Basic Trope: A scene is shown via shadows, especially a scene that'd normally be censored.
- Straight: In one episode of The Adventures of Alice and Bob, Alice turns into a monster, which is shown via shadows.
- Exaggerated:
- Any scene that may need censorship is shown entirely in shadows.
- The scene is in such a dark room that it's impossible to see what's going on at all.
- Downplayed:
- Only the most horrifying or gruesome aspects of the transformation are shown in shadow.
- The scene isn't necessarily a shadow, but Alice transforming is presented in a low light silhouette, so it's still pretty easy to see what's happening during the transformation if one just brightens the scene.
- The scene is perfectly innocuous, but still involves shadows being projected dramatically.
- Justified: Alice was in a darker room at the time.
- Inverted: The scene is shown with bright light instead.
- Subverted: A shadow is being cast on Alice transforming, but Bob adjusts the camera so the viewers can see it.
- Double Subverted: Charles insists there be a shadow for the young viewers watching, and puts it back to how it was before.
- Parodied:
- Same as Double Subverted, except Bob and Charles get in a fight over the camera, and they break it.
- Big white text that reads “Censored” is shown on top of the shadow.
- Alice's transformation is played very similar to typical Transformation Trauma tropes... only for the lights to brighten and for her to reveal she's turned into something such as a tiny Cartoon Creature.
- Bob and Charles notice Alice transforming, and instead of doing anything about it, decide to comment on how cool it looks and just sit there watching the shadows.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice turning into a monster is a Once an Episode occurrence; sometimes there will be a shadow discretion shot, sometimes there'll be a Scream Discretion Shot, sometimes the whole thing will happen offscreen, and sometimes there's no discretion shot at all.
- Averted: Scenes are never shown via shadows.
- Enforced:
- The show is for a younger audience, and showing the entire transformation can be potentially too scary for them or would increase the show's age rating.
- Can be a way to invoke Nothing Is Scarier.
- Alice's monster form isn't supposed to be shown until a dramatic moment.
- Animating Alice's whole transformation would take too much time, so it's just easier to have shadows showing the actions instead.
- It's easier (and cheaper) to get shadow props to properly display the transformation than to do so with costumes, stop-motion, animatronics, CGI or whatever.
- Lampshaded: "Huh, look at the shadows projecting my horrifying new form on that wall."
- Invoked:
- After Alice realizes she's about to transform, she stands in front of the nearest light source with a wall behind her.
- For whatever reason, Alice is trying to trick someone into thinking that she's turning into a monster, so she uses shadows to make it look like that's what she's doing.
- Exploited: Alice's friends are also only seeing her transform via shadows, which is good, considering she had just been saying that she didn't want her friends to see her like that.
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: "I can't actually see what's happening to Alice, but judging from those shadows projecting on the wall and those screams, I can tell that her transformation isn't a very pleasant experience."
- Conversed: "I wonder why they tend to hide certain scenes by using shadows."
- Played for Laughs: A shadow discretion shot is used on Bob peeing in the lake.
- Played for Drama: A shadow discretion shot is used to show Dana, an important side character, being decapitated.
- Played for Horror: The scene may not be shown in graphic detail, but it's still very obvious that what's happening is absolutely horrifying.
Back to Shadow Discretion Shot
