Where Should Your Eye Line Be? (And Why It Matters)

Place your reader — or a marker at their eye height — 10 to 20 cm to one side of the lens, at your eye level. Close enough that both your eyes remain visible, far enough that you are not staring down the barrel.

Stay on one side for the whole scene. Switching sides mid-scene breaks continuity and makes cutting between takes impossible.

Direct-to-camera is right for commercial copy, presenting, and monologues written as address. It is almost always wrong for a two-person scene, where it reads as breaking the fourth wall.

Tape a small paper cross at the correct height and imagine the other person there. Play a recorded reader track quietly through a speaker rather than headphones so your responses have real timing to land against.

Resist letting the eye line drift down to a phone playing the audio — that downward gaze is what casting reads as unprepared.

Lens at your eye level is neutral. Slightly below makes you look imposing; noticeably above makes you look diminished. Neither is neutral, and neither is what most auditions want.