Eyes In

The move ends on the eyes and nothing else. Everything the frame held at the start is gone by the finish, so the audience is left with the one place a thought can be read.

It also marks a threshold. A shot that arrives at the eyes usually hands over to something else: a memory, a dream, a cut inside somebody's head.

A steady forward push that does not stop at the face. The finish is a strip of the frame holding the eyes and the bridge of the nose, tighter than a choker.

Focus tightens as the move closes. At that distance the depth of field is millimetres deep, so the eyes are sharp and the ears are already gone.

Hold the head still. Any drift at the end of the move is magnified by the crop, and a small turn becomes a lurch.

Use it before a transition into memory or imagination, and on the moment a character works something out.

Do not use it as an ordinary close-up. The move costs the whole shot, so it has to hand off to something on the other side.

An extreme close-up is a size you cut to. Eyes in is a move you arrive with, and the journey is most of what it means.

The test is whether the shot starts wide. If the frame was on the eyes from the first frame, it is an extreme close-up with no move in it.

The push stops at the face, because a face is the size a model is most confident about. Name the eyes as the destination and say the frame closes until they fill it.

The other failure is a subject whose head moves during the approach. Say the head stays still, and say the eyes stay on the same point through the whole move.