[Maurice]

Following up on the topic of The Line, Nick/USS Intrepid was nigh enough to give me permission to use frame grabs from his show to illustrate things. So here we go.

In this scene we see two characters meeting in a tunnel. Nick's character looks to screen right to face the other character, and she looks to screen left to face him. Even though the two characters do not appear in the same shot, a Line has been established between them.

His eyeline to her is to camera right


Her eyeline to him is camera left

All fine and good, but then some addition characters intrude, so now there are sets of three eyelines to deal with.

When the woman faces these new characters her eyeline is to screen right (opposite of looking to Nick's character), like so...

And Nick's eyeline to the intruders is to screen left, again away from the previous eyeline to the woman. All good so far.

But a problem happens when the baddies talk to Nick's character...

Their eyelines are to screen left. Eyelines should be in opposition, but here both the intruders and Nick are looking in the same screen direction. So, the intruders appear to be looking at the woman instead of Nick.

Still, they got 5 of the 6 looks right. Close!

Now, it's entirely possible I'm misreading the scene, but if I am, the fact that there's never an eyeline between Nick and the intruders is adding the confusion.