28 Grammar of the Shot

Look Room

Our composition of this individual is getting better, but the center framing is not work-
ing so well. Notice how the face in the center of the screen is looking off to the side
at someone or something yet to be shown in another shot. A centralized framing like
this is very solid but perhaps it is too uniform, too symmetrical, or too compositionally
boring. Let us create more look room (Figure 2.5).

Look room (also called looking room or nose room) is the empty space that we have
provided within the frame, between the talents eyes and the edge of the frame oppo-
site the face. It is this empty area, or negative space that helps balance out this
new frame where the weight of the object (the talents head) occupies frame left and
the weight of the empty space occupies frame right. In this case, the word weight
really implies a visual mass whether it is an actual object, such as a head, or an empty
space, such as the void lling frame right. We will see later how this negative space and
the direction of the actors gaze impel an audience to also want to see what the actor is
looking at, but for now, let us stay focused on where in the frame the head is placed.

FIGURE 2.5 Placing head on frame left allows the talent to look across the empty space.