You're talking to me who the hell else are you talking talking to me I'm talking to her what
what is eyeline it sounds simple but it's actually trickier than you might imagine see
what's the greatest piece of ass I've ever had and I've had them all over the world
report back to me when uh
I don't know when it makes sense welcome to the director's toolbox my name is Robert
Macfarlane where we analyze film and tv to show you just how they do it eyeline is the line
the audience creates in their mind between two characters or a character and an object
so why is the eye line really that important well what it does is it actually helps the
audience understand who is talking to who and it also allows us to understand screen direction
where are characters in conjunction to one another where are they in the space
now that sounds kind of simple why would I make an episode about eyeline if it's just about making
sure they look in the right direction well when you're actually doing it in camera you're filming
your actors it can be a little trickier than that because sometimes you have characters on different
elevations sometimes they might be standing in the same space but one actor is quite a bit taller
than the other but when they actually look at one another the camera may actually make it look
slightly different especially if you're using a dutch tilt the character's eye lines may miss
completely therefore whenever you're doing this to get a correct eye line you need to
ensure that you actually reference your other image your opposite image in that conversation
to make sure that your eye lines match but we can go one step deeper than that we can actually
make the eye line help tell the story by changing where and how your characters look at one another
we can actually enhance the experience of your story the experience of that emotion
there are people who pay a lot of money for that information
so how do we use eyeline to enhance the drama of your scene
well you can start to think about height or more specifically
changing the height of your characters so they actually have to look up and down at one another
depending on where you put them to enhance that moment it's over Anakin I have the high ground
and this is something that you can play with in your scenes such as this moment from arrival
but we can go further than that what if you don't want your character's eye lines
to meet what if this is a way of showing that your characters
aren't connected at all this scene from a Social Network shows this in a brilliant example between
two characters now we wouldn't normally expect to show an eye line between two characters on a
telephone because they're not in the same room I'm not mad I mean I guess she just likes the
attention secrets i told you she's not mad at you i can't believe you think i like attention okay
love ya see you tomorrow would you be surprised many movies will actually show characters
looking at each other even though they're not in the same room because they're on two phones this
helps us understand that they are connected that they're talking to one another but david fincher
takes it a step further by completely putting the characters on opposite sides of the screen
looking away from one another we really understand that the characters do not see eye to eye on this
subject quite literally and it enhances therefore our understanding of their conflict holy [ __ ]
what is wrong with you another way of using eyeline is well we tend to move where we're looking but
how do we use this to enhance our scenes most movies will have given the lead character or all
of the characters a particular desire and this desire tends to be in another physical location
to where they are at that moment take for example the Wizard of Oz
so most of the time you're going to move your protagonist in the direction of their desire their
goal and to do that they will often look in that direction you can even use this eye line this look
to show other desires be it for money drugs sex we understand the desire of the character based
on how and when they look at something how long do they look at that for but we can take it one
step further what if that character doesn't want to let another character know that they have this
desire that they want this object item or thing well maybe they would avert their eyes change
their eye line not to give up their inner desire what if you have a woman who finds out her husband
has been cheating on her but to exact her revenge she must convince her husband that everything
is normal and fine how would her eyes convince her husband or reveal that something is wrong
when we know someone intimately we understand how each other's looks reveal our inner world
we know when something is wrong just by looking at someone's eyes so when doing your scene analysis
think about what your characters would be focused upon what would they want to look
at or what would they not want to look at and why I can't watch and then you can really get
an idea of how you're going to direct the scene how is your eye line going to tell the story
thank you for making this far in the episode don't forget to check out this link above and
the link down below to my cinematic language 101 course to help you master your cinematic language