‘Game Of Thrones’ Cinematographer Defends Dark Battle Of Winterfell

Game of Thrones cinematographer Fabian Wagner says there’s a reason some fans found Sunday night’s episode of the HBO drama too tinted for easy viewing — your TV.

“A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly,” Wagner told Wired U.K. “A lot of people also unfortunately watch it on small iPads, which in no way can do justice to a show like that anyway.”

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Wagner added that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss wanted Season 8’s third episode titled “The Long Night” to be darkly hued, for a certain effect.

“The showrunners decided that this had to be a dark episode,” he said. “We’d seen so many battle scenes over the years – to make it truly impactful and to care for the characters, you have to find a unique way of portraying the story.”

In another interview, this time with TMZ, Wagner noted that the series “has always been very dark and a very cinematic show,” adding that it should be watched in an environment with dim lighting.

As for fans who lit up social media with complaints about the episode being too difficult to figure out what was going on, Wagner disagreed.

“We tried to give the viewers and fans a cool episode to watch,” he said. “I know it wasn’t too dark because I shot it.”

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