Similar to Mouth Cam, it's a framing device (curved at top and bottom) that looks like the camera is behind two big eyelids that open and close. It's usually used for comic effect, though it can also be used in more dramatic works, or works that are meant to show life from a character's point of view. The point-of-view character may be just waking up at the beginning of a scene, and between blinks they may see slightly different situations developing.
Compare Binocular Shot, where things are seen from the point of view of someone using binoculars rather than their naked eye.
A subtrope of P.O.V. Cam.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Animation
Comic Books
- The Spirit: Used in one issue to show the action through another character's eyes — literally. In addition to an eyelid-shaped view, you can see his eyelashes on top.
- Warrior Cats: In the graphic novel Warrior's Return (part of the Graystripe's Adventure trilogy), this effect is used in the scene after Graystripe is hit by a car, to show his point of view as he passes out and then awakens afterward.
Films — Animation
- BoBoiBoy: The Movie: BoBoiBoy is first shown getting out of bed from his perspective, as he wakes up to the sound of his alarm clock on his bedside table, turning his head to it before shutting it off.
- A Bug's Life: When Francis is chewing out the fly hecklers for assuming that he's a lady ladybug, there's a shot of him from the perspective of a fly's compound eye.
- A Goofy Movie: Occurs when Max is recovering from the news that Dad's dragging him on a vacation.
- There is a brief scene early on in Kubo and the Two Strings where the camera "blinks" as it assumes Kubo's POV as he wakes up.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
- In the first movie, our first view of the other world beyond the portal is through Twilight Sparkle's eyes as she's opening them. This delays the reveal of her new body.
- Repeated in "Mirror Magic" with Starlight Glimmer, like her mentor before her, opening her eyes after going through the portal, her vision at first very blurry before focusing on the school's entrance.
- Ratatouille: Rémy finds Linguini asleep on the floor after he spent the night cleaning up the restaurant. Rémy tries to wake him by crawling on his head and pulling his eyelid up. We cut to Linguini's eye-frame POV showing Rémy waving at him as it slowly closes and Linguini falls back to sleep.
- Used for one scene in Recess: School's Out, when Mikey wakes up in T.J.'s backyard after fainting.
- Used in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie as SpongeBob is waking up after an ice cream binge with Patrick.
- Used in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem from Leonardo's POV as he is waking up after being captured and knocked unconscious by TCRI alongside the other three turtles.
- In Turning Red, this is used when Mei wakes up from her nightmare.
Films — Live-Action
- This is how The Batman (2022) starts, with what's later revealed to be The Riddler watching his first target.
- The Invitation (2022): Evie is hit over the head in the trailer; the next shot is an eyelike frame that "closes" before the audience can see her attacker clearly.
- The Karate Kid (2010): When Cheng beats Dre up for the second time, we see that Dre is so badly hurt that his vision is impaired.
- Used in Unknown (2011), during a Waking Up Elsewhere situation where the hero wakes up at the hospital after been Asleep for Days. The ambient sounds are muffled at first and the camera mimics the shapes of his eyes and how he is slowly opening and adjusting them to the brightness of the room.
- Mr. Nobody has this shot early on when Old Nemo looks through his fingers at Dr. Feldheim.
- This happens in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as Grandpa Joe falls asleep after Charlie leaves to buy a Wonka bar with the quarter he gave him.
Literature
- Used in the beginning of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon) where the main character has just woken up from a coma.
Live-Action TV
- Interview with the Vampire (2022): Near the beginning of "...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding", the corners of the screen are obscured to illustrate that a dying Claudia can barely keep her eyes open while looking at what she assumes to be a Black angel (Louis de Pointe du Lac) and a White angel (Lestat de Lioncourt).
- Star Trek: Picard:
- In "Remembrance", Laris is out of focus and Zhaban is outright blurry to Picard when he awakens while recovering from a head injury.
- In "The Impossible Box", Soji's eyes flicker open when she wakes up from her Forced Sleep, and the framed photograph of herself with Dahj appears hazy.
- In "Broken Pieces", we see Picard from Jurati's blurred perspective as her eyes flutter open when she rouses from a coma.
- In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1", when Picard regains consciousness after passing out, he slowly opens his eyes and we get a glimpse of Jurati from his unfocused point of view.
- In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", after the synth Picard is activated, the first images his new artificial eyes process are a hazy-looking Soji and Jurati.
Sports
- In 2013, the WNBA began using a "Ref-cam" in certain games; the All Stars began name-dropping this trope on their own.
Video Games
- Used to dramatic effect in both BioShock games, after the main character in each has been knocked unconscious and is coming to.
- Appears in the beginning of SOMA when Simon wakes up from his dream.
- In the intro of Style Savvy: Fashion Forward, this is used with your character when she closes her eyes just before you design her appearance and Sophie is helping her become size-wise, and again when she opens them to reveal she's become such.
- Used at the end of Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood, when Guybrush slowly opens his eyes and sees a close-up of Elaine's hand on both his normal hand and his Hook Hand, then moves to a blurry vision of LeChuck walking to the Wind Control Device to absorb the voodoo powers from La Esponja Grande, then turns back to focus on her head and face, as our hero discovers for certain that he is about to die from his fatal stab wounds.
- Fire Emblem: Awakening features the Eye Cam twice, if you choose the "Sacrifice" ending in an early cutscene, when the Player Character wakes from unconsciousness to see two concerned faces.
- Cube Escape: Paradox starts with this as Detective Vandermeer wakes up. And it ends that way, too.
Web Animation
- Dreamscape: At the start of episode 7, Keela wakes up in the hospital like this...and sees Kaila looming over her.
Webcomics
- Episode 10 of Reunion (2021) begins with Bas's fuzzy face in an eye-shaped frame. Shiro awakens and Bas's face is shown more clearly.
Western Animation
- Harley Quinn: In the first episode, Harley waking up after the prison breakout is framed by her eyelids. The first thing she sees are Poison Ivy's plants.
- Used a few times on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic from the point of view of Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash respectively. Used with the the first two characters when regaining consciousness from fainting and the latter when she's waking up from an accident.
- The Pinky and the Brain episode "The Pinky P.O.V." exaggerates this trope and puts it to the duration of a whole episode.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Lisa's Pony", Homer was driving, absolutely groggy after his night shift in Kwik-E-Mart, having not slept for days. Naturally, he fell asleep. The Eye Cam shaped effect showed closing his eyelids and transitioned the scene to a dream sequence in Slumberland.
- When Bart is being put under anaesthesia for his apendix operation in "Round Springfield", his eyes are closing and his point of view is visualized with this eye-shaped cam effect.
- In "Make Room for Lisa", Lisa is in a sensory deprivation tank and sees the world from Homer's perspective. Lisa-as-Homer is falling asleep during a ballet recital, shown with Eye Cam.
- Lampshaded when Homer was passing out. Instead of just normally losing consciousness, he began to argue with their brain about letting him pass out at such a dire time.
- The Venture Bros.: The episode that introduces Venturestein has several scenes shown from his P.O.V.
- Discussed Trope in The Ricky Gervais Show. When Karl's narrating his idea for a movie where a failed actor ends up being put into the body of Tom Cruise, he spends some time specifically pointing out that when the main character is coming to "the screen does that thing that makes it look like opening eyes".
- Used with Thomas in the Thomas & Friends special, "Steam Team to the Rescue", as he is woken up by Sir Topham Hatt.
- Used twice with the titular character in the Nature Cat episode "Nature Plant" as he wearily opens his eyes, as Daisy finishes explaining about photosynthesis, telling him that he's now a plant. Later on, he awakens to find Daisy once more finishing her explanation about photosynthesis and that he is a cat again.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
- In "Los Dos Mojos", Bubbles has an Eye Cam from her perspective at Mojo Jojo gloating as she is passing out from getting hit in the head.
- In "Stray Bullet" after the squirrel is attacked by a hawk, the point of view is from its eyes closing as it is looking at the girls before it passes out, followed by another of them opening when it comes to in the girls' room.
