Game of Thrones cinematographer says it’s your fault if you thought the Battle of Winterfell was ‘too dark’
Game of Thrones wasn’t too dark this week, you just don’t know how to work your TV properly…
That’s the message from the episode's cinematographer Fabian Wagner at least, who spoke to Wired about the controversy around the show’s lighting.
Reviews for series’ “Long Night” may have been overwhelming positive, but even some of its biggest fans had an issue with the episode’s brightness.
Why?
Well, because a lot of people couldn’t see anything…
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Now, Wagner has given his take on the issue.
The episode wasn’t “too dark”, you were just watching it wrong…
He said:
A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly.
A lot of people also unfortunately watch it on small iPads, which in no way can do justice to a show like that anyway.
The episode’s darkness was also intentional - at the request of the showrunners - to contrast “The Long Night” with the series’ other major battles.
We’d seen so many battle scenes over the years – to make it truly impactful and to care for the characters, you have to find a unique way of portraying the story.
Another look would have been wrong. Everything we wanted people to see is there...
Game of Thrones is a cinematic show and therefore you have to watch it like you’re at a cinema: in a darkened room.
At least fans now know they didn’t miss anything important in those darkened shots.
Nevertheless, some people were left wondering why the showrunners wanted to have so many dark shots, especially as the brightened images looked pretty good…
Game of Thrones is a TV show after all, so surely it should have been designed for whatever looks best on a standard TV?
For some viewers, Wagner’s explanation was good enough.
But for other people, he just annoyed fans even more by daring to suggest that it was our fault for not being able to see anything.
To be fair to Wagner, he’s been working in TV for a long time and has received two creative arts Emmy Awards nominations for his work on Game of Thrones.
It’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
And as Wired pointed out, high-end TV shows are often shot with high-end cameras, which pick up details that an average TV screen isn’t going to show.
But if you’re still not convinced, at least next week’s episode looks like it takes place during the day time.
HT: Twitter Moments
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