Look Space

A person looking off frame points at something the audience cannot see. Space in the direction of the look gives that offscreen thing a place to be, and the frame stops feeling cut off.

It also carries the cut. When a look with space in front of it is followed by what the person sees, the two shots join without anybody thinking about it.

Put the open space on the side the subject faces, which means composing them on the opposite third. Someone looking to the right sits on the left third.

The strength of the look sets the amount. A glance needs a little, and a long held stare across a room needs most of the frame.

Pair it with the reverse. A look with space in front of it sets up the shot of what they are looking at, and that second shot should come from roughly where the look lands.

Use it whenever a subject looks out of frame, which is most dialogue coverage and nearly every reaction shot.

Leave it out when the subject looks into the lens. A direct address has no offscreen target, so the frame can centre them.

Lead room is the same construction for a moving subject. Look space applies to a gaze. If the person is walking, the name is lead room.

Short siding is the deliberate reverse. Crowding the subject against the side they look toward is a choice that makes the frame feel closed, and a model will treat it as a mistake unless you say so.

Alfred Hitchcock builds Rear Window (1954) out of this pairing. A shot of James Stewart looking across the courtyard, with the frame open in the direction of the look, is followed by the window he is watching, and the audience assembles the geography of the whole block from the eyelines.

The model centres the subject, so the look runs into the frame edge and the offscreen target has nowhere to sit. Say the frame is open in the direction of the gaze.

The second failure is an eyeline into the lens. State that the subject looks off frame, and give the direction.