History Main / BehindTheBlack

In any visual medium, every single time a character runs out in the street, and we, the audience, can't see if it's safe, that character will be [[LookBothWays hit by a truck.]] Of course this may be explained by them having other reasons not to see around them, like being distracted, in a dimly-lit area etc. The important thing is that they tend to share their vision (and lack of it) with the viewers in order to experience things simultaneously (often things that they wish weren't there to begin with).

One of the more common examples of this trope can be found in top-down {{R|olePlayingGame}}PGs, which feature hidden passages which should be obvious to the characters.

It's also typical that if a woman is naked against her will and shown from the waist up, she only covers her breasts and leaves her lower body completely exposed as if the other characters also only can see her upper body.

* The ability to step off screen and disappear to other characters is developed into an almost super-human talent in the anime and manga ''Manga/KurokosBasketball''. The main character, Kuroko, becomes invisible to other characters by virtue of always being out of frame. He can also deliberately disappear or reappear by ducking in and out of view. This happens numerous times every episode, especially on the basketball court. But as other characters become aware of his special talent, the trick becomes less effective and they start to be able to see him behind the black.

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', we get a close up of Hachigen's face so we can't see his arm [[spoiler:is missing.]] Somehow, Barragan fails to notice this until the camera zooms out even though he was looking at Hachiken this whole time.

* ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'': In most of albums featuring Queen Cleopatra, there will be a scene where Cleo shows up in a huge sphinx-shaped throne pulled by dozens of slaves ... and no-one notices her approach until she appears on panel.

* In ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'', there's a scene where several of the toys have to cross to the other side of a garbage dumpster. In the DVD Commentary, the filmmakers point out the toys could have simply ''walked around'' the dumpster, so they had had to ''very carefully'' set the camera angles on each shot to prevent the audience from realizing that.

* Near the beginning of Franchise/{{Disney|AnimatedCanon}}'s ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'', Robin has the Prince distracted while Little John robs him blind. At one point, he cuts a hole in the bottom of a chest and drains its gold coins out. However, there are four guards holding the chest on their shoulders. Justified in that the guards are rhinos, and with their eyes set in the sides of their heads, their field of vision doesn't cover the area forward and down.

* PlayedForLaughs at the end of ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'', Jake and Elwood get to the clerk's office, file their paperwork, and save the orphanage. Then the camera turns and about forty police officers and National Guardsmen are right behind them with guns drawn. Jake, Elwood, and the clerk didn't see or hear them come in, despite the fact that they were the opposite of stealthy in the buildup scenes and would have had to break through the Blues's makeshift barricades. In the wide shot, ''the clerk'' (played by Creator/StevenSpielberg) is seen pointing a gun at the brothers from behind them. Despite the fact that literally a second earlier he was seated on the opposite side of the counter, unarmed.

* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' has a particularly unbelievable example. The characters are in the middle of an open area of a park, but don't notice the ''entire {{Kaiju}}'' that's almost on top of them until they (and the shoulder-mounted camera) turn around. Apparently, it's a really stealthy million ton animal.
** Eariler in the film, they manage to miss roughly a Company of soldiers and vehicles coming towards them until the moment they're spotted on camera.

* In ''Film/DWar'', for some reason bystanders never notice a 100-metres long giant snake until it is breathing down their necks...

* In the climax of ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}'', John Preston walks into a small circular room with numerous pillars. After a brief conversation with the bad guy on the opposite side of the room, they cut to a shot standing in front of the door, while bad guys step out from behind the pillars. The problem, is that they were on the same side of the pillars as Preston. Some even walk all the way around the pillar just to make for a better reveal, rather than just moving straight for their target.

* In ''Film/EvilDead2'', Ash gets tackled by a man he didn't see coming. From the open doorway he was looking at, directly in front of him. He also managed to not see the three other people behind the first one, all walking towards the open door of the cabin. In the director's commentary it is mentioned to be intentional because it catches everyone off guard by being impossible.

* Attempt at a justification in ''Film/TheGreatRace'' when Professor Fate and Max are hiding behind the same Rock but can't see each other because of the snowstorm. But given the lack of space, and the fact that they could hear each other yelling, it's probably RuleOfFunny rather than a justification.

* Marvin becomes very susceptible to this in ''Film/HomeAlone2LostInNewYork'', missing both a ten foot hole that should be illuminated from Christmas and street lights coming through the door, and an equally large bright-green area of slippery goo, even though he can see a rope hanging across the room...

* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', Steve walks out the front door, picks up the paper, reads it, looks to the neighbors to his left and right packing up, then when a helicopter flies overhead he sees the giant flying saucer that's been in front of him the whole time. You'd think it'd be the first thing he saw when he opened the door. To make things worse, Jasmine makes the same mistake, not noticing it until she sees he's staring at it. Justified since Steve was looking down most of the time, first just sleepily then after tripping over a toy left in the sidewalk. Jasmine was bringing Steve a brimming cup of coffee, so was likely watching that to make sure she didn't spill. The enormous size of the spaceship might have contributed. Not looking at it, sleepy, concentrating on other things ... big dark thing hanging over the city in the distance = "dark cloud".
* Variant form in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'', in the "leap of faith" scene. The viewers cannot see the rock bridge because it's camouflaged against the rock wall of the chasm. But the viewers are watching a two-dimensional image; to the characters in the scene, anyone having binocular vision should be able to easily see the bridge, regardless of its paint scheme. (As a thought experiment, imagine the movie were converted to 3-D; that scene could never be made to work.) It also requires the person to be exactly the right height and standing in the exact middle of the ledge.

** Earlier in the film, the characters somehow don't notice the Spinosaurus, which is quite large and standing in plain sight of at least half the party, until a satellite phone in its belly rings and gets their attention. Also strange because they could apparently hear the phone from quite a ways off, but somehow couldn't hear the sound of the twenty-something ton dinosaur coming at them.
** In [[Film/JurassicPark the first movie]], the T-Rex miraculously manages to come inside the Jurassic Park center, even though earlier T-Rex caused BadVibrations in glass of water. Admittedly, they were a bit distracted by the Velociraptors that were trying to kill them.

* At the end of ''Film/LegendsOfTheFall'', Tristan (Creator/BradPitt) is in the woods looking at a dead animal. He's somehow able to completely over-look a full-grown bear that's only a few feet from him. He only notices the bear when the camera is turned on him.

** In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', Hulk's hilarious smack-down of Loki involves this: Loki is looking straight at the Hulk as the latter begins his "I am a GOD, you dull creature" speech. There is enough distance between them that Loki would be able to see the Hulk's whole figure (so Hulk couldn't make any move without it being seen). But Loki is the only one in shot, and doesn't react until Hulk has already snatched his feet from under him mid-sentence so he can whip him around like a ragdoll.

* ''Film/TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld'' features a scene where a canal lock-keeper spends a scene looking for the film's monster, only to be attacked from the previously invisible monster ''snail'' hiding behind the camera.

*** There are some issues with this in the early chase scenes. For example, there is a part where Jack is being chased down a set of stairs by several British soldiers. He reaches the bottom. The camera cuts to the soldiers who then reach the bottom and run down the hall. Cut to Jack hiding behind a table at the bottom of the stairs. Even given that the soldier closest to him in pursuit turned away for a second to yell for back-up, it's highly improbable he could have hidden there without the soldiers seeing him do it.

** This trick is also used during Phil's "death bed" scene. The scene actually takes place in an overcrowded Jag, but plays out as an intimate moment between Shaun and his step-father. Edgar describes it as artistic license to assume that the other passengers do not hear, and acknowledges the technique of cropping them out of shot to achieve this.

* The killer worm B-movie ''Film/{{Squirm}}'' had the heroine walk down a hallway and right into the arms of the worm-faced villain, who was standing the middle of the hallway, but just offscreen.

* ''Film/TopSecret'' plays this for laughs as the main characters infiltrate the enemy camp by crawling along the ground, only to come up a pair of boots presumably belonging to an enemy soldier. The characters all look worried and then the camera pans back to show there's nobody there, just a pair of boots on the ground.

* In ''Film/WorldWarZ'', a JumpScare involves Gerry slowly looking over a stairwell in a building from top to bottom, represented in a first person view, before a zombie suddenly leaps out screaming into his face as the camera reaches the bottom. There's nowhere to hide in the stairwell and the zombies in this canon are loud and fast monsters at all times, with the shot suggesting that Gerry opened a door with a zombie right in front of it and the zombie patiently waited to be noticed before attacking.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Towards the end of season 2 episode [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E11Ted "Ted"]] the character of the same name appears in Buffy's room by stepping out of the corner by her bed. Problem is, Buffy had been sitting in her room with a clear view of that corner for some time before Ted appears. It seems the only reason she didn't see him is because the camera was pointing towards her and not the corner.

* ''Series/{{Community}}'' pulls a rather funny version of this when Annie is in Abed and Troy's "Dreamatorium"; a small room they basically pretend functions as a holo-deck. While we see the scenery, it's repeated shown that Annie just sees Abed in a room, yet she ends up getting enough into it that she tries to storm off and runs into a wall.

* In ''Series/TheDresdenFiles'', the warden Morgan frequently ''appears'' right next to Harry Dresden, sometimes with weapon drawn, in a position that would be impossible to reach without being seen. Harry believes this to be some sort of teleportation, but Morgan himself describes it as using magic to make Harry not see him. In the DVD commentary the creators explicitly state that, with regards to how Morgan appears and disappears without being noticed, "the editor likes him" and cuts away from him whenever he needs to not be seen.
* Double Subverted in ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier''. Having realised he's being followed, Bucky backtracks to an alleyway. He appears to be alone, but as he turns to look behind him, the camera pans round to reveal... nobody. Then he turns back again, and the camera pans again to reveal [[spoiler:Ayo]].
* In ''Series/FawltyTowers'', this is used to conceal the walls of the set wobbling. In "The Psychiatrist", Sybil storms into the bedroom, and slams the door. The camera zooms in on Basil just before this, and the door is heard slamming. The outtakes video shows the wall wobbling considerably, followed by Basil (remaining in character) testing the wall, as he did earlier in the episode.

* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' frequently has characters running into Frasier's kitchen - which is right by his living room, with no door or anything in the way - and having highly private conversations (that sometimes involve outright ''yelling'') that should easily be overhead by everyone, yet never are.
** Subverted in one case, where Niles rings Frasier's doorbell, and Frasier insists to Martin and Daphne that he's not going to talk about [[spoiler: Maris serving Niles with divorce papers]]. Cue Niles speaking up from behind the door with "Would you mind not talking about it a little less loudly?"
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Monica gets led into a room for a surprise party, and one person was "hiding" ''from the camera'' in-between an armchair and the door Monica used to walk into the room - such that it would have been impossible for Monica not to see her the moment she came in.

** ''Sail Away'' has an inversion of this trope. An old man (Frank) is seeing visions of his dead ex-girlfriend, Gemma, who he hasn't seen in 58 years. At one point, he's walking on the beach when he sees her. Obviously, it's her. She's wearing a green pea coat and has long, flowing hair. Without taking his eyes off her, Frank approaches her, but between camera shots, Gemma is replaced by Jonathan, wearing a leather jacket. At this point, Frank asks Johnathan if he's the only one there and asks him if he's seen Gemma.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'', Charles walks past some trashcans when Colonel Flagg whispers his name. He looks around, but doesn't see Flagg until he stands up. The trashcans were between Flagg and the camera but not Flagg and Charles.

* In the ''Series/MortalKombatConquest'' episode "Undying Dream", Taja uncovers a corpse hanging in a cocoon, stares at it for a few seconds, turns it so that it faces the audience and only THEN reacts with a gasp of dismay.

** On two other occasions, a car is parked, but the audience cannot see that somebody is inside it. In "Mr Bean goes to Town", Mr Bean takes off his shoe and sock, and puts them on the roof of a parked car, which drives away. In "The Trouble with Mr Bean", he parks his car in an impossibly narrow space by getting out of the car, and pushing it into the space; then one of the adjacent cars drives away, the driver invisible to the audience.
* PlayedForLaughs in the ''Gunslinger'' episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''. After observing a character in the movie engage in OffscreenTeleportation (due to poor editing), the characters do a sketch where Servo explains that he can do this as well by exploiting quantum mechanics. His "teleportation" is clearly just him exiting one side of the screen while another Servo puppet enters from the other side. Nevertheless, Joel and Crow initially look off camera wondering where he went. This also comes up in a gunfight late in the movie, where people go into and come out of buildings in impossible ways; the Riffers claim it's actually the movie integrating the fact the town is just a set of false fronts.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' Season 6, in the episode "Nightwalker", a man is trying to follow the team when they notice him. They go down an alley and Teal'c hides behind a wall from the perspective of the camera, but in clear view of the guy following them. The guy runs down the alley, and stops next to Teal'c, who surprises and grabs the guy.

* As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kJAIKLbhdk this video]] shows, ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s Weyoun could apparently only see what was in-frame. Somewhat justified as he explains that he has very weak eyesight, and his attention was with the guy he was talking to. Or he was deliberately treating Damar like a lackey. Or Damar had just entered the room and didn't enter Weyoun's field of view until the camera panned out.

** In an episode of ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaSteel'' Hayley and Calvin are both running for school president. Calvin gives out balloons to encourage people to vote for him, with Brody and Sarah helping. There's a hissing sound and they turn to see a huge hot air balloon, about ten feet behind them, with Hayley's face plastered on it, and Hayley and Preston standing at a desk giving out tickets to ride on it. Apparently they'd just teleported in, because the former three are astounded.

** In the episode "Prey", Andrea is running from a road into some woods to avoid being seen by a car. We see her run up a hill and hide behind the tree with the camera always focused in the direction of the road. We cut to a close-up of Andrea as she rests against a tree with her back to the road; and bam! Suddenly a zombie appears behind the tree and grabbing her through a fork in the trunk. To compound the issue a further three zombies pop up in-front of her, wandering into frame, while she's being grabbed. The viewer should have seen the first zombie, ruining the JumpScare and Andrea should have seen the zombies directly in-front of her before deciding it was a good time to take a breather.

* Happens from time to time in wrestling, since the announcers use their monitors when calling the action, so that they'll talk about what the viewers are seeing. This can result in somewhat absurd cases of someone getting into the ring without the announcers even noticing that they're there until the camera angle changes, despite the fact that they're (usually) sitting at ringside.

* Used well in ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'': ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Brotherhood]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations Revelations]]'' with the assassin recruits. When they are signalled, they will often appear from just off screen as if they have been hiding out of sight the entire time. In awkward locations or when the camera's moving too much it is possible to see them appear out of thin air, though.

* An unusual example in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''. Batman rescues a criminal late in the game, who stands there musing to himself about the irony. The player must then guide Batman to hack through a locked door right next to him. The games mechanics has the camera zoom in over Batman's shoulder to show his concentration on hacking. The [[UngratefulBastard criminal]] will attack you, but only as long as he isn't in the same camera shot as Batman.

* ''VideoGame/ContraReBirth'': The boss of Area 3 repeatedly bounces off the edges of the screen when defeated, even though you're riding a truck through a wide open area with nothing to bounce off of.

** In the UsefulNotes/{{P|layStation4}}S4 game, the dwarves Brok and Sindri have the unique ability to disappear, to step between the realm between realms and become invisible to the naked eye. They do this by getting out of view of the camera, and thus are invisible to Kratos and Atreus

* The ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' RPG ''MS Saga'' does this in the city of Eisengrad, where there are "secret pathways" that let you get on top of the buildings and find hidden items. These paths are hidden from the player by foreground elements that block one's view of the road, but would be in full view of the protagonist if the game were done in first person.
* The ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' series tries to stay in a player-controlled first person POV whenever possible. In the commentary, the devs reveal that they sometimes have to work hard to manipulate the player into looking at an important plot point or visually impressive event.

* During one of the flying segments of ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', two Monoeye enemies move in front of the screen, and Pit yells at the to get out of his way. Even though the Monoeyes were behind Pit and wouldn't have been hindering him at all; it only hurts the player. This would not be the first time [[MediumAwareness Pit comments on something that hinders the player and not him]]; it's also hinted that they're blocking the line of sight of his MissionControl, meaning they can't steer his flying.

* In both ''VideoGame/LegendOfLegaia'' games, when entering a new dungeon, you'll often see cutscenes giving a general idea of its layout, or the dungeon boss gloating, or other scenes of that nature. These scenes incidentally occasionally reveal treasure chests and side-passages (which lead to more chests) that you might otherwise miss due to the limited camera.

** Since X can cling to walls, his games do this on the vertical plane as well. What may look like a {{Bottomless Pit|s}} for the player may actually lead to a secret chamber below, hidden only by the screen's limits (but which should be obvious from X's point of view). The [[VideoGame/MegaManX1 first game]] did go out of its way to teach this to the player in its introductory stage, but then goes all out on abusing this as early as ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX2 X2]]'', where X needs a helmet upgrade to point out a "secret path" down a pit that he should clearly be able to see into.

** The ''VideoGame/MegaManZX'' series does this also, but gives Model P and Model L special abilities to help find such items.

** In both ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'' and ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearGhostBabel Ghost Babel]]'', Snake has to identify a female soldier, but due to the eight-bit graphics he's incapable of recognizing her as being, well, the only woman on the base. In the case of ''Ghost Babel'', he persuades the woman to give him some way of identifying her:

** There's a hint Pliskin gives you during the bomb-defusal early in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' which seems to indicate that the top-down third-person view the player has had since the beginning of the series is ''[[NinjaProp actually how player characters in this series see the world]]''.
** At about the halfway point, Pliskin's helicopter (and then two minutes later, Solidus' Harrier) pulls a StealthHiBye on Raiden due to being hidden behind the boundaries of the screen. It's subtly done, but in the director's commentary Creator/HideoKojima points out that even though Raiden isn't looking at it, the noise real helicopters make is immense, and he'd be able to hear it for miles away. Of course, in game, we only hear it once we can see it.

* ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'': Samus’s first encounter with Raven Beak comes just after she exits an elevator in the introductory cutscene. After the doors open, she spends a few seconds looking around her surroundings, and continues doing so as she steps out onto a long bridge, before suddenly startling and drawing on a looming figure standing on the other end — which has been directly in front of her from the moment she exited the elevator, and who by all indications has been there staring at her the entire time.
* ''VideoGame/{{MUGEN}}'': One of Team S.M.R.T.'s [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer Simpson's]] intros is that he appears to be shirtless and buff, before his "muscular body" turns out to be a cardboard prop that falls down. As a side-scrolling fighting game, the angle could fool ''the player,'' but ''the opponent(s)'' should clearly be able to see Homer standing side-by-side with his prop body, instead of behind it.
* In ''VideoGame/MySimsKingdom'', the group is proceeding to Morcubus' castle, and is almost there when they almost run into a billboard advertising cookies. Buddy even wonders how they missed it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Nira Oni}}'': One of the dolls the player needs to find in order to do the [[GoldenEnding Perfect Ending]] is hidden on a secret passage in a random hallway that is easily missable and nigh-impossible to find in-game, but that should be easily visible to the main character in-universe. One of the puzzles also {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this by telling the player to "go straight to the right", which, when complied, reveals a secret passage that'd be impossible to find in the game itself, but that would be one of the very first things the protagonist would see once he entered the room.

** [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl The Sinnoh games]] contain a "secret" entrance to Wayward Cave which is only hidden because it's under a cycling bridge and you have an aerial view. To make this even weirder it's apparently even unnoticeable to ''characters within the game'', which seems to indicate that ''everyone'' sees with an overheard view.

** It leads to great, fear-inspiring atmospheric affects. In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'', for example, the player must head directly ''towards'' the camera, thus obscuring the character's actual view. When it switches to behind the player, you are treated the sight of a window and a scary creepy thing (shortly revealed to be a [[DemonicSpiders Licker]]) crawling by right outside the window!
** Also worth noting that while enemies off camera are hidden from the ''camera'', they are not hidden from the ''character.'' The auto-aim will easily pick up and track threats off camera, and in most games the character will turn his or her head to look at something important.

* In the demo for the 2008 game "Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis," the game developers needed to ensure that Watson remain near to the player at all times. Rather than have him follow along by walking, they leveraged this trope by causing him to stand still until he was outside of the player's line of sight, then instantly teleport to the player's side. The result was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13YlEPwOfmk decidedly creepy]], as the player could back away from a distant Watson, then rotate 180 degrees to find him standing at their side.

** Another instance in the same area, at some point you go onto the roof, which is wide open and almost completely empty. After finding the door is locked, you walk up to a fence on the side (with the camera pointing right at it) only to be assaulted by Pyramid Head who wanders in from just off screen.
* Most of the bosses in ''VideoGame/SineMora'' are just off screen until you fight them, and most of those bosses are enormous mechanical ships that the pilots absolutely would've seen beforehand.

* The ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' series have enemies that can cheaply hide off screen or be half exposed on the screen border and yet the player cannot hit them even though the character can clearly see them.

** Far more evil is the secret entrance to Marrymore Chapel, which is located on a wall that faces northeast. When you first show up in the level, the bad guys lock the front door, so you have to either walk around the chapel and press yourself against every wall or [[GuideDangIt read the strategy guide]] to proceed.

* ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' is an RTS with a massive scale. In the single-player campaign every mission starts in a relatively small area, and then the map expands as the mission progresses. In almost every mission this will reveal that the strategy you were using is totally inappropriate given the new info. Also, enemy units can fire from unrevealed parts of the map; your own units cannot fire back, even though they should be able to see them a few yards away.

* Averted in the first ''VideoGame/{{Tenchu}}: Stealth Assassins'' game, which despite having a third person viewpoint has a camera which is actually pretty good at only letting you see what your character could realistically see from where he/she is.

** A similar thing happens at the beginning of Snowdin, when the player character hides behind a Conveniently Shaped Lamp to hide from Papyrus. The lamp is a pixel-perfect silhouette match for the player character, but since Papyrus (unlike the player) is not viewing the scene directly from the south, he should be able to [[http://flavor-text-chara.tumblr.com/post/144717670540/intermission-comic-3 see the player character standing next to the lamp]].

* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadSeasonOne'': At one point in Episode 4, Lee and Co. are faced with an abandoned house whose locked back door they need to get open. As it happens, the house's backyard also has a shed, but because it is only visible in the foreground and its door is facing away from the camera, the option is not available to search it, nor does anyone suggest it. This oversight is particularly noticable because, one, sheds are a common place to store tools that might help them get inside (this one does not, it's revealed later, but of course they wouldn't have known this at the time), and two, the solution the group eventually must resort to is... gruesome, to say the least.

* ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney'': Baked into some of the games key mechanics
** The "Dance of Deduction" involve Herlock Sholmes noting supposed "evidence" around the room and using it to make wild deductions, then the player has to find proper evidence to replace his "evidence" so he can make a proper deduction. Often, finding the proper evidence requires only moving the camera slightly or changing its angle, revealing things that should have required no detective skills to notice. This has included a "Man" having a couple feet of long luxurious blonde hair hanging down from beneath his black "hair", or a brilliant bejeweled tiara that was left completely out in the open, save for the one precise camera angle you start with

--> [[HelloInsertNameHere You]]: Yamato-san was right! There are alot of people out here! Except... you can't see any of them in this image because, um... because.

* When Bob of ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'' sends an army of Robot Masters to kill Mega Man, Mega Man doesn't notice the sheer number of Robot Masters until he orders the camera man to zoom out.

* One of the main criticisms with the Maltak arc of ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'' was that despite Maltak being a largely featureless plain, people repeatedly miss obvious things like other people walking up on them, or the context of a loud argument despite being right there, or armies attacking them until they appeared in-panel. Most JustForFun/{{egregious}}, however, is when the mountain the orcs were next to ditched them and no one noticed.

* Most of the time in ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'', the elderly High Lords of Terra are sitting around a table, shown only from the waist up at most. The Fabricator-General of Mars appears approximately human-sized in these shots, until a later episode establishes that he's a towering MechanicalAbomination. Karstodes claims that this whole time, the table and the High Lords were sitting on his body.

** Humorously used in episode "The Third": Darwin is looking at his reflection in a window, sees what he thinks is Gumball's reflection, turns around, and stares offscreen for several seconds until Gumball points out that he's ''not there'' but rather outside, on the opposite side of the window.

** Roger has a similar version of this ability, being able to change his disguises so fast that all it takes is for the camera to do a closeup on the person talking to him, and when it goes back to a wide shot said person is shocked to find Roger wearing an entirely different outfit. It gets to the point he's able to switch between standing next to Francine and ''riding in a plane heading back to America'', though this one does seem to tire him out as he asks Francine between breaths to stop turning around.
** In the episode "With Friends Like Steve's" Stan runs a fingerprint test on his home computer. When the results come up on screen, the shot's positioned in such a way so that Stan's head blocks the portion of the screen saying whose fingerprints they were. Stan then [[LampshadeHanging comments]] that all he needs to do now is move his head so he can see the other side of the screen, and only ''then'' does he react to the information displayed.

* ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'' revealed on few occasions that Mom and Dad [[EldritchAbomination have no upper parts]], but for most time the camera only showed them from waist down, or the rest was obscured by something in the foreground. However, they must have clearly been exposed to everyone else in the show, and somehow nobody had any problem with two pairs of legs walking around.

** Subverted. When Heloise is on a date with Peep in the movie theatre and Jimmy is sitting behind them and seething, Peep ducks under the chairs to raid them off gum. Heloise quickly pulls out a cardboard cutout of him and places him in the chair and pretends she's laughing at a joke he just told. Cue Jimmy's comment:
-->'''Jimmy:''' "Aw, even his cardboard cutout is funnier than me!"

* In ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'', Coop, Kiva, and Jamie go to the Speedimart, during which time Megas is towed away for being in a no-parking zone. Nobody notices the 80-foot tall robot is gone until they get to the sidewalk and Jamie points it out.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'' revealed that the opposite side of his father's study (the one the 'camera' would be in) contains a vast, obvious hallway covered in weaponry. Orel says he never noticed it before, and is given the response "It sort of blends into the woodwork."

** In "It's About Time" Twilight Sparkle fails to notice the entrance to the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the Canterlot Library, which is just barely off screen, until Pinkie Pie points out that it is right next to them. Twilight [[LampshadeHanging immediately questions]] how she could have possibly missed that; however, this is also justified since she's very sleep deprived.
** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E24EquestriaGames Equestria Games]]", after melting the giant ice block, Spike pulls an umbrella from just below the bottom of the screen. He opens it to shield himself from the brief downpour, then puts it back where it was, below the bottom of the screen. The camera cuts to a wider shot of Spike in the middle of the field. There's no umbrella, and nothing it could possibly fit behind.
* ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'': In episode "Nullzilla", Bob and his friends fail to notice the giant Null monster until Mike pointed it out.

** The idea behind the trope, that nothing happens if it's off screen, is lampshaded in one episode. When Homer leaves Moe's, Moe comments to the rest of the barflies that "Alright, Homer is gone, let's all go back to being perfectly still until he's back".

** After Kenny is temporarily killed off in "Kenny Dies", he reappears without any prior explanation one season later in "Red Sleigh Down". Kyle asks where Kenny has been, to which Kenny replies, "Oh, I've just been hanging out." while pointing off screen.

** A gag similar to the above happens in "Rock Bottom". [=SpongeBob=] places a cardboard cutout of himself next to a vending machine across the street from a bus stop to keep the bus from driving off without him. Even though the facade of the cutout is on the opposite side from the bus, it only notices that the cutout is not [=SpongeBob=] and drives off when it falls over.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Teen Titans|2003}}'' has an interesting example. In "Betrayal" Terra sees Slade's reflection on a mirror, but when she turns around she can't see any sign of him. We're probably meant to believe that Slade simply left the room during the time it took Terra to turn her head, except that there is a ''very'' clear shot of Terra looking behind her while the mirror in front of her still shows Slade's motionless reflection.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'', humans are always shown with their faces offscreen. In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerryTales'', this allowed a '''tiger''' to stand on its hind legs in front of a crowd pretending to be the Mayor. Nobody noticed, until its painted-on 'suit' was washed away and it dropped back onto all fours.

* An invoked form of this was used in traditional Japanese theatre in that you weren't supposed to pay attention to the black-clothed prop hands. This is where the stereotypical black ninja getup comes from, since the best way for a guy to hide is to pretend to be one of said stage hands, and then [[MemeticMutation flip out and kill people]]. This concept, used intentionally in a work, is called a NinjaProp on this site.

** Long time bunraku puppeteers work while clearly visible. Audiences that are watching the play find them very easy to ignore, even though they're three times the size of the actors and looming over them. Less experienced workers do wear the all black costume to make themselves less visible.

** When Tom and Maddie are discussing the next steps of their plan in Rachel's house. They decide to take Rachel's car since Tom's would draw too much attention. Cut to Rachel tied up in her living room through a doorway they can both see protesting this decision.

* In ''Film/TheHorrorOfPartyBeach'', a man discovers a dead body in the car. The dead person's face is pointed right at him, but he has no reaction. Then when he shifts the body so that the viewer can see the horribly mutilated face (and the character can't) ''that's'' when he reacts to it.
** Earlier there is a scene where the characters, who are walking on an abandoned street, don't see the small army directly behind them until a shot is fired and the camera turns around.

* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', Steve walks out the front door, picks up the paper, reads it, looks to the neighbors to his left and right packing up, then when a helicopter flies overhead he sees the giant flying saucer that's been in front of him the whole time. You'd think it'd be the first thing he saw when he opened the door. To make things worse, Jasmine makes the same mistake, not noticing it until she sees he's staring at it. Partially justified since Steve was looking down most of the time, first just sleepily then after tripping over a toy left in the sidewalk. Jasmine was bringing Steve a brimming cup of coffee, so was likely watching that to make sure she didn't spill. The enormous size of the spaceship might have contributed. Not looking at it, sleepy, concentrating on other things ... big dark thing hanging over the city in the distance = "dark cloud".

* Played straight in ''Film/MenInBlackII'' [[MuggingTheMonster when a hideous alien shapeshifting into a highly attractive woman clad only in her underwear is mugged]] mere seconds after all her weird tentacle things have retracted into her head. From a mugger ''who had apparently been standing in front of her''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Contra}} [=ReBirth=]'': The boss of Area 3 repeatedly bounces off the edges of the screen when defeated, even though you're riding a truck through a wide open area with nothing to bounce off of.

* Played for laughs in ''Film/MarsAttacks'': Creator/SarahJessicaParker grabs Creator/MichaelJFox's hand, but the camera pulls back to reveal she is holding his severed hand. She realizes this only after the audience sees it.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut "The Impossible Astronaut"]], a school bus drops Amy and Rory off in the middle of nowhere. As the bus leaves, they turn around to — surprise! — find the Doctor and a snazzy red car sitting behind them. However, they would have noticed him there as the bus arrived, if they had simply ''looked out the window''! (If they'd been sitting on the appropriate side of the bus, and not preparing to debark.)

* In ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'', Diane is a 30-foot-tall giant girl. Despite her height, she routinely manages to surprise other characters who can't see her until she shows up on-screen. Even if they were looking in her direction.

* In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheTwoTowers'': It is dawn, and the Three Hunters have been running for days. They crest a ridge, and Aragorn suddenly stops, wary. He signals, and he, Legolas, and Gimli run across the top of the ridge to hide behind a rock... and miss, by a matter of INCHES, being trampled by a huge freaking contingent of horses and riders that are coming over the hill. Okay, A) what, the keen-eyed elf didn't see them coming, and the ranger who can hear orcs ten miles away by putting his head to the ground didn't hear the horses' approach? B) What genius decides to hide by first running across the high ground? But that's okay, because C) it obviously worked, as the riders don't notice those folks that they just about ran over until they're several yards past... and then Aragorn shouts and that ''instantly'' gets their attention (over the noise of hooves, harnesses, tack, etc.). So many things wrong with that scene... [[RuleOfCool it did look awfully neat though.]]
** In Tolkien's original they spot the riders from very far off already (five leagues by Legolas' estimation): Legolas can see them in detail while the others see a little blob, and Aragorn can hear them when listening to the ground. They consciously move down to the foot of the hill so as to not present an easily visible silhouette, sit huddled in their Elven cloaks, and have to ''wait'' for some time, during which they can discuss at length the people coming their way.

* ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'': In [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/comic/finaluigi/ strip #555]], which parodies both ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' and "Literature/LittleRedRidingHood", Daisy -playing as Red Riding Hood- meets and Waluigi -cosplaying as the Grandmother-, and asks is she is really the "Big Bad Waa". "Grandmother" retorts the Big Bad Was is the huge, drooling werewolf standing by her bed which "Hood" somehow failed to notice until it appeared on-panel.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' story ''ComicBook/TheLegionOfSuperHeroes'', when the the eponymous super-team ask ComicBook/{{Superboy}} to follow them back to the 30th century, the panel shows one corner of the Time Bubble, and the young Clark Kent suddenly notices the ten-meter diameter sphere which was lying two steps from him all along.

* Used in one skit on ''Series/NoSoapRadio'': A homeless man wanders into a closed building and finds a piano. He proceeds to play Mozart flawlessly, then turns to his right and sees a theater packed with enthusiastically applauding patrons.

* An episode of ''Series/TheTribe'' has Jack running down a hallway before Ebony sees him, the second he goes off screen Ebony appears on screen, there is no way they didn't see the other.

* In the first ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' game, a bad guy once comes out of hiding from behind a big floating ball of light. Floating. It's unclear how high up it is, but the PC standing right in front of it should definitely have seen at least his feet. There are also some examples of invisible doors on the north of buildings in semi-aerial view.

* Shows up a few times in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'':

* Parodied in ''VisualNovel/MyMagicalCosplayCafe'':

-->'''Sarge:''' And there's the drilling machine!
-->''(Camera pans 90 degrees to reveal enormous machine right next to the Reds)''
-->'''Donut:''' Wow!
-->'''Simmons:''' Amazing! You built this all by yourself?
-->'''Grif:''' [[DeadpanSnarker I think what's more amazing is the fact that]] [[LampshadeHanging none of us saw this thing until he pointed it out.]]

--> '''Linkara''': Liz? Where did you come from...?
--> '''Liz''': I... don't know...

* The fourth episode of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldOriginals'' had Nermal attempt to wake up a sleeping Garfield, only to find that it was just a cardboard cut-out set up by the real Garfield.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' episode "Nullzilla", Bob and his friends fail to notice the giant Null monster until Mike pointed it out.

* OlderThanTheyThink; an invoked form of this was used in traditional Japanese theatre in that you weren't supposed to pay attention to the black-clothed prop hands. This is where the stereotypical black ninja getup comes from, since the best way for a guy to hide is to pretend to be one of said stage hands, and then [[MemeticMutation flip out and kill people]]. This concept, used intentionally in a work, is called a NinjaProp on this site.
** It was used very effectively in the stage production of ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' at the National Theatre. The daemons were represented by (rather beautiful) puppets, which were operated by black-clad puppeteers. In the scene where Lyra has to summon her Death, Pantalaimon's puppeteer stands up, removes his mask and announces that he is her Death.

** This is regularly seen with ''anything'' that has to do with the pyramids at Giza, whether fiction or documentary. Most often what the audience sees looks like [[https://media.architecturaldigest.com/photos/58e2a407c0e88d1a6a20066b/16:9/w_1279,h_719,c_limit/Pyramid%20of%20Giza%201.jpg this]]. If the camera was in a different position, it would reveal [[https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article11228601.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/TMP_CHP_240917pyramid-_085gizaJPG.jpg this]].

* ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'': In ''Recap/TintinDestinationMoon'', Calculus drives Tintin and Haddock toward the Moon rocket standing in the middle of its take-off site, with the panels focusing only on the jeep they are in, carefully excluding the Moon rocket from the frame until the jeep stops at its foot (and at the bottom of a page), with Tintin and Haddock looking up in surprise, leaving the reveal of the rocket in its full glory for the heroes and the readers for the next page. In short, it seems as if Calculus drove all the way to the Moon rocket without either Tintin or Haddock apparently noticing it before they are parked almost below it.

* Sierra from ''Webcomic/DumbingOfAge'', who DoesNotLikeShoes, had this fact go completely unnoticed by the other characters until she mentioned that a church carpet felt nice on her feet, since up until that point, her feet were always off-screen.

* The ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' series fiendishly uses this concept to make HundredPercentCompletion [[NintendoHard damn near impossible]], especially given how many collectible items are in the [[UpdatedRerelease GBA remakes]]. Fortunately, Creator/{{Rare}} was merciful enough to give occasional hints of secrets: [[FollowTheMoney that banana is visible through those tree leaves / half-off-screen / in that "bottomless" pit for a reason]], and [[CameraScrew the field of view might gradually pan down / up / ahead, in preparation for a leap of faith]].

It's also typical that if a woman is naked against her will and shown from the waist up, she only covers her breasts and leaves her lower body completely exposed, as if the other characters also only can see her upper body.

A subtrope of RuleOfPerception. The StealthHiBye often takes advantage of this.

See: NoPeripheralVision, FailedASpotCheck, OffscreenStartBonus, OffscreenTeleportation, OffscreenRealityWarp, TreeCover, FogOfWar, and ObscuredSpecialEffects. For the acoustic counterpart see SeeNoEvilHearNoEvil.

Not to be confused with BlackScreenOfDeath, which is more about what you don't see..

* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogIDW'': At one point in Issue #30, Metal Sonic swoops in to retrieve Orbot and Cubot from Gemerl, and despite being quite distinctive isn't seen by anyone else from the group in the area until he's suddenly [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice ramming his hand through Gemerl]] [[InTheBack from behind]]. This gets lampshaded by Tangle, who incredulously demands to know where he was hiding.

* Used in ''Series/{{Alphas}}'' for an "InvisibleMan" character whose Alpha ability is [[spoiler:hiding in people's blind spots]].

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

* Occurs quite often in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' Due to processing limitations, if you can't see an object, it pretty much doesn't spawn or move. You can use this to your advantage if you jump on a Koopa and make its shell move around by moving so far the shell leaves your view, then going back - the shell will be gone.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' uses the trope literally, the whole game being styled like that of a stage play, to hide a secret warp whistle behind the third level's end.

* ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'' has an episode where Nyarko attempts to {{invoke|dTrope}} an AdamAndEvePlot to get some sweet island lovin' out of Mahiro. Her plan is quickly derailed when the camera changes to reveal people and buildings...positioned immediately in front of Mahiro's field of vision. Granted, he wasn't going to fall for it anyway, given that Nyarko attempted this in [[TheDitz an indoor swimming pool]]...

** A particularly egregious example occurs when a main character is ambushed by a Zombie. In the middle of a flat, open field, on a full moon, within view of a house.
** One episode after the aforementioned, another minor character ([[spoiler:Patricia]]) is ambushed by a walker that appears to come at her from an angle just ahead and to her right, which she should have been able to see coming seconds before it ran into her and bit her.

* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' has a particularly unbelievable example. The characters are in the middle of an open area of a park, but don't notice a tremendously huge monster that's almost on top of them until they (and the shoulder-mounted camera) turn around. Apparently, it's a really stealthy million ton animal.

* In the end of the first episode of the second season of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', a number of soldiers and a mecha sneak up on [[RichIdiotWithNoDayJob Lelouch]] ''from the front''. Maybe because it was somewhat dark and Lelouch was distracted by the MysteriousWaif giving him the {{call|ToAdventure}}.

** Also, it was a recurring joke for Denny and Alan to talk about Denny's midget girlfriend Bethany, with Denny saying something wildly inappropriate only to be told by Alan to look down, to find she's been standing just below the shot the whole time. HilarityEnsues.