Our Story for this post is Joe’s Smile.

Please go to my youtube sight and watch the story first.

In this post were going to talk about eye trace.  I’ve been doing a lot of research on the subject lately.  Here’s what I’ve come to realize.  Eye trace is a simple concept to begin with, and if you think about it in your everyday editing it’ll improve so many little things.

In this post I like to bring your attention to what is going on in the shots you choose.

• How action affects what the viewer’s looking at

• How eye trace sends the viewer’s eye where you want them to go

• How you can control what people are exactly going to look at

I know in our world you cannot think about every edit and what’s happening in every shot.  But, the more you keep this in mind the easier your going to make several edits in your story.

Keep in mind, I want the viewer looking at certain things.  My edits are going to help.  In Joe’s Smile you may see more example of eye trace, I’m only going to point out the certain ones.

Eye trace has two primary objectives.

1. To keep the eye focused on the same point on the screen (or close to there as possible) as the last frame of an edit ends and the new frame of the next edit starts.  Confused?  I was too.  Here’s an example.

In the shot above at [:15] in the story Joe looks up and turns his head to the right (our left).

Then, I make an edit as he’s in mid-turn.  He completes his head turn in the next shot.  Your eye catches his head moving, and then in the next shot I have your eyes exactly where I want them, to the left of the screen focused on Joe.  Your eyes followed Joe through the edit and didn’t scan the screen for something else to look at.  That’s eye trace, putting the viewer’s eyes where YOU want them.

Think of it as you are a magician.  A magician’s job is to get the audience to look at what he wants them to look at.  Like that ball in his hand and not the other hand in his pocket getting the next part of the trick ready.  Your ideal job as an editor, keep the viewer’s eye where you want them.

The edit’s also hidden by Joe’s movement.  Meaning you don’t really realize there is an edit there because the action looks natural.

Here another example at [:21].  Your eyes go to his head, as he start to move his head I cut.

His head movement completes in this shot above at [:22].  Your eye’s stayed on the left side of the screen in relatively the same place.  I kept them there using eye trace logic.

So, think about editing on movement the next time your doing a story.  Also think about keeping all that movement on same point of the screen.  Break you screen in 4 quadrants.  Try keeping the movement in one of those quadrants for 2 edits. It’s not that easy and won’t work ALL the time.  But it’s pretty when it does.

Ok, here a completely different example of eye trace.  People will always look at the eye’s of whomever is in your shot. Everyone’s natural curiosity is to wonder what he/she is looking at.  So, if you show a shot of someone looking at something, your next obvious shot is what they are looking at.

At [1:22] we have a shot of the dentist looking down.  Notice the dentist is predominately screen left. What’s he looking at?

We should show the viewer.  He’s looking at Joe’s teeth, or lack there of [1:23].  Notice Joe is predominately screen right.  This is another example of eye trace.  If you were to follow the dentist eye’s down from the shot of him to the next shot of Joe, you’d trace his line of sight almost perfectly.

This is another example of eye trace.  The viewer naturally looks down and as their eyes move down you take an edit and place what you want them to see in that next shot and that point in the frame.  Eye trace in action.

One more example.  Joe’s got his new teeth and he’s smiling!  What’s he smiling at?  Again realize Joe’s screen right.

I know there are two women in this shot, but the women on the left is laughing and catches your eye first.  So, following Joe’s line of sight it’s logical to think he’s looking at her.  And with this edit I make the viewer perceive that as well.  The women on the right looking at the women laughing helps as well with this.

I thought I show you an example of a bad edit too.  At [2:49] we have Joe smiling with his new teeth. Joe’s screen left as he smiles.

But in the next shot he’s screen right smiling.  I didn’t put the viewer’s eye where I should of.  Like I said, it won’t always work.

Now go and practice eye trace in your editing.