man diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age, who begins to suspect that what he has may not be mearly a mental illness, but may actually be a form of psychic ability.

In the scene shown in the video above, David engages in a lengthy interaction with another of his personalities within what appears to be some kind of dream-like reality. This scene provided the primary source of inspiration for our film's therapy scene. Both consist of a character engaging in a lengthy interaction with their own alter-ego within a dream-like reality, as well as the persona largely being an off-screen voice; the 'real' person being the most frequent speaker. Although, in order to better suit the concepts brought up in this clip to our intentions for the project, we have adapted some of its ideas. For example, the relationship between the 'real' person and their alternate personality varies between the clip and our project. The two seemingly work together in the Legion clip, since David is attempting to work towards a moment of realisation. In our film however, the relationship betweent the patient and his alter-ego is rather antagonistic, since the therapist is a symptom of the patient's descent into insanity; much unlike David's ascent into a moment of realisation. Furthermore, although David's alter-ego is seen throughout the scene (and looks exactly the same), our patient's alter-ego is not seen until near the film's climax as his identity provides the film's twist. David's schizophrenia has been firmly established prior to the above scene; something that is not the case in our film. We felt as though the film would not be able to provide a satisfying payoff if the therapist's identity was known from early on, and so his identity is preserved until the end where it provides the twist.

Despite these differences however, this scene was a very good source of inspiration for our ideas. The scenes both take place within a dream-like reality, that is in fact merely a few seconds in the 'true' reality. In Legion, this scene takes place in David's mind, its events playing out is merely a few seconds in real time. In our film, we have had a similar idea through the use of a clock ticking in the backround throughout the film. The clock will be cut to several times throughout the film and will always be showing the same few seconds of time; creating the impression of a fragmented reality for the therapy session, foreshadowing the twist. Regardless of the technical differences the concepts presented in this scene allowed us to expand upon the ideas we had already established; allowing us to strenghten our project narratively.