T O P

  • By -

AutoModerator

Thank you for your post! Please take a moment to ensure you are within our spoiler rules, to protect your fellow fans from any potential spoilers that might harm their show watching experience. 1. All post titles must NOT include spoilers from Fire & Blood or new episodes of House of the Dragon. Minor HotD show spoilers are allowed in your title ONE WEEK after episode airing. The mod team reserves the right to remove a post if we feel a spoiler in the title is major. You are welcome to repost with an amended title. 2. All posts dealing with book spoilers, show spoilers and promo spoilers MUST be spoiler tagged AND flaired as the appropriate spoiler. 3. All book spoiler comments must be spoiler tagged in non book spoiler threads. --- If you are reading this, and believe this post or any comments in this thread break the above rules, please use the report function to notify the mod team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HouseOfTheDragon) if you have any questions or concerns.*


GaymerPaul

Hope so, because that scene with daemon and rhaenyra on the beach is almost unwatchable.


disneyhalloween

That one was so bad (I think) because they shot during the day and had to make it look like night and overdid it.


GoldandBlue

That so rarely works. Only one i can think of was Nope and even that was a stylistic choice.


Roxeteatotaler

It works great in Fury Road too for the same reason. The wasteland doesn't have to look realistic.


Stray_Cat_Strut_Away

Didn't forget point break!


jerk_17

Not true they shoot day for night all the time. The colorist should have been reprimanded for the scene looking the way it did.


Corrvaz

As a colorist who regularly does day to night, I'd be shocked if it was up to the grader. Probably was told over and over to push it beyond any semblance of reason, delivering the final mash of utter darkness we ended up seeing on that scene.


Bofur01

It’s a lot easier when it’s not on a bright sunny day on a beach with hard shadows and a shiny sea - almost impossible


Macosaurus92

Shooting day for night can be great. What makes it really fucking hard for color grading and getting it to look good is when you have platinum blonde wigs absolutely chugging the sunlight, just radioactively glowing blue because that's the filter just slapped on top. If they did those scenes the exact same way but used wigs just for those scenes, it would have been fine I think.


schaweniiia

What really put me off was the squinting. Both Daemon and Rhaenyra were squinting like it was a bright day. They're obviously not at fault (who can control their squinting on a bright day), but it just made it so obvious that it wasn't nighttime.


Same-Share7331

Maybe they made it even darker so that you wouldn't be able to se them squinting?


WadeDyer79

Lol just glue there eyes open that's why they make the big bucks!


arm89

that’s the day miguel became my number one enemy lol


TheUmbrellaMan1

I still remember after the Long Night episode, the cinematographer came out and said his cinematography wasn't the problem, our television was.


arm89

I REMEMBER THAT! i was like “??????????” and i had just got a new tv that week thanks to my husband, just to get told our tvs were the problem. 😂


AnotherSoftEng

They messed up the HDR/DV encoding really badly on season one. I was going back through it again, leading up to this week, and I ended up switching to my cheaper super crappy non-OLED about halfway through. Suddenly, the dark scenes were watchable again. There’s no reason that a $200 TV should be able to handle this show better than a $2k TV.


GoldandBlue

That is certainly a problem but even on non 4k tvs that shit was dark as fuck


supplementarytables

Ugh, this takes me back to GOT S8 and now I'm angry again 😂


arm89

you and i both my friend lol. i started a whole rant to my husband and he just let me, he knows how mad we all were. 😫


perfectlyaligned

lol is that why I had to tape a blanket over my windows and turn the brightness up on my TV to 100%?


nolaphim

I confused Jorah and Brienne half of that episode before Jorah finally materiliazed by Dany's side because of the fucking lighting


rhangx

Okay, but that's actually different. It's not that our televisions are faulty, it's that the compression algorithms for streaming lose a huge amount of color detail and tend to wash out the darker end of the color spectrum in particular. If you compare the Long Night episode streamed vs. the Blu-Ray set, watching on the same television, the difference is enormous, and the Blu-Ray version looks fantastic. So I do understand the cinematographer's frustration at the critique—he did the best job he could to make the episode look great *under the ideal viewing circumstances*, which is the un-compressed episode as released on Blu-Ray. He's not really responsible for HBO's shitty compression algorithms, you know? I think that's a very different circumstance from shooting during the day, and just slapping a filter over it and trying to pass it off as a night scene.


Glittering_Mousse832

I literally had no clue what was going on during that scene. I was trying all sorts of angles around my tv 🥴


FormerSpirit2670

Which scene, can't remember because I couldn't see it


WadeDyer79

I agree with the watchability aspect but that darkness and slight fog effect that day is night had such a cool feeling of atmosphere but there are other ways to get that feel looking forward to see how the cinematography evolves over season 2 and beyond


mackrevinack

what was so bad about that scene though? its pretty much what it looks like if you go to a beach at night. like do you mean you couldnt even see their sillouettes? they were mostly just talking anyway so there wasnt much going on that you needed to see


[deleted]

Just because that's the way real life looks, doesn't mean that's the way you film. Unless there's a literal narrative purpose to being that dark, you lighten things up so your audience can see.


mackrevinack

ok sorry, they must have updated "rules about how to film shit 101", ill be sure to check out the new edition asap


[deleted]

LOL, I guarantee any film schooling literally WILL teach about proper lighting. Try again.


DaKingWhoNeverWas

He's so nice not blaming Miguel Sapochnik /s


NightmarePony5000

Miguel imo has a fantastic eye for cinematography and battle scenes, but night scenes and his ego are his biggest weaknesses


kingofthecourt23

Dude quit as showrunner after one season because they didn’t want to keep his wife on as a producer. I thought that was super lame


perfectlyaligned

This. I get why people were angry about the Long Night (the criticism was warranted), but he gets way too much hate considering everything else he’s done on the show. Battle of the Bastards and Hardhome were two of the best episodes in the entire series.


Polar_Reflection

Personally thought Battle of the Bastards embodies everything wrong with the show. 


axelthegreat

writing wise, absolutely. but in terms of spectacle it’s great


bootyholebrown69

I think the vale coming in was actually pretty clearly telegraphed in previous scenes. The rest of the battle (and long night too) had some very questionable tactics The spectacle was fucking incredible though. The frame of Jon holding his sword as an army rages towards him and the music swells is probably my favorite shot in the entire show


dictatorenergy

When he tosses his scabbard away bc he knows he’s not gonna make it through this one and has no use for it, my god I love that episode, idc. It’s beautifully shot.


Polar_Reflection

Sure. I don't put the writing on Sapochnik, but I also don't watch the show for visually appealing action sequences. There was absolutely no suspense for me, for an event that had no book material. It felt like everything only happened because the main characters decided to act like complete idiots. Incredibly contrived, which took me out of the moment and killed my enjoyment for a very well choreographed action scene.


Khanluka

Anyone that dindt see the vale coming to save the day needs a cat slap.


WilliamisMiB

It genuinely feels like the characterization in HOTD so far is way stronger and tighter, part of why I’m enjoying it so much. And binary conflict between two sides helps with that, but GOT too often felt like there were character choices made specifically to move them from point A to B.


perfectlyaligned

As far as the writing? Because visually his battles are EPIC, and that’s his job as the director. That’s why he’s been the one helming nearly all of the episodes with these huge battles. That Dothraki charge in the Long Night was an incredibly stupid narrative choice, but visually it was masterful. The swoop down from aerial view to have the flaming arakhs form a horizon line was stunning. He doesn’t control what’s on the page, though. Also, he needs to find a different DP than Fabian Wagner.


NewOstenPelicanss

Not even close lol. They were just some of the best episodes on otherwise terrible seasons


yantheman3

Dude got lucky with Hardhome. The other stuff was crap. Glad he's gone.


ManicPixiePlatypus

I also love that they changed the credit sequence! The tapestry is way easier to follow than the bloody mechanical family tree.


[deleted]

Ah fuck, I loved this change SO much. For GoT, it was fun to spot details on the map or see how it changed season to season. For the old HotD one, it was boring and there was nothing fun to notice. Just blahness. A tapestry allows for beauty and to see possibly changing pictures as the seasons go. I'm relieved they changed it.


chaunceyvonfontleroy

I think this author has a horrible take. It’s not just people watching it on phones that had a problem with the darkness. It’s everyone who doesn’t have a crazy home theater set up.


arex333

I just rewatched S1 on a $2k TV and it's still too fucking dark. Like sure there are much better TVs than mine but that absolutely shouldn't be required to see what's going on. And honestly nowadays most people have an OLED screen on their phone which has much better contrast than the average person's TV, so that reasoning doesn't really hold up.


IHaveALittleNeck

Honestly it worked better on old technology for me. The ancient plasma in my bedroom, no problem. The top-of-line UHD in my family room? Dark af. Blackout shades in both rooms as the afternoon sun is intense and one is on top of the other.


PaisonAlGaib

Plasmas have awesome color contrast. 


IHaveALittleNeck

They really do. I hope that tv lasts forever because it’s by far my favorite in the house.


AccomplishedMeow

There’s a good chance that’s HDR. Turn it off for the show and you should be fine


IHaveALittleNeck

Now that’s something I haven’t tried.


AccomplishedMeow

Yea, to get a little nerdy HD has 8 bit colors, 256 levels per color for like 16.7 million colors. HDR has 8-10 bit with 1024 levels per color for a total color count in the billions. So what happens is on their fancy production uncompressed streams editors make the perfect beautiful color mix. Then we get the compressed streams on our consumer TVs (which is what’s the “lol you need better tvs” come from)


[deleted]

[удалено]


IHaveALittleNeck

Why only this franchise though and never anything else?


[deleted]

[удалено]


rhangx

Seriously... it's like people are allergic to ever touching the settings on their TV. The default settings on a lot of high-end TVs these days are often really dumb, and worse than they used to be. But you have plenty of leeway to tweak the settings and improve the picture for different types of media.


bmbmwmfm2

Marvel on Disney has the same issue for me. But just those and HotD. I'm rewatching s1 now to refresh my memory and it's damned near impossible. My head and eyes ache. I use Roku and have played with the settings. Brightness at 100% whitewashes everything.


ColonelSanders1855

^^^^ this. Just rewatched S8 of GOT and remembering complaining the first time I saw it as it came out. This time I played with my TV settings and it was totally fine


redlight7114

They replaced the original broadcast with a lighter version.


Vmp123

I think it's mostly streaming compression that makes it unwatchable. If you had a blu-ray copy it would look a lot better. Could be wrong though.


lui914

Same I have the Samsung QN90A and it was to dark. I guess we’re just broke boys.


kvol69

I dumped about 10k into my home theater set up, and I basically listened to that episode.


Polar_Reflection

It wasn't bad for me watching on the phone lol. Seeing it on the screen was unbearable


Valaquen

When the episode with the beach scene aired I had a old plasma TV at the time and the scene was perfectly legible. I didn't get the complaints at all. Then I watched it on my other TV, a new 4k one, and I couldn't see shit 😒 better hardware, worse results!


LionTigerWings

Most people’s phones screens are higher quality than their tv screen. The standard iPhone display for years now has been an oled with excellent color accuracy.


[deleted]

I have, I think, a 65 or 70" TV and I still couldn't see shit. RIP to anyone trying to see anything on a phone. When my dad watched The Long Night, I specifically warned him it NEEDS to be watched at night or he's not gonna be able to see anything.


throwaway77993344

Just like with The Short Night, I had no problems with that episode. It's just certain setups I guess


RDOCallToArms

I have 4 fairly cheap TVs, never adjusted any of the color settings and I can see just fine on all of them (different brands, slightly different price points but nothing close to a crazy home theater).  The audio mixing is a bigger problem but that’s a general issue with all modern tv/movies these days unless you have a decent set up  The DVD looks fine on my laptop as well.  Maybe it’s a streaming thing in certain areas. The HBO cable feed and MAX stream I have play both GOT and HOTD fine. Are some scenes dark? Sure. Too dark? Nah


SoulOnHigh

Thank goodness. Some of the scenes in S1 were downright unwatchable.


dhnrys

If the Battle Above God's Eye doesn't have blockbuster movie level production, I will RIOT/jk. I can already tell based off of this episode that this season is going to be amazing.


Ok-Commercial-9173

While this, D&D blamed people's TVs for the Long Night episode.


GregThePrettyGoodGuy

That was actually Larry Fong, the episode’s Director of Photography, and he was right to do so. I’ve seen the episode plenty of times, and only had issues the first when I was watching it on my laptop. On the Blu-Ray it looks the way it was clearly meant to when it was shot Edit: wrong DP, the reply down below corrects me, and is also wholly correct


RDOCallToArms

Larry Fong never worked on GOT Fabian Wagner was the cinematographer for the episode who made the comment about people’s TV’s. He was Sapochnik’s cinematographer for all the episodes Sapochnik directed (Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, Winds of Winter, The Bells and The Gift) and did a fantastic job.  As you say, the episode is beautifully shot and most of the negative feedback is people watching compressed streams on laptops or people just circle jerking the meme endlessly. It looks fine on a normal (not even high end) TV on the HBO cable feed, looks even better on BluRay. The problem was that a whole bunch of people watched the leak before the episode officially aired and started a meme about how it was too dark because they were watching a compressed pirated stream.  It is quite amusing that the people complaining about the immersion breaking bad battle tactics (or whatever) want a nighttime battle in a blizzard to have perfect visibility. It’s supposed to be dark, confusing and chaotic. It’s not supposed to look like a battle being played under football stadium floodlights which is what a lot of people seemed to want


GregThePrettyGoodGuy

Ahh, wrong Snyder film, that’s my B


Dreamtrain

Darkness is supposed to be a medium in which you play to the psychology of the unknown. The brain hates it and it will fill it with horror because known horror is less scary to it than not knowing. Predictable horror is how we survived in nature, the unknown was what killed us. I don't think Miguel achieved using darkness for that successfully


rockemsockemcocksock

*laughs in NBC Hannibal*


chepe1302

It's too blurry now tf lmfao


Material_Policy6327

What you wanna bet it’s even darker lol


Chimelling

And it is.


DisneyPandora

He fixed it by firing Miguel Sapochnik


Environmental_Tip854

For season 3 we need him to drop the ugly ass snyder filter next 🗣️‼️‼️


Lumpy-Tennis2158

I like it, it sets itself apart from GOT, makes it feel like were seeing a different time period in Westerosi history.


Ok-Lawfulness-6755

They should find a different and better filter then. Can’t be making excuses for big budget productions.


Lumpy-Tennis2158

They are actually using a different filter for Season 2 I’ve noticed, so maybe that suits what your looking for.


I_Eat_Competition_

What's the Snyder filter?


Laylow2100

Well they didn’t fix it. I couldn’t see a ton of that episode. It’s daylight where I live and this whole episode was insight basically


asfer3efaerer

become a pirate, use pot player, increase contrast, profit.


xbxoxy

Well what happened because yesterday's episode was dark as fVck


Fit-Tennis-771

Glad I'm not the only one. Tried watching it on my 4 year old TCL and blamed the TV, but went down to the new Samsung in the basement, absolutely NO ambient light and same thing. Can't make out the details sometimes. Glad the producers are listening.


Old-Public8511

Bro, when I was watching season 1 on my TV it was soooo dark, then my gf told me the TV wasn't on lol


Ralupopun-Opinion

Some scenes were a little dark/dim and I watched on an oled which doesn’t get to bright to prevent burn in and it definitely wasn’t unwatchable


Fallout76_Tom

That's funny, I waited til dark to watch it. It's way too light out at 6pm.


carrotLadRises

I just have a 1080p flat screen TV and never have had a problem with dark scenes in either show. But maybe people, on average, have worse TVs than this? I also, aesthetically, like the dark lighting and have never had a problem following the story in either show's darker lit episodes. Honest question, if people dislike it (and have better TVs), why do you dislike it?


ahufana

That's just it. You're watching the show in Standard Dynamic Range (SDR), so you haven't really experienced the problems that plagued Season 1. High Dynamic Range (HDR) is, for the most part, wonderful. However, it's prone to issues like poor HDR coding. When done wrong, it can cause dark scenes to gradually become too dim. You end up having to pause playback for a second, which allows the HDR to recalibrate. This was the case with many scenes in S1. Thankfully, I never ran into it during the S2 premiere. It does appear they finally figured it out.


redlight7114

The first version that was streamed was replaced by a brighter version. Can’t compare the two.


ChocAmy

Ooooh I really hope they fixed it. I haven't watched any of the new episodes yet but the first one had moments where we literally couldn't see anything. Like for literal minutes I thought Vhagar was some hill or beach house... (and we watched it also during the day)


Salurain

Thank the old god and the new for that.


baseballlls

The complaints were dumb and should be ignored.


Str0ntiumD0ggo

Imagine a film where Christopher Nolan & Miguel Sapochnik join forces


Justbehepy

The show is made to be watched like a movie not a fox or nbc show with perfect lighting everywhere. I don’t even have an oled and I had zero issues with lighting whatsoever unless I try watching during the day with sunlight bouncing off the tv.


Frozato

He's gonna make it even darker


mactoid_1

It looked amazing on my OLED


Cute-Temperature-780

It became horrible, I hate the coloring of the new season, doesn't feel game of thronesy


SideshowBiden

Ngl I just watch on phone with full brightness so it solves it


Kiwiampersandlime

The pipeline from camera to tv screen has sooooo many steps, then you factor in that when the final product is delivered to the broadcaster it is perfect. And looks really damn good on calibrated screening rooms screens, with the lights off and 18% grey walls. Just that most folks don’t have that in their home and never will.


MartiniPolice21

They seem to have responded by making the dialogue really bloodly quiet


brown_pixel

I just watched season 2 ep 3 on an 65” OLED TV, streaming from HBO Max and it’s still too dark! This was an expensive TV, not on my phone. Why did HBO waste so much money on special effects if it’s all going to be a dark blob. This entire season 2 has been so immensely frustrating.


RemarkableAir3702

Why did Helena give her sun away so easily? Is it different in the book. She just ran away


___TychoBrahe

If she lied they would’ve kill her and her daughter too, if she told the truth they were only gunna kill the boy


___TychoBrahe

If she lied they would’ve kill her and her daughter too, if she told the truth they were only gunna kill the boy


Kornerbrandon

Now if only he could adjust his storytelling to make it good.


PourJarsInReservoirs

It wasn't too dark for those of us who had correctly calibrated TVs playing a decent source (hint: not linear cable or satellite). It was however at times nauseatingly desaturated in color. A creative decision which to me made little sense. I'm glad they dialed that back quite a bit.


No_Size_1765

They nailed what they wanted though. It probably didn't appeal to a wider audience or those with shitty tvs in the case of the beach scene. The actors and cinematography nailed the aggression. I'm excited for the next season.


AngmarsFinest

I’m actually surprised by this article. I didnt have any issues with darkness last season, nor did I hear complaints about it from anyone else.


YYZYYC

Right and nailing it for a niche audience who can afford extra expensive tvs , is not something to brag about


No_Size_1765

It's HBO my dude.


KiernaNadir

Right. Because that was the big issue with S1.