Eye-Line Match
Definition
An Eye-Line Match is an editing technique based on the principle that if a character looks off-screen in one shot, the following shot should show what they are looking at, from the correct angle and direction. The eye-line match creates a logical, spatial connection between two shots and is one of the fundamental principles of continuity editing. If the eye-line is not correctly matched — if a character appears to be looking in the wrong direction relative to what they are supposed to be seeing — the edit will feel wrong and disorienting to the audience.
Contextual Usage
The editor flags an eye-line problem: "In the shot of Actor A looking at the photograph, they're looking screen left. But in the insert shot of the photograph, the camera is positioned as if we're looking at it from screen right. The eye-line doesn't match. We need to either flip the insert shot or reshoot it from the correct angle."
About this section
Production — or "principal photography" — is the phase in which the film or video is actually shot. It is the most visible and, typically, the most expensive phase of the entire process. Every day on ...
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