Half-Empty Two-Shot

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• Apocalypse Hotel: The solitary nature of Yachiyo's dance in the theme sequence is highlighted by the fact that she's placed a staircase on the right side of the screen, while the identical one at the left bears no one.

• Different Tales, Different Lessons: In the 13th vignette, Xiulan's dream of marriage with Zhuang ends with Xiulan waking up alone in her bed, no husband whatsoever.

Potter Verse

• The Ascendant:
  • Both times a Black leaves their family behind, there's a shot of their sibling who chose to stay—Narcissa and Regulus—standing near the center of the camera, with their shoulders and head framing the gaping hole where their sister/brother—Andromeda and Sirius—was occupying just prior, begging them to get away together.
  • After they've been making out in Narcissa's room, she and Lucius return to the parlour because, since Sirius has arrived, the ceremony with Voldemort is about to start. However, Lucius would rather they kept going, so he tries to persuade Narcissa, first by words, but then forcibly despite her denial. She leans toward him, whispering, "If you touch me again, I'll rip your balls off". After that, she suddenly pulls away, leaving her discomfited fiancé standing awkwardly on the right side of the camera for a short while.
• The Prank: A lot of Part II is carried through two-person conversations. To set the mood up, the camera first lingers on just one of the characters, awaiting the second, leaving half the screen empty.
  • The first time, it's a very dark shot—both literally and metaphorically—of Sirius leaning against a lamp post at night. While he is near the center, it's clear from his placement that the right side of the screen will soon be occupied by someone else. Seconds later, Snape, with a Lumos lighting his wand, enters the scene. This is when Sirius sends Snape off to face a werewolf, so the purpose is to build apprehension up.
  • The second time, the camera focuses on Euphemia Potter, sitting just outside Dumbledore's office as her husband and Remus Lupin talk about the incident. She's placed very noticeably on the left side of the shot. The upper right is filled by an arriving Sirius moments later. Mrs. Potter then scolds Sirius in a very calm manner, all the while still comforting him, in sharp contrast to what Walburga Black would have done. As she later shares a similar shot with her own biological son^note they are in a two-character shot, but with James standing behind the bench Euphemia is occupying, it's probably meant to cement that he is now her son in all but blood.
• Requiem For the Living: After the tragedy of his boyfriend Sirius's betrayal and the murder of the rest of his three closest friends, Lupin takes to drowning his sorrows in alcohol. In two of the frames, he's despondently lying against a wooden wall, holding a bottle, and surrounded by newspaper clips of the war. The first shot pushes said scene to the leftmost side of the screen, leaving the right half entirely black. Rather than horror, the purpose is to represent his loneliness and mourning.

• KPop Demon Hunters: In "Free", Rumi's first stanza is full of takes in which she starts in the center, then slowly walks toward either side of the camera until Jinu, who is reluctanly ambling behind her, enters the frame as well. The song is all about her trying to reach out to him to form a genuine Commonality Connection, so it makes sense that we go from half-empty takes to two-character shots. This also happens in Jinu's stanza after the first chorus; however, the frame is such that not only Rumi accompanies Jinu, but also the latter's demonic reflection, representing the chains Gwi-Ma still has on him.
• One Small Step: Every time Luna comes home from college, her father is sitting at the dinner table to greet her. One day, she arrives at an empty table.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Walpurgisnacht Rising: In the trailer, the three secondary members of the Holy Quintet are introduced in quick succession over a Red Sky, Take Warning cityscape. Kyoko is placed at the center of her shot but Mami and Sayaka are respectively shown on the left and right sides, leaving the rest of their shots conspicuously empty. What this might mean is yet to be disclosed.
• Shrek 1: Shots like this are used twice to show how alone Shrek and Fiona feel after their big fight. Fiona is shown sitting at an otherwise unoccupied table, with the table in the center of the shot. This is immediately followed by Shrek sitting at his table, on the opposite side (from the camera's perspective). This shows that despite being apart and expecting to never see each other again, they are still very much on each other's minds. Fiona even begins to cry.
• Turning Red: During the 'panda hustle' montage, there's a brief shot of Ming in the temple, kneeling in front of Sun Yee's shrine. It's a direct echo of a shot from earlier in the movie that showed Ming and Mei kneeling and saying their devotions to Sun Yee — but this time Ming is alone. Mei isn't there, and Ming is looking sadly at the empty cushion. It shows that Mei isn't spending time with her mother as she had been shown to do before, and Ming misses her.
• Up: Whenever Carl sits in his recliner, positioned beside his late wife's coach; signifying his grieving and melancholy about her passing.

• Clue: There's a scene where Miss Scarlet, left alone in the ballroom, nervously checks to see if the mystery killer is hiding behind the curtains. This is made even creepier by the brief tracking shot over her shoulder, which upon first viewing lends the sensation that we're about to see someone come up behind her.
• Halloween (1978): Throughout the first half of the movie, Laurie is repeatedly framed in this fashion, to suggest to the viewer that someone is about to fill the empty space. Towards the end, the setup is finally paid off when Michael Myers emerges from the closet to attack her. The film popularized this concept when it comes to horror.
• Heathers:
  • This kind of shot is used throughout the whole movie to represent which character is influencing which.
    • In the first act, when Veronica's main The Corrupter influence is Heather Chandler, every time Veronica undertakes independent action (such as the first time she spots J.D. and goes to flirt with him), Chandler's approach is signaled by Veronica's sided placing in the shot. Shortly after that, it becomes a regular two-character shot of her and Chandler interacting.
    • Veronica and J.D.'s dynamic in these shots is the opposite. They start in a two-shot but then Veronica leaves to do something else. This action matches the times when J.D.'s sociopathic side comes to light. First, when he notices Veronica's taken the wrong mug, debates with himself about telling her, and finally decides not to. Then, in the aftermath of their accidental murder of Chandler, when he's flippant about it while Veronica panics.
  • During the scene in which Veronica seduces Ram and Kurt by phone call, the final lines of dialogue are delivered in intercalary shots of Veronica and Kurt talking on the phone on opposite sides of the screen.
• Jaws:
  • Jaws 1: When Brody is on the right side of the frame, flipping smelly chum into the water, mumbling irritably as he does it, the left side of the frame containing nothing but the gunwale of the boat and the ocean. This sets up one of the most famous Jump Scares ever, as the shark comes leaping out of the water on the left side.
  • Jaws 2: When the shark attacks the helicopter, it is filmed from inside the cockpit, looking out past the pilot with the shark rising suddenly from the water in the background. (Not entirely unlike its use in the first film, actually.)
• Night of the Living Dead (1990): Subverted. Something does lunge into the frame, but from the side that is already occupied by a character.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): In one scene, Nancy is exploring an empty house trying to prove Freddy's existence, as she's still reeling from the nightmares and thinks she can feel him stalking her now that she's awake. Most shots position Nancy very conspicuously in just one half of the frame, leaving in suspense just when will Freddy materialize.
• Silkwood: In the last shot, all we see in the left half of the frame are.... headlights.
• Sinister: There are many shots in which Ellison is alone at night, with half the screen being occupied by a darkened corridor. The sheer sense of unease is achieved by this making us believe something is gonna crawl out of the shadows at any moment.
• Strike: A spy is shown running down a sidewalk, with the left side of the screen simply blacked out, like an unfinished wipe. The wipe is finally completed, revealing the men who are chasing him on the left side of the frame.
• Swimming Pool: Almost every time Julie is on scene alongside Sarah, the former's absence from the shot just prior or shortly after is signaled by a screen half empty with ominous undertones, such as creepy shadows or opaque lightning.
• Zathura: This kind of shot is used when a Zorgon is slowly getting upstairs while Lisa, Walter, and the Astronaut hide in a room nearby. For a while, we can only hear the Zorgon's heavy breath and heavier steps while the characters clutter on one corner of the screen.

• The People's Court: This would happen when a verdict was given after one party had been ejected from the courtroom or stormed out on their own prior to the ruling. That party usually lost their case. However, circa 2010, a defendant won her countersuit after she fainted during the case and had to be removed on a stretcher prior to the ruling, leading to the judgment animation playing on the empty side.
• Sadakatsiz: When Doctor Asya reveals to the Güçlüs that their daughter Derin has been Asya's husband's mistress for two years and that Derin is pregnant by Volkan, she leaves them all to stew on the revelation. During the whole scene, Volkan is shot paired with his wife Asya; the latter's departure is marked by a brief shot of Volkan regretfully sitting alone on the right side of the screen. This also means that Asya no longer views herself and Volkan as a couple.
• White Collar: In "Au Revoir", when Peter imagines Neal’s reflection in the window one year after his death, Neal’s reflection takes up the left half of the frame.

• Harvey: Used frequently to keep Harvey in-frame since he's an invisible giant rabbit. When other characters interact with him, whether they can see him or not, they'll be shown conspicuously occupying just one half of the stage.

• Left 4 Dead: In the introductory cutscene, the characters encounter the first mutated infected, the Witch. First, they believe she's a fellow survivor after hearing her sobs from behind a door. Just as Zoey is saying this, Bill turns his head to look at said door, with him occupying the right side of the screen and the door on the right-center. This serves as foreshadowing that the wailing woman might not be human after all. Later, when Louis has already spooked her and the three have exited from the room, he closes the door and we get a repeat of the earlier shot while the Witch pounds relentlessly.
• Metroid Dread: Almost all appearances of the terrifying E.M.M.I.s come accompanied by ominous half-empty screens to build up their presence. In the second cutscene, the first time Samus enters an E.M.M.I.'s patrolling area, the music suddenly changes to a dreary, suspiciously empty tone. Then, as she scans her surroundings for danger, she's briefly placed beside a foggy door frame from which, some seconds later, an E.M.M.I. will emerge. Later, once Samus has obtained the only weapon capable of destroying these units—the Omega Cannon—, she'll have to wait a while for it to charge. Since she's cornered herself in one side of the screen, awaiting her enemy's approach, she's alone for some heart attack-inducing moments before the E.M.M.I., completing the two-character shot.

• Metal Family: In the awesome pilot, Glam shows his loving drawing of (a menacing and winged) Vicky to a bunch of people while trying to find her. The last person is a kid with whom he's sharing a park bench. The boy is scared and possibly thinks Glam is a weirdo for crushing on a woman like that, so he quickly scoots away, leaving Glam alone in a shot meant for two.

• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: In Act 3, there is a scene of Penny sitting in the laundromat with two frozen yogurts, waiting for Billy, who isn't showing up.
• RedLetterMedia: During their commentary track for A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Mike Stoklasa plays dumb and, in a fake panic, asks Rich Evans why there's a distracting amount of space on the right side of the screen, as if he doesn't know a jumpscare is about to happen.

• Winx Club: The first season's credits feature an official art of each girl alongside a miniature of the boy they're going to be romantically paired. However, Flora only gets a pumpkin with eyes as if suggesting that either pumpkin is her Love Interest or she won't get one this season. The trope is ultimately subverted after Mirtha is turned into the exact same pumpkin as the credits' miniature. Initially, it was meant as foreshadowing for the romantic undertones of the two girls' friendship.