Framing and eyeline are the two parts of a tape you can fix completely before you say a word. Both are about where things sit: where your head sits in the picture, and where your eyes land. Below is a free one-sheet guide you can print, then the reasoning behind each part.
One-sheet guide: framing and eyeline
Put the lens at your eye level on something steady. A stack of books works.
Set the picture so your eyes sit about a third of the way down.
Leave a little head room. End the picture at mid-chest.
Stick a small mark just beside the lens, on the side where your reader stands.
Put the light in front of your face, never a window behind you.
Record ten seconds, watch it back on the device you will send from, then record the real take.
Free to print. Nothing is uploaded from this page.
To print it, use your browser's print command (Control and P on Windows, Command and P on a Mac). The page is set up so the diagram and the checklist land on one sheet.
Framing: what goes where
Casting usually wants a medium close-up, from about mid-chest to just above the head. Closer than that and your hands and shoulders vanish. Wider than that and your face gets small, especially on a phone.
Head room is the space between the top of your head and the top of the picture. You want some, so the picture does not look cramped, but not a big gap. If you can fit a whole extra person's forehead above you, come down.
Set the shot from the spot where you will perform. If you sit for the scene, check the frame while sitting. If you stand, check it standing. A picture that looked right from across the room changes the moment you move into place.
Check the notice for the shape of the picture. If it names landscape or portrait, use that.
Camera height
A laptop on a desk looks up your nose. A phone held at chest height looks down at you. Put the lens at eye level and check that it is level, not tilted. Something as ordinary as a pile of books and a rubber band will do.
Eyeline: where your eyes land
For most scenes, your eyes go just beside the lens, on the side where the other character would be. Not into the lens, which reads as talking to the audience, and not so far off that you look like you are speaking to someone in the next room.
Put the mark where your eyes will actually rest: a small piece of tape or a sticky note just beside the lens works. Then keep to it. As a scene heats up, it is easy to drift toward the camera, or down toward the page.
If you have no reader, the mark is your scene partner. Give it a face in your head, and keep the same one from line to line.
A short glance away to think can be right for a character. A long one, or a glance that always goes the same direction, tends to look like reading. Watch your take with the sound off and see where your eyes go.
Check it on playback
Pause your tape at the start, the middle and the end. In each one, can you see both eyes? Is your head where it was? Is your eyeline still on the mark? If any answer is no, fix the setup and tape again.
If you want a second, specific set of eyes on the tape itself once it is recorded, Plain Take writes notes on one self-tape for $12, delivered on a private page. See how it works.
These notes are produced by an AI system and checked automatically before delivery. No person reviews them. They are not from a casting director. They do not promise a booking.