Published: February 28, 2025 | Last Updated: May 28, 2025
What is negative space? Definition & Meaning
Negative space is the area around and between the subject in a frame. It gives shape to what we see, controls how we feel, and creates mood by highlighting absence, silence, or vastness.
Where positive space defines presence, negative space defines absence. In visual art, this space helps us see the subject. In film, it makes us feel something about them.
When a character is alone in a wide shot, or framed against a blank wall, that space isn’t just empty, it’s doing work. It’s focusing our attention, creating tension, or giving the image room to breathe.
Negative Space in Art and Design
In visual art, negative space is a foundational tool. Artists like Henri Matisse, Katsushika Hokusai, and M.C. Escher used it to define shape and balance.
Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa (c. 1831) uses negative space to sharpen the drama of the wave. The shape of the crest, and the tiny Mount Fuji beneath it, gain their power from the sky around them. The space isn’t blank. It’s what gives the image tension. That trick, where space becomes structure, applies directly to cinematography.
What Does Negative Space Do in Film?
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
In film, negative space shapes both image and emotion. It highlights isolation, creates tension, and leads the eye. It can symbolize emotional disconnection, acting as a visual metaphor for absence, loss, or alienation.
But it’s not always bleak. Negative space can also suggest peace, awe, or spiritual openness, like in Terrence Malick’s quiet fields or Hayao Miyazaki’s open skies. The emptiness makes room for reflection, not just discomfort.
Image Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures.
It also controls rhythm. A long, still shot with lots of empty space can slow down pacing. It gives the moment room to breathe or stall, making silence feel intentional, not like a pause.
Image Credit: Studio Ghibli.
Negative space isn’t just visual, it works with sound. A wide, empty frame paired with silence or faint ambient noise can be unsettling or intimate. The less you show, and the less you hear, the more your brain fills in.
Framing someone with negative space can show powerlessness or power. A small figure lost in space may look vulnerable, but a dominant figure centered in an empty room might seem invincible. It all depends on context and scale.
Read more about the difference between positive and negative space in film.
Negative Space in Horror, Sci-Fi, and Animation
In horror and sci-fi, negative space often becomes the threat. A frame left open can make us anticipate something entering it, like in The Babadook (2014) or It Follows (2014). It’s the visual equivalent of the acousmetrê in sound.
Image Credit: Umbrella Entertainment.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Arrival (2016), space itself becomes part of the emotion: vast, cold, unknowable.
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.
Animated films use negative space just as intentionally. In Wall-E (2008), silence and visual emptiness make the robot’s loneliness feel cosmic. Studio Ghibli often uses negative space to slow down and reflect, with quiet moments in nature or still interiors letting the story pause and reset.
Tips for Using Negative Space
- Use wide shots to isolate characters
- Leave room in the frame to show absence or delay payoff
- Balance emptiness to keep the subject focused, not lost
- Pair space with silence or subtle sound design
- Let space reflect the character’s inner world or power dynamic
Wide shots exaggerate space. Off-center framing can destabilize it. A clean background makes your subject pop. It’s not just about minimalism, it’s about meaning.
Summing Up
Negative space in film isn’t just blankness, it’s part of the message. It can isolate, inspire, calm, or threaten. From Welles to Coppola to Glazer, from Totoro to 2001, filmmakers use it to show what isn’t there, and why it matters. Sometimes, the strongest presence in a frame is the absence.
Read Next: Want to sharpen your eye for visual composition?
Start with the FilmDaft illustrated guide to visual composition or explore how mood and emotion shift with color psychology in cinematography.
Then browse all articles on framing, balance, symmetry, and spatial design , from leading lines to negative space.
Or return to the Cinematography section to explore lenses, lighting, and camera movement techniques.