Schizophrenia

As my main character in my film, James Schwartz, sufferes from schizophrenia and repressed memory I have looked into both disorders, which I am hoping will give me a better understanding on how he will react when confronted with certain situations and certain characters, and how the forceful intentions of others forcing him to try to remember when he cant, how this will affect his state of mind. I am looking into this as a way of also helping me with the animating side of my film, with reactions, movements, facial responses, eye contact etc.

Delusions

The person with schizophrenia may act upon delusions. These delusions cause the person to believe they are being followed, tricked, monitored or tormented. The person may also believe that environmental cues---such as song lyrics, gestures or passages in books---are directed to them. As the person acts on these beliefs, he may begin acting out the song lyrics or take extreme measures to ensure they are not being followed such as drive many miles "out of the way" just to go home.

Hallucinations

Hallucinations can occur within the five senses: touching, hearing, tasting, seeing or smelling. A person suffering from a tactile (touching) hallucination may feel that something is crawling on them constantly. He may constantly rub or scratch the skin to remove the sensation. Auditory hallucinations may cause a schizophrenic to constantly cover their ears to stop the sounds. The person with schizophrenia may also talk to people who are not there. He could be responding to a voice or several voices speaking to them or about them.

Interactions with Others

The speech patterns of a schizophrenic are often disorganized. A conversation may begin on one subject and go to another without any apparent connection to the previous subject. The schizophrenic person may not advise the listener that the conversation topic is being changed. Answers to questions will not be complete or the response may be completely unrelated to the question. The range of emotion of a person with schizophrenia is restricted. There may be a lack of eye contact or body language in response to the environment. In severe cases, someone with schizophrenia could have catatonic motor behavior. Catatonic behavior is a rigidity of body language or posture; there could be a resistance to being moved. On the other hand, there could be excessive motor activity in the absence of any relevant external stimuli.

Emotion

A schizophrenic may have flat affect. In light of what should be exciting or disturbing news, the person with schizophrenia may not react at all or react inappropriately. He may not have any facial expressions. The person may have a limited range of emotional expression.