It's not quite the same thing, but I feel like not enough directors value the attention viewers give to the background.

Let's say you have an animation, and plan a silly bit of slapstick where someone's chasing a butterfly. Put it on shot, and it's kind of over-focused on something rudimentary. But have two characters in the foreground, using 80% of the frame, conducting a boring conversation, and put that person with the butterfly in the background, and it's ten times funnier because viewers feel a sense of ownership in being the one to "notice" it - even if the director knew fully well no one was focused on the conversation.