#007 - Mastering eye-trace, an Editor's secret weapon
Eye-trace is an editor's secret weapon.
Wielding it effectively means that your cuts will look smoother and allow you to move faster through a trailer, montage or action sequence without losing your audience for a moment.
What is eye-trace?
Editor Vashi Nedomansky demonstrates what eye-trace is and why it matters in this 95 second video illustrating the centre-framing from Mad Max: Fury Road, shot by Director of Photography John Seale.
As everything is in the dead-centre of the frame your eyes don't have to move around the screen between the cuts to find out what you should be looking at next, so the cuts can move much more quickly and seamlessly.
A simply great tip for perfect eye-trace, every time
In this excellent 107 second tutorial, trailer editor Derek Lieu shares a brilliantly simple hack for perfecting your eye-trace across cuts.
It's so simple, yet so useful, that you'll say "Well, why didn't I think of that?"
TLDW:
- Park your playhead on the cut between the two shots you're matching
- Add a dissolve transition
- Adjust the positioning or timing of the clips to match the eye-trace
- Delete the dissolve
As they say "If you can't solve it, dissolve it."
Take this further:
Learn more about how eye-trace works and how Fincher does it at the bottom of this article.
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