Film Editing 101: Eye-Blinks
"We’ve been going through my notes from my Editing 1 class that I took in Film School from Professor Gerstein. Today, I’ll share an extremely practical tip about eye-blinks.
When someone’s eye blinks, the window to his soul is closed. It distances you from the person. Avoid closed eyes and lazy eyes on the cut. It has a subconscious effect on the viewer. Cutting on an eye blink is not wrong but it must only be used intentionally and carefully.
I make it a habit to go back through my edit when I’m finished with a scene and skip from cut to cut checking the actors’ eyes for blinks.
About a month ago, I went to see Scorsese’s Shutter Island. This movie is full of “bad” cuts. But they are in there on purpose. If you’ve seen the movie, you know why. The plot/story drove all the decisions – including the edits. Like the movie or not, that’s pretty cool. You gotta love Scorsese. I’m looking forward to seeing the film again when it comes out on DVD so I can look at the cuts more closely – including the eye blinks." ~ by Jeremiah
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Fascinating!
Now I will have to look up Shutter Island.
I haven't seen the movie and I still don't recommend nor endorse "Shutter Island" - creepy horror movie that came our recently. (shivers)