Week 5: ''Listen'' a twist of reality

Before the day of filming I believed that ''Listen'' had the potential to be one of our finest pictures so far in terms of storytelling, sound and visual style. However, due to some unfortunate circumstances on the day of filming we could not develop the full potential of our latest production. First our actor did not learn his lines by heart which resulted in a lot of jump cuts (which fortunately can be tied to the nature of the narrative) and less variety of shots.Secondly we could not make full use of lights, since one of our lights went out during the middle of filming.

Apart from the difficulties we had , I am very fascinated with the idea we had of ,,Listen'' and despite of the fact that we did not reach our full potential I think that our latest production is great. I assume others that considered  ''Listen'' a fail would wonder why. Well,  I believe the manipulation of image and sound is in perfect relation with the narrative and the visual information in the plot is presented in a such a way that is perfect for a successful twist.
In my view,the success of twist movies depends on careful manipulation of plot information- there is a fine line between revealing too much and too little. In other words in order for the twist to be effective the audience has to be tricked to construct a false fabula based on the information presented in the plot. After the spectator is aware of the twist he/she realizes the incompleteness of the audiovisual information in the plot and finds that the key to the correct story has always been in the plot. One of the main reasons, however, why the audience is unable to see it on the first place is because the information that is essential to the true fabula is subjectively presented.
In listen we arranged the lighting in such way so that it only illuminates completely the boxer. Most of the time the imaginary coach is shadowed and his face is never lit like the boxer's face.
As a cinematographer I aimed to keep the coach out of focus. This in my opinion was very important for the hidden internal focalization we wanted to achieve. In ''Listen'' the main character's experiences are presented subjectively or in other words his experience is internally focalized. Internal focalization is entirely subject to the character's way of perceiving whose account of reality could always be distorted and deficient and thus completely alter the audience experience of time,space and chain of causality. Usually internal focalization is presented through a lot of close ups and abstract point of view shots. However, the use of  more objective camera angles in our production (for example use of long shots) makes the audience believe that they are watching an objectively presented narration or in other words that what the main character is seeing and hearing is real.
This is why light and focus are major factors that represent the main character distorted perception of reality. Last but not the least the jump cuts in my opinion represented the deranged notion of time and space of the main character.