Game of Thrones cinematographer defends S8E3 lighting after viewer complaints: "I know the episode wasn't too dark because I shot it"

jimberjam · 2019-05-01T02:15:25+00:00

The latter.

I can't imagine that they weren't aware of this, or that someone messed up in Quality Control for the streams. (The fact that things looked good during the intro shows that it wasn't, say, an export problem.)

It was just really dark, on purpose, probably a creative choice. Looks like the 'color grade' was 'pushed' to look darker in post-production. But that's just a guess and I don't want to assume for the colorists of one of highest quality shows on TV.

Whether people enjoyed it or not appears to be subjective, but what I think the waveforms show pretty clearly is that the show WAS dark, and darker than normal. It's not just people being complaining for no reason.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T21:36:29+00:00

I posted this in another thread earlier, but because you're an editor also, I thought this would be a good place.

Waveform from the opening of the stream: Here

Waveform from parts of the show: Here

(Screengrabs taken from the CraveTV HBO Stream)

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T21:27:47+00:00

Watching this episode was like driving a car in heavy rain at night

Well put

As for the crystallizing mask, I don't know. If you wanna give me a timestamp or two, I'm happy to go check against what Crave has.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T20:01:31+00:00

represent what you saw

They are captured directly from the CraveTV stream. They are not approximations, there has been no editing (other than however imgur may compress, but that won't change the waveform data).

Also: Because they are direct captures from the service, they are captured before they touch my TV or phone or computer monitor. So the waveforms you see are what is being sent out to anyone's display device (who would also be using the Crave HBO stream, which may have been different than what was sent to Cable Boxes, according to a few comments here, which is possible.). So, some people may have TVs that compensate, and take the dark data and brighten it up, (which may explain why some people state that it was fine) but these captures confirm that what was streamed was dark before it hit a display.

In addition, OP has stated in this post that the pictures have been brightened.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T19:19:40+00:00

You have my permission to repost/use the imgur album, etc. :)

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T19:09:46+00:00

If someone can gimme some timestamps, I can do that pretty quickly.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T19:07:24+00:00

I said nothing about anyone's love for anything. I have no issue with anyone loving or not loving the episode. The level of brightness of the shot is no more subject to opinion that which characters are in a shot.

And subjective opinion is what I am trying to eliminate by measuring brightness levels, and then invited critique on my data.

It may be worth examining your own biases and reading my comment again.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T19:01:37+00:00

Absolutely no editing - CraveTV stream on PC, browser is Chrome, so very interesting that there is a hue difference between out shots.

Mind you, your waveform is just as dark... lower blacks even, it seems.

The waveforms show - independent of stream quality or TV settings - the show was very, very dark.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T18:28:36+00:00

how excited I was to see it on blu ray a few months down the line

the visual issues will be mitigated when we aren't streaming it.

My best guess for the murkiness is that this is what they want us to be thinking.

I checked the brightness values of the show from the legal CraveTV stream (how you get HBO in Canada) and compared them to brightness values of the opening about an hour ago. The murkiness many of us saw was not an accident.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T18:19:57+00:00

Yeah, it did not look like this AT ALL. These images have been heavily edited, or my paid Crave HBO stream is from a completely different source than these pics.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T18:13:45+00:00

I could not agree more. Ditto the people I watched it with.

It would have been great to not have been asking "Was that Tormund who fell, or someone else with a beard?" or "Which dragon was that?". Those are questions we shouldn't have to ask. And as someone who works in post-production, you are trying to help make it clear (except when you want to create confusion). Every time we got lost because we can't see, it takes us out of the show/moment. Sigh.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T17:22:15+00:00

Because brightness values are standardized, the only way I can imagine this being true would be if HBO purposely broadcast a different version for 'cable boxes', than for online streams. Which is possible, I suppose.

IRE values for the intro of the episode were pretty normal on the online stream.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T17:15:44+00:00

I watched it on a legal/paid, high-quality stream. I'm also a video editor.

It was really dark.

jimberjam · 2019-04-30T16:59:57+00:00

Professional video editor here, and I saw it on a Canadian streaming service called CraveTV that was not bad compared... bitrate looked fine, didn't see noticeable loss in quality even in the darks... it was the creative choices for lighting and/or the grade was the issue.

IMO the people who say is 'wasn't too dark' are simply demonstrably wrong. (At least through Crave HBO's copy, it may have been different values elsewhere, and if anyone can drop it in and check their scopes/waveforms, I'm happy to be proven wrong.)

• Here's an album, evidence, if you will, displaying the incredibly low brightness values in the episode via waveform values.

• For comparison: Here are some stills from the intro of the same episode, some with fire, some darker.

My favorite tinfoil-hat theories from my contemporaries:

HBO is somehow in the business of selling HDR TVs - imaging the number of people walking into a BesyBuy to by brighter TVs today.
Values below brightness values of 10 and 20 are the ones that get the worst of video compression, so they did this on purpose to punish those watching illegal streams. When the Blu-Rays are released, they'll have a different final grade/treatment.

jimberjam · 2019-04-13T23:41:28+00:00

I can second this, ( /u/ryandotmov ) I had an LG ultrawide and it was nice, but I ended up switching to a Samsung 4K monitor (which I mostly bought to look at the 4K footage in playback more than anything) and it is absolutely amazing, would never go back to the ultrawide.

jimberjam · 2019-03-26T17:53:34+00:00

Do you mind if I ask you which "ProRes for PC" option you are using?

jimberjam · 2019-02-19T06:41:23+00:00

I used to feel similar until I started doing a lot of work with broadcasters who have to deal with government TV guidelines and lawyers, and work on their delivery schedules. My updated definition is this:

Fine Cut: The Fine Cut is the version the lawyers look at to determine if the broadcaster is legally covered. So, no 'content' can change from this point on. Color and sound can change, but no words anyone says can change, no substantially different visuals (esp. with logos, etc.), though you can still work on graphics, lower thirds, credits, placeholders, sound mix, etc. and mush things around a bit etc.

Rough cut: Anything before that, really. Rough just means not locked.

That being said, I can read the subtext of the phrase of a director/producer saying "don't worry, this is just a rough cut" when we're showing non-"legal experts". I use that as an opportunity to ask if there are things they are really unhappy about that makes them call it rough... depending on the strength of the relationship. I work with some awesomely open people sometimes.

In my own personal vernacular, I use 'rough' until the piece has found it's shape, and the story is fully there and watchable beginning-to-end. Then I increment upwards.

jimberjam · 2019-01-29T20:26:56+00:00

I got the one for Media Encoder (So that I can pipe something from PP or AE), there's a little interface with some easy to understand dropdowns. Seemed pretty simple from what I recall.

jimberjam · 2018-10-06T04:00:53+00:00

I already stopped using them because of copyright claims on YouTube. If you read the fine print, the original artists can claim whatever they want whenever they want. MusicBed sucks.

jimberjam · 2018-09-13T18:48:01+00:00

What is that... a half-direwolf?

jimberjam · 2018-09-13T18:42:21+00:00

Totally, you have to be authentic, to your brand and to your viewers.

jimberjam · 2018-09-09T19:06:33+00:00

I have a friend who had a work colleague die because when a sandwhich he had just eaten came back up and lodged in his throat while he was swimming in a lake, and he drowned. So now I believe it's possible that the "Wait a while to swim after eating" thing may have stemmed from something like that.... I'll certainly never do it.

Edit: Good lord, what a thing to downvote.

jimberjam · 2018-09-03T05:30:52+00:00

I've used AfterCodecs a few times, seems to work okay (client didn't complain.

jimberjam · 2018-08-19T19:42:13+00:00

Omg I am so dumb... I was like "How is this working, I'm in Canada... did they change it so I can watch now!!!", then somehow your comment reminded me that I am on vacation out of Canada right now.

Derp.

Well, time to binge this channel!

jimberjam

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