James Franco winking gif from Spiderman 3 and tricks of camera depth

James Franco turns his head, winks and looks slick as hell. Or does he? That's according to the camera.

His head turned creates depth: the left eye is closer to us than the right. He has a crooked smile bent toward the left side of his face closest toward us. And the centering of the shot. This makes you focus only on his left eye.

So you notice by now and maybe you did before that he doesn't wink and the right eye closes too. But it still looks slick.

You can make yourself focus only on the right eye, maybe zoom in. Then it doesn't look slick anymore. He looks like a doofus. You see the reality of the situation:



What does this remind me of? Oh yeah..



It's an optical illusion. But you still think this is a reach. You say his right eye still closes a split second later, so while not perfect he does do it "after" the wink. But this is an illusion too.

The gif at the top is 13 frames. Frames 7-11:







In real life, James Franco is not good at winking.