How to Make Red Eyes

Put yourself in a sad or depressed mood. Learning how to make eyes red and watery on command for the purpose of “faking crying” is not easy, even for professional actors. While there’s no “correct” way to do it, psychological tips can be of great help. An effective strategy is to focus on memories or thoughts that make you sad, like the death of a loved one, an embarrassing event you recently experienced, or a major life fear. As with the actual emotions you feel as you go through these events, the darker and bleak your thoughts are, the more likely you are to be in a tearful mood.

• Some examples of events you can think of are: a breakup with a lover, a recent argument, a difficult job at work, a time when a friend or loved one betrayed you, people who are no longer present in your life. your life, and times that make you very worried for yourself and your loved ones.
• Especially useful when you’re trying to convince yourself that everyone else has a “happy life together” except you. Try to evoke feelings of hope and disappointment, telling yourself “That’s right, I’ll never be successful and happy”. However, definitely don’t let yourself get lost in that mood after you need to fake crying, because depression is really the worst thing.

Focus on your own pain. In the words of an acting instructor at New York University, an actor trying to fake a cry should “concrete the situation with something very specific and personal to the actor, so that it no longer revolves around around asking them to cry about an inner secret, desire, or fear.” ^[13] In other words, the best way to make yourself sad enough to cry is to immerse yourself in thinking about the dark, deep fear in your mind. Trying to convince yourself that the purpose of fake crying is entirely your problem even if it’s not. Prepare to arouse and confront your worst fears.

• Bryan Cranston, a critically acclaimed actor, once revealed in interviews how his horrible inner fears helped him to act realistically as a mentally tortured person. . When it came to the scene where his role saw the death of a young female actress’ character, Cranston said: “I imagined her as my daughter, so I was very emotional… She’s just a little girl, so she could be my daughter too.”

Make yourself angry or frustrated. Red eyes filled with tears are not always caused by sadness. Sometimes these signs occur along with intense or pressing emotions, especially when the feeling is caused by a loved one. If you can’t cry through sad thoughts alone, try to incorporate moderate anger to get results. For example, you should think about a current difficulty in your life that upsets you, such as a loved one who engages in self-destructive behavior but refuses to listen to your advice.

• Some examples that you can think about are: a time when you were dropped from a promotion review, a time when your opponent was more successful than you, when you were treated unfairly by your superiors, and when you witnessed or experience social injustice.

Watching movies is easy to get emotional. So emotional that crying does not necessarily come from 100% of internal causes, but external causes also play a huge role. This is a tactic many actors use to get in the mood before performing an emotional scene, and to play a person experiencing such intense emotion. Films, music, books, and other artistic products that can convey feelings of sadness or frustration are very effective means for this purpose. Here are some ideas for you to apply.

• Movies: Diary of Love , Blue Mile , Titanic , Come and See (Russian Movie)
• Books: The Kite Runner , The Giver , Wuthering Heights , Later Harry Potter Series, any book that is the plot of the above movies.
• Music: Sad love song (Ngo Thuy Mien), Ten years of love for you (Tram Tu Thieng), Sad Stone Age (Trinh Cong Son) and etc..

Reasonable expectations. It’s important to remember that the strategies in this section may be harder to work with than the other tips in this article, even if you’re someone who cries easily when sad. It’s not easy to make yourself sad enough to cry, just as it’s hard for you to tickle yourself. Even A-list actors have a hard time “playing” crying scenes, so you should be prepared to use another method if these psychological tactics don’t work.

Consider makeup. If you can’t do real red eyes, you have to fake them! With the right tips, you can use makeup techniques to make your eyes appear red and swollen like they’ve just cried, even though they feel completely normal. Since these tips are not really irritating to the eyes, they are much more comfortable than the methods mentioned above. For example, try the following makeup technique to create red eyes: ^[14]

• Use red eyeliner to dot the dots around the eyes. You can also use an eyeshadow pen or a red lip liner, but for lip liner, use one that is soft enough to draw near the eyes. Dot points along the entire lower eyelid. To create more red eyes, add dots along the upper eyelid.
• Smudge the dotted line on the skin with a cotton ball or a smudge pen. To make the red eye, you must create a light red “shadow” around the dotted line. Make up so that the red dots are not visible at first, so you need to continue to blur until the red dots are no longer visible.

Consider using tinted contact lenses. Another way to create a “red” effect on the eyes is to wear specially manufactured contact lenses with red tints or blood vessels painted on them. However, you must choose glasses that redden the white part of the eye, not the iris (the part that is usually brown or black). If you wear glasses that turn your irises red, you’ll look like a vampire or a demon, not a crybaby.

• Some companies specializing in theatrical equipment manufacture special contact lenses for movies and plays, you can contact them if you want to buy high-quality products. But these products are not cheap, professional contact lenses are usually over 2 million.

Increase the effect with “tears stick “ . If you’re faking red eyes for a play or movie, you should combine the tips above with some real tears to make them look more realistic. In this case you should consider buying a “tears stick”, which is a tool that actors often use, is actually a stick made of gel or wax containing menthol. Sticks are often manufactured with a tube like a lipstick, used by applying under the eyes to let the mint vapor rise and stimulate tears.

• Note that since the “active ingredient” in the teardrop stick is menthol, the method is similar to the above mentioned method of applying essential oils.

Do not use strong irritants like pepper, tear gas etc. Risking your eye health is never a good idea just to fake crying. Never put anything in your eyes that could cause serious irritation, including harsh chemicals like “pungent” and natural substances like chili products. In certain doses these substances can cause permanent damage or blindness.

Do not irritate eyeball directly. If you are using a method that requires rubbing the skin around the eyes to create redness, remember not to touch the eyeballs. Even though you may be able to avoid damaging the eyeball, contact will transfer bacteria from your hands to the eyeball, which can lead to infection (as noted in the section above). This risk is even greater if you have just touched something that has a lot of bacteria (like a doorknob). ^[15]

• Also, because eyeballs are so fragile, touching them sometimes leads to physical injury. Just a few minor scratches can be very uncomfortable, while more serious injuries (such as irritating the retina) may require medical treatment.