There are a few episodes of the series that adapt the franchise created by George RR Martin that have given viewers plenty of headaches. Because you can’t see anything. Or you have to watch them in very special image quality conditions that, unfortunately, not everyone can access. Well, that moment, which until now had been repeated in ‘Game of Thrones’ and in the first season of ‘House of the Dragon’, has arrived in the second season of this one.
The precedents. Among the most unpleasant surprises that Game of Thrones had in store, apart from its hasty ending, was the third episode of its eighth and final season: it depicted the legendary Battle of Winterfell… but you couldn’t see anything. Many spoke of it as “the most expensive battle scene in television history”, but this 42-minute clash with the White Walkers disappointed most of the audience, who spent most of the time trying to make out something on a screen that was almost completely dark. The complaints came incessantly, and Fabian Wagner, the director of photography, excused himself by saying that he was looking for a naturalistic light that “evolved with the characters”.
And again. HBO, far from making an act of contrition over this problem, repeated the controversy with episode 7 of the first season of ‘House of the Dragon’, titled ‘Driftmark’ and directed by Miguel Sapochnik… who had already signed the direction of the ill-fated Battle of Winterfell. The director defended the lighting of the episode: “It made sense that this was humanity’s last hope, the last beacon of light and, from the perspective of where we needed to go with the story, which was to reach a surreal and chaotic climax, we needed an environment in keeping with that.” And he adds that “nobody sat down to think about whether it would look too dark.”
The reasons for the drama. The problem that was pointed out then has multiple causes. In an analysis by The Verge, the calibration differences between very different types of televisions were discussed. The origin of the signal itself is also problematic: in the United States, cable still works, and in the rest of the world, there are huge differences between internet connections. Finally, there are professionals in the field (editors, directors of photography) who have monitors calibrated with a precision beyond the reach of the average viewer and work with files of comparable quality to that offered by a UHD Blu-Ray. Let us remember that the director of photography of ‘The Long Night’ blamed the viewing problems of that episode of ‘Game of Thrones’ on compression.
History repeats itself. This year, we’re looking at a show that’s once again playing up the gloom and dark settings. Last season, HBO defended its choices as “intentional creative decisions,” and it’s becoming increasingly clear that this isn’t an excuse. In this article, Vulture detailed the show’s love affair with candlelight and other natural light sources (going so far as to say that “some scenes have so many candles it’s almost comical.”) Which certainly makes the action that much harder to discern, but it makes it clear that these creative choices are intentional.
More intentional. The reason why this year’s ‘Game of Thrones’ is just as dark as last year but obeys a very clear intention is in the statements made by the showrunner Ryan Condal to The Hollywood Reporter: “We came into Season 2 very conscious of the feedback we’d received. Season 2 is much more in line with my particular aesthetic and what I think the show should be. There’s not a huge difference, but I don’t think we’re going to be told ‘it’s too dark’ again.” Though according to IndieWire, this compromise may have one dire consequence: Season 2 made risky aesthetic choices that left many viewers frustrated, but Season 2 “has taken a huge step toward looking like everything else on television and lost some of what made it visually distinct.”
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