Game of Thrones ... because why not

[filipeG]

4 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

Ah, the old "it's bad, but intentionally so." Solo was too dark in many scenes, and it wasn't a question of not calibrating my TV, or watching on an ipad, or even compression. I saw it on blu ray on a 60" TV that is within reasonable calibration, in a dark room. It's funny because the Godfather, a movie famous for "underexposure," is so much easier on the eyes--because it's not about darkening a scene, it's about lighting it so that the viewer gets the impression of darkness.

...is exactly right.

Not to excuse GOT, but regarding to Bradford Young, the DP of Arrival and Solo, you just have to accept that its his style. A DP can have his own signature. I liked the Arrival cinematography. The one on Solo, I also found too dark and sometimes hard to see. But I mean, he's obviously knows what he's doing otherwise he wouldn't be working with no one.

On the GOT episode, I'm sure the footage has more light. It was on the grading. The DP has some input on the grading as well, because it's part of the aesthetic he and the director imagined, but's he's not the one doing it. 

[ND64]

15 minutes ago, filipeG said:

A DP can have his own signature.

And we're supposed to "see" the damn signature. 

[KnightsFan]

27 minutes ago, filipeG said:

regarding to Bradford Young, the DP of Arrival and Solo, you just have to accept that its his style. A DP can have his own signature.

I do accept that, what I'm saying is that his signature style makes me less likely to enjoy the film.

[Novim]

2 hours ago, filipeG said:

[...] you just have to accept that its his style. A DP can have his own signature. [...] he's obviously knows what he's doing otherwise he wouldn't be working with no one.

Why shoud anyone "has to accept" someone's style? I could accept that some DP is trying to have his or her "style" or "signature" (and everybode has a "signature", that is a lousy metaphor for "being creative"), but I could also see that "style" to be wrong or bad. Or, more pricisely, in this case I hardly can "see" anything, let alone a "style". Especially when he arrogantly accused viewers and their TVs for this failure. Real creators are humble and attentive both to their craft and their public.

So, I wouldn't be so sure that this DP "obviously knows what he's doing" - he was a DP of an entertainment TV series broadcasted by Net, and he should be aware that - just techically, nor "artistically" - the picture quality depends on many other conditions. If he did that as a feature film for theater, then the case would be different.

[kaylee]

well, objectively, i looked at the shots and i never would have released it for broadcast like that, regardless of my personal taste, or what you might see in perfectly controlled conditions – its just too flat

additionally, regardless of my personal opinion, the DP's, director's or anyone else's, PEOPLE CLEARLY HATED IT. THATS NOT DEBATABLE

so thats a problem lol

 

[webrunner5]

It is like Steven Soderbergh that shoots all his stuff now on an iPhone. Does that mean he is right. No, I think he is crazy as bat shit for doing it, and I am a iPhone fan. Dark is dark I don't give a shit how artistic the director thinks it is. Sounds like he is bat shit crazy also. Some people on here sound pretty much like Sheeple to me. If it ain't worth a fuck I don't give a fuck who filmed, or directed it, it is still shit..

[mjones41]

As I was watching it I just assumed they had their special effects budget cut and so decided to make everything dark and concentrate on the foley.  

[thebrothersthre3]

2 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

It is like Steven Soderbergh that shoots all his stuff now on an iPhone. Does that mean he is right. No, I think he is crazy as bat shit for doing it, and I am a iPhone fan. Dark is dark I don't give a shit how artistic the director thinks it is. Sounds like he is bat shit crazy also. Some people on here sound pretty much like Sheeple to me. If it ain't worth a fuck I don't give a fuck who filmed, or directed it, it is still shit..

I think its just a publicity stunt. 

[JurijTurnsek]

I had a really hard time watching it since we got the new episode in the morning and it was hard to make my apartment very dark. Even without the explanation, I knew that the darkness was there to instill the total sense of terror the night full of dead brings. I did up the brightness to ridicules levels to see what was going on, but at night I was able to enjoy it without that as well.

All in all it was a hell of an episode, although the main characters had pretty thick plot armor at the end. The finishing sequence and the music accompanying it was absolutely perfect. I have no doubt this is going to pan out quite a bit differently in the books, so I am looking forward to that too.

[Video Hummus]

Seems like a stylistic choice mixed with a budget choice? The long dark and everything. Maybe practically it was to dark but thematically it did it’s job.

if anything it raises the awareness of calibrating ones tv for the people who care enough to tackle the issue. 

[ND64]

12 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

if anything it raises the awareness of calibrating ones tv for the people who care enough to tackle the issue.

Its not just calibration. Many people watch these tv series on their phones and tablets. If they are OLED, their max brightness is very low (how many of total mobile viewers have Samsung flagships?), and if they are LCD, glowing blacks make the whole thing horribly flat at max brightness. And then we have compression issues. In dragon fighting scene, it was like watching a 9gag clip in its gif days! 

[kaylee]

23 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

It is like Steven Soderbergh that shoots all his stuff now on an iPhone

 

20 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I think its just a publicity stunt. 

yeah, web, i think thats just a gimmick... does anyone remember any of the first "SHOT ON iPHONE!!!" content...? its like street art, theres a 3 second attention span for that stuff lol

Steven Soderberghs the kinda guy who shoots a sasha grey film with an iphone and goes "OOo Im so edgy and keeewl yeah yeeeahhh" lmaoo

[HurtinMinorKey]

I watched it on my PC via HDMI through a Samsung LED (2017 model). I have my NVIDIA Control panel set to full (0-256) DR,  and as a result blacks will get crushed if I used the "PC" setting (which expects limited DR) on my TV (this is also the setting my TV likes to default to when hooked up to the computer), instead I have to use "Game Console" setting (which expects to receive the full range), and things are fine (no other adjustments required).   That being said, even with the correct settings the action was a mess. You can shoot low lite, and you can shake the camera (personally not a fan of severe shake as I think it looks cheap), but together, especially in large portions, they made the action unwatchable at times. 

I'm surprised so many have had their TVs screwed up for so long like this. There have been other episodes in the series before that were obviously waay to dark with the improper setting, but nothing that was too dark regardless of setting (like S8 Ep3 was).  

[Novim]

4 hours ago, kaylee said:

 

yeah, web, i think thats just a gimmick... does anyone remember any of the first "SHOT ON iPHONE!!!" content...? its like street art, theres a 3 second attention span for that stuff lol

Steven Soderberghs the kinda guy who shoots a sasha grey film with an iphone and goes "OOo Im so edgy and keeewl yeah yeeeahhh" lmaoo

Probably true. But anyway, the video (even so called documentary) could be a mixture of the real and the ilusion (in technical terms). An example:

I work with 3 teams of my students - within the course on "Citizen Journalism and Video Reporting" - on some videos: topics are volunteers action (cleaning the neibourghood, helping hendicaped or older people, and similar). Students are supposed to shoot with their mobile phones, both the theme itself and to shoot them shooting the theme. Another team of students (and myself) also shoot in parallel with "pro" cameras (P4K, Canon 200C, Canon XC10). And in post, 80% of materials are from these "pro" cameras. They give us - technically and educationally - better shots. The general public on TV will see only the mobiles shooting. ?

[hmcindie]

A lot of grading is done in grading suites where there is no light and you have a 100k projector system. People sit in that suite for hours on end and they get used to the dark. They all want to have it look good there, no one cares what it looks like once it comes out of the telly. No one will usually bother to tell anyone that "hey, this is too dark on my laptop" as all the important "creative decisions" are done in the suite and everyone is there.

And if they do HDR grading then that will complicate the whole mess.

[liork]

You do not do grading on a projector for a tv show that will be presented on a tv screen.

[Novim]

Another blow to GoT: link. A coffee cup left on the table.

[Kisaha]

13 hours ago, hmcindie said:

A lot of grading is done in grading suites where there is no light and you have a 100k projector system. People sit in that suite for hours on end and they get used to the dark. They all want to have it look good there, no one cares what it looks like once it comes out of the telly. No one will usually bother to tell anyone that "hey, this is too dark on my laptop" as all the important "creative decisions" are done in the suite and everyone is there.

And if they do HDR grading then that will complicate the whole mess.

It doesn't work at all like this!

SPOILER ALERT!

Hey, how bad the last episode was??!! 

Just terrible television, they tried to squeeze so much in there and everything seemed wrong in the end.

I am wondering why they have random durations, and didn't choose to make, let's say, 10 1-hour  episodes or something.

The whole thing is too random right now, and the plot seems like is written by Sea Manatees. 

These dragons perish too easily lately. What about Ghost? Seeing running against the dead with the Dothraki and in the 4th episode goes to the North to chill with his new friends?! Why don't the other have these beautiful big Ballistas? They had a castle, and then they left it and went up to the north, then came back down to water the plants, before go to King's Landing? 

So much poor script writing..

[Pedro]

you guys saw this?
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/why-did-last-nights-game-of-thrones-look-so-bad-here-comes-the-science/?tpcc=ECFB2019&fbclid=IwAR3rmX7lCyC3OqZIx1ezvxDNyAxU26dY1QkP6ofpmT_K5vKNapes-F8U6aQ&guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly9sLmZhY2Vib29rLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=AbJe0hqmHAY-446tUkrXyw

The DP's choice to shoot it this dark would always have issues duo to HBO compression. The codec can't handle well grays so lots of detail got lost

[BasiliskFilm]

If they had turned the lights on someone might have noticed the starbucks cup