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Can we talk about why everything is so dark...


MoonKnight21

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7 hours ago, Bradam said:

The point is you shouldn't have to adjust the TV.. 

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/4/30/18524679/game-of-thrones-battle-of-winterfell-too-dark-fabian-wagner-response-cinematographer

Yeah f that guy..  he needs to be fired immediately and never aloud near a camera ever again.

it worked out fine for me. it wouldn't be the first time that i've had to adjust the settings on my tv for something that looked sub par on my current settings. i think they did a rather good job of capturing the sheer confusion of fighting a war in the middle of the night during medieval times. like how the dothraki just completely disappear into the night as they get further from the wall's torch lights. that's exactly how it would have looked. anyone who's been in a forest or dessert in the middle of the night (aka zero light pollution) knows just how incredibly black everything around you is. i think it added authenticity to the environment. there was definitely an issue with the video compression though. hopefully, it will look much better on the blu-ray version.

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8 hours ago, TyrionFan82 said:

Yea, I had it on HD and it was still really dark. Oh I get the theme but still there were times when I couldn't tell who was fighting or dying. It could've been lightened a tad & still given us that same feeling.

I do agree that when a huge percentage of the audience says they couldn't see what was happening very well, they've got a problem!  You can't care about what you can't see happening..

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On 4/29/2019 at 1:37 PM, MoonKnight21 said:

I mean literally dark, not figuritively. 

I understand that we need to get that the "long night is here" but I felt like I missed half the battle and the screen was mostly black. 

Because "equality": Dark screens  matter...

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12 hours ago, Red Dragon10 said:

I do agree that when a huge percentage of the audience says they couldn't see what was happening very well, they've got a problem!  You can't care about what you can't see happening..

Right?! I had to go & watch In Deep Geek & Secrets of the Citadel to get what was going on.

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On 4/30/2019 at 8:16 PM, Bradam said:

The point is you shouldn't have to adjust the TV.. 

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/4/30/18524679/game-of-thrones-battle-of-winterfell-too-dark-fabian-wagner-response-cinematographer

Yeah f that guy..  he needs to be fired immediately and never aloud near a camera ever again.

Seriously? "F [the Cinematographer]" because you don't understand that not all viewing & broadcast technology is equal? 

It was GLORIOUS on my giant HD industrial plasma with a hard wired (not WiFi) Directv connection. (Industrial = no onboard sound, made to run nonstop at trade shows.) 

A friend's 4K was a blurry (lighting was fine) mess because they were streaming on HBO GO on DSL WiFi, and it wasn't shot in 4K nor broadcast in 4K, and their DSL connection ≠ a T1.

You honestly think watching on a laptop [how old/new/OS?] streaming it over WiFi DSL would be the same as a hardwired connection on an actual HD TV [LED? 4K?]? Or that your iPhone [6S? 8? XR?] would be the same as watching it on Bluray? 

Science & technology = real.

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I am just thankful for the brightened and slo mo videos folks have posted on the internet. I still have a hard time finding Brienne, Jaime, Pod, Gendry, and Tormund when watching. I would never have known they were still alive if not for watching and freezing the frames where folks said to look.

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4 hours ago, ShadowKitteh said:

Seriously? "F [the Cinematographer]" because you don't understand that not all viewing & broadcast technology is equal? 

It was GLORIOUS on my giant HD industrial plasma with a hard wired (not WiFi) Directv connection. (Industrial = no onboard sound, made to run nonstop at trade shows.) 

A friend's 4K was a blurry (lighting was fine) mess because they were streaming on HBO GO on DSL WiFi, and it wasn't shot in 4K nor broadcast in 4K, and their DSL connection ≠ a T1.

You honestly think watching on a laptop [how old/new/OS?] streaming it over WiFi DSL would be the same as a hardwired connection on an actual HD TV [LED? 4K?]? Or that your iPhone [6S? 8? XR?] would be the same as watching it on Bluray? 

Science & technology = real.

Slow clap for you and your glorious high dollar system the 99% of the rest of the viewers don't have. 

If the vast majority of the people complain it's to dark... then IT IS TO DARK. 

What film guy should have said was "sorry, next time we will brighten these night shots up since uber dark adds nothing to the show or experience.."

Thats it, all he had to do.. admit the mistake, correct it in the future, and move on.  Instead he chose Insulting people and blaming their equipment for his screw up. That is not how to handle a mistake. Thats is why the film guy gets a big FU.

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3 hours ago, Bradam said:

Slow clap for you and your glorious high dollar system the 99% of the rest of the viewers don't have. 

If the vast majority of the people complain it's to dark... then IT IS TO DARK. 

What film guy should have said was "sorry, next time we will brighten these night shots up since uber dark adds nothing to the show or experience.."

Thats it, all he had to do.. admit the mistake, correct it in the future, and move on.  Instead he chose Insulting people and blaming their equipment for his screw up. That is not how to handle a mistake. Thats is why the film guy gets a big FU.

Apologies, I thought you might understand what I was saying. My bad. Let me see if I can simplify.

1. It's not a high dollar system. It's old. It has no sound. They haven't made plasma TVs since 2014. Five years is a long time in technology terms, yet, on my old (from around 2007 - even longer in tech terms), cheap system, it looked GORGEOUS. Wacky, I know. High dollar systems are the newer 4K which I also was referring to, and also have problems on the other end of the spectrum - but I don't want to confuse you further regarding that, because your settings/connection are more important due to the compression that happens making the picture on your system seem darker/less defined.

2. It also looks awesome on my smaller, newer (2012), cheap LED TV, also hardwired to a Directv feed - because the connection speed/frame rate matters.

3. Just because you don't understand video technology doesn't mean it's too dark. It's not too dark. There was no mistake. It's how they wanted to shoot it. It was intentional, and it was gorgeous, which you'll see when you finally get to see it likely on Blu ray since you're opposed to just adjusting your settings now.

4. If they light it up just for you, because you're too lazy to change your settings and understand that here in 2019 not everyone has the same system (TV, computer, tablet, viewing device)/broadcast company(satellite, cable, streaming service)/connection speed (hard wired: satellite, cable, DSL, T1, or WiFi, and actual connection speed if streaming, meaning how broad is your broadband and your FPS downloads), then they might as well do what most night shoots had to do last century because of slower camera speed/technology incapable of shooting in low light, and that was shooting during the day, and then coloring them darker to make it look like night, which looks cheap, and not at all what they're going for, which far more people would have complained about.

5. That's why you aren't a Cinematographer, which you like to call, a "film guy."

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To me it one of those "why" things..  Like for instance Westeros is a different land/country/time then us so they would speak some other language.  The show could have been filmed using some made up language to make it more real but.. why?  We as viewers mostly prefer not to read subtitles and the actors probably would prefer to speak english.   Same with filming dark, sure it might be the real setting but it'd be far kinder on the viewers if they brightened it up some.  I tend to dislike any film thats mostly in the dark, I'd rather be able to easily see whats going on. 

I tend to catch the show 11pm my local time so the its already dark outside and I have all the room lights off anyways so it wasn't too bad to watch, only part I really had to strain on was the dragons fight.  Had to rewatch that part a few times to figure out who was biting who, and the first watch i swore i saw a dragon tear off another dragons head so I had thought Rhageal was headless initially. 

Well that and the first watch i thought Arya stabbed the night king in the leg, second viewing i realized it was more in the heart area, which made more sense.

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I thought it looked spectacular tbh. The darkness and the murkiness all added to the chaos of the battle, nobody really knowing where death would come from, the look of terror at seeing dark shapes in the smoke, struggling to tell friend from foe.

Helm's Deep in LOTR was impressive for the scale of the battle and the details in it as well, but it feels like it was made too bright for a night battle. If you really want to get across the absolute nightmare and horror that is fighting an army of 100,000 zombies crawling over your castle walls in the middle of the night, in winter, in a blizzard....well I think thy portrayed it pretty dammed well.

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Hi,

No, no it was dark, just as you suggest!  It reminds me of The Walking Dead.  It drives me batty!   I suppose the idea is to enhance mystique, to bolster fear whilst all it does is create confusion, disillusionment.  

When the Dothraki are slaughtered there is a scene from above.  They were taken immediately. The Unsullied suffered the same.

The darkness: D and D did not want you to see.  They wanted you to quint, to not understand that which was happening.   It was sloppy story writing, and I was disappointed.

Cheers,

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