Reaction Shot

The audience learns what something means by watching somebody receive it. A face takes in news that happened off screen, and the reaction is the scene.

It works because meaning is assembled across the cut. Lev Kuleshov famously intercut the same neutral face with different shots and audiences read a different emotion each time, which is the whole mechanism behind this shot.

Usually a close-up or a medium close-up, with the eyeline directed off screen toward whatever caused the reaction. Where the eyes go has to agree with where the thing is.

The performance runs small. The audience already knows what happened, so the face has to do less than it would in a scene that carried the information itself.

Use it after any reveal, and use it on the person with the most to lose rather than the person who spoke.

It is also the cheapest way to sell something you never show. A reaction can carry an event the budget or the model cannot produce.

A close-up is a size. A reaction shot is a size given a job, which is receiving something from off screen.

A cutaway leaves the action to show a different subject. A reaction shot stays inside the same moment and shows its effect on a face.

Alfred Hitchcock cuts Rear Window (1954) around the face of a man who mostly watches, and what the audience feels about each window across the courtyard is set by what his face does after seeing it.

The subject looks into the lens, which turns a reaction into an address to the audience. Say the eyeline goes off frame, and name the direction.

The other failure is an oversized performance. Ask for a small change, such as the face stilling, the eyes dropping, or a breath held.