Posted on 04/29/2019 11:41:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
RUSH: Did you watch the finale last night? Not the finale. (interruption) You didn’t…? (interruption) Do you watch Game of Thrones? (interruption) You watch it last night? (interruption) Okay. (interruption) Well, so I won’t do any spoiler alert. Oh, one thing I do want to say. For those of you who haven’t watched it yet, I’m gonna try to give you some assistance here. The entirety of the episode… It’s an hour and 22 minutes. Virtually 85% of it is battle action. Of course, “Winter is Coming,” “the Night King…
It all takes place at night, and there have been many complaints from people today and last night that it was too dark, that they really couldn’t see who lived, who got killed or died, couldn’t keep up with their favorite characters. Too dark. Couldn’t keep up with their favorite characters. A lot of people are claiming that HBO blew it by shooting it too dark, and one of the theories is that by shooting it dark they didn’t have to focus on detail so much. That’s not what happened. I’m gonna tell you what happened here, folks. It’s a common mistake.
The people that produce this show produce this show as though it is a movie, and where do you watch movies? You watch them in a darkened theater on a giant screen with a very bright projector. But how many of you turn every light in your room at home off, put blackout shades on the windows, and make your living room the equivalent of a movie theater? My guess is that none of you do, or very few. I did. I watched it in pitch black, which I have the ability to do because I’ve set it up that way. I’m a forward-thinking guy.
But if you watch… Even if you have a big TV, if you 55-, 60-, 75-inch, whatever, TV, if there’s any ambient light in the room… They didn’t edit it. I think they made a mistake. I think they edited it as a movie. It’s almost a feature length. And make sure that your source material is good. For example, some people were watching digital streaming last night, and if you watched it live digital streaming, then you were among the gazillions trying to, and the stream might have been degraded enough that you would also lose some quality.
So if you haven’t yet seen it, make sure you choose a source that’s good — cable, DirecTV — something that produces a solid signal. If you’re gonna watch it streaming, you could probably do that now since the big crush is over, but make sure you’ve got a really rock-solid connection if you want to see it in full-fledged 1080p. If you do that and if you darken your room, then don’t blow up the brightness or contrast on your TV. You can do that too much and then it all starts bleeding together. But if you haven’t yet watched…
This is a public service here from one inside broadcaster to plebes.
If you haven’t yet watched it, make sure your room in which you watch it is dark as you can make it and… (sigh) Well, I wouldn’t advise recalibrating your set, but if your set has preconceived settings that automatically mix the brightness and the contrast and the color level and the tint and the color temperature, choose “cinema” or “THX” or something. Don’t choose “vivid.” Whatever you do, don’t choose “vivid.” That’s not how you overcome darkness. A lot of people choose the “vivid” setting ’cause it makes it as bright as it can be. They turn the contrast all the way up.
But that’s been the only complaint about it that I’ve run across.
I thought our tv was going out
It made all those bags of epsom salt they threw over the camp look more like real snow :-P
Basically the problem is that American internet sucks and HBO is notorious in tech circles for not paying attention to such things. Usually it's not a problem when things are well-lit, but when something is shot like last night, it's a huge problem
Doesn't say much for AT&T's technological prowess as they get ready to launch their own streaming service (which includes HBO) this Fall.
I am not a GoT watcher, but I have noticed this “dark” thing for a number of years now. Whether it’s a TV program or a feature film, the mood as well as the LIGHTING is dark, dark, dark.
I watched the whole first season of “Nightfall” and noticed it, and the second season was so DARK (in both content and photons) that I couldn’t watch it anymore. Oh Well.
Now I am not suggesting that drama look like “Sesame Street”, but it’s getting to be too much.
I had to shut my blinds and turn off lights to watch it and even still it was dark to watch. But it was still good.
My two pet peeves in tv show productions: when the picture is too dark and when the background music is too loud and drowns out the dialogue.
“My two pet peeves in tv show productions: when the picture is too dark and when the background music is too loud and drowns out the dialogue.”
That’s like ALL of them now days.
How people can hear the dialog is baffling to me. Or see what is happening.
It’s deliberate. I just wonder why, because it pisses me off.
I always watch it in my basement, in the dark with all the lights out on my 80 inch TV and the volume cranked. I noticed a couple of times how dark it was but it didn’t create a bad experience for me.
“My two pet peeves in tv show productions: when the picture is too dark and when the background music is too loud and drowns out the dialogue.”
Mine too! I think the darkness allows the producers get away with cheap backgrounds and special effects.
I thought it was because it was fought during night with only torchlight for lighting. But, what do I know...
I'm with you. I was in my bedroom with all the lights off and the curtains drawn; and, the sun had already set, so it was dark as I could make it; but, the episode was still too dark in places for me to figure out what was going on.
I turned off the lights in the kitchen (our family room adjoins the kitchen) and was able to see it well enough. I think they wanted to give it a feeling of chaos, and to show how disoriented everyone would have been at night.
It costs a lot less to produce CGI graphics in a low light situation.
“HOGAN!!!”
They do it because they can. They are addicted to technology, like mad scientists.
I turn it down some, and use English subtitles, to cover the soft gaps in dialogue.
Interesting - don’t usually watch “Game...” but was tuning through and decided to try to see what all the fuss was about - watched for about five minutes and couldn’t tell what was going on - tuned on through to something else - glad my eyes aren’t failing as I was beginning to fear.....
I have to watch TV with closed captioning turned on. I know my ears ain't what they used to be but they're not that bad.
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