Blinking and Editing

Blinking is a necessary reflex to cleanse and moisten the eye. Most of the time we never take notice of our blinking action. Blinking is part of your body language and can tell a lot about what you are feeling and thinking. There is such a thing as blinking too much or too little. People who blink rapidly might be feeling distressed or uncomfortable. People can pick up on a person's blinking pattern subconsciously and may not be able to explain why something feels “off” about a person. Reading a persons body language is used in many lines of work. A state trooper’s life depends on being good at reading a person’s body language to determine if they are aggressive, under the influence or thinking about making a move.  In the film world ready an audience body language may not be a matter of life and death but it maybe able to tell you whether or not the audience is actually engaged in your film. The audience should be blinking in unison if they are captivated by the film and paying full attention. This means that your films cuts and overall flow are working. If the audience’s blinking is scattered this means they are not fully paying attention and their minds are wandering elsewhere. The film’s cuts may be too jarring for the audience to follow or the storyline and images being shown just aren’t interesting. Paying attention to the audiences blinking pattern is just another tool to use in order to get feed back on how well the film is doing its job on engaging the audience. Blinking is also thought to be the reason for why people are able to follow an edited movie and comprehend it even though film breaks reality by juxtaposing space and time.