Eyeline

What this is about

Trouble starts as soon as the partner leaves the set. In a single, the other actor may be off camera, on an apple box at the wrong height, or replaced by a cross on a stand. If the eyeline drifts a little too wide, the character looks past their partner; a little too high, and they seem to address someone's forehead. The script supervisor and the operator watch it constantly, the first AD organises a proper reader, and in VFX work a tennis ball marks a creature that is not there yet.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Eyeline covers height as well as direction: two actors of different heights need the reader placed at the right level, not just the right side.
• It is not the same as the 180-degree rule — you can respect the axis and still have both characters looking the wrong way.
• Note the eyeline reference in the shot list when the partner is absent, so pickups weeks later still match.

With TillyGen

TillyGen records the eyeline reference with each single, so the reverse shot is set up against the same point.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.