Mouth In

The camera goes into an open mouth and keeps going into the dark. It is a threshold shot, and what waits on the other side is usually a different scene entirely.

The body makes it uncomfortable, which is the reason to use it. A mouth at that scale stops being a feature of a face and becomes an opening.

A forward push that starts on the face, closes past the lips and continues into black. The frame loses light as it goes, so the darkness at the end is a real part of the exposure.

Say it continues. The move has no meaning if it lands on the teeth, and a model will stop there unless the prompt says otherwise.

The far side is optional and worth deciding. Ending in darkness works as a transition. Ending on another space makes the mouth a door.

Use it as a transition into a dream, a memory or a different scale, and in horror where the body is the subject.

Do not use it decoratively. It is a loud move and it makes a promise about what comes next.

An eating zoom closes on food at the mouth and stops outside. The mouth stays part of a face, and the subject is the meal.

A mouth in crosses the lips and goes inside. If the shot ends in darkness rather than on a bite, it is a mouth in.

The push stops at the lips, because that is where a model expects a face shot to end. Say the camera continues into darkness past the teeth.

The other failure is a cut hidden in the middle of the move. Ask for one unbroken take, and say the light falls away as the camera enters.