Eye Open

The theme song ends, or The Teaser starts, or we return from a commercial break, or we simply change scenes. What do we see but a close-up of a character's eye?

This is an Eye Open, a device sometimes used to show that a character is waking up. Of course, sometimes it's just used to show off an actor's good-looking eyes.

Not to be confused with Eye Awaken, which is when a character's eyes suddenly open, but the shot doesn't open with an image of them.

Examples of Eye Open include:

Anime and Manga

• Canaan: Canaan
• Shows up a lot in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
• Fate/stay night: Saber
  • And again in Fate/Zero.

Film

• The movie Aeon Flux opens with the title character's eye catching a fly.
• Next does this with Nicholas Cage's eye twice, once before and once after his character's long vision of a possible future.
• The opening to Blade Runner.
• Used in the opening and closing of Avatar.
• One of the more disturbing in movie history has to be the closeup of Marion Crane's eye in Psycho after she flops over onto the bathroom floor.
• Apollo 13 does this with Marilyn Lovell after showing her nightmare of losing Jim in space.

Live-Action TV

• Lost. Quite a lot, in fact.
  • The finale ends with Jack closing his eyes in a reversal of the pilot's first scene.
• House
• A first-season episode of the original The Twilight Zone does this.
• The 2009 pilot of V does a backwards one: instead of opening on Erica's eye and zooming out, we open on Erica and zoom in to her eye.
• The opening sequence of Merlin features a close-up of Merlin's eye as it changes from blue to gold.
• The Criminal Minds episode "The Big Wheel" starts with a shot of the killer's eye opening when he wakes up in the morning.
• Another backwards one in Smallville. During Lex's first appearance in season 3, we zoom in on his eye.
• Seen in the opening credits of The X-Files.

Video Games

• Half-Life 2 opens on the G-man's eye.
• The opening of Final Fantasy X focuses on Tidus' eye while he lies on his back just before some rock music kicks in and his hometown is doomed.
• At the end of the credits in Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus, a dead Clockwerk is seen with one of his eyes lighting up again.
• Kingdom Hearts: In the opening cutscene, and the next one after that.

Western Animation

• Highlander the Animated Series.