House of the Dragon boss explains why some fans found episodes too dark
Many viewers have complained about poor lighting in some scenes of the hit Game of Thrones prequel.
The first season of House of the Dragon has come to a dramatic end – and it's safe to say that the Game of Thrones prequel has gone down as one of the most talked-about shows of the year.
But while most of the conversations around the series have been overwhelmingly positive, there have also been one or two complaints from fans.
One of the areas of concern has been related to how dark certain scenes have looked – with many viewers taking issue with the fact that the lighting of key sequences has made it rather difficult to work out what's going on.
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And now, showrunner Ryan Condal has addressed this problem in an interview with Deadline, explaining that the issue likely has its roots in the television sets that the show is being viewed on, rather than specific problems with how the scenes were shot.
"The difference between making television and making movies is when you make a movie, you calibrate the thing that you’re making, the master file, for this idealized movie theatre experience," he said.
"You know it’s going to go into a professionally-calibrated environment, run by a professional projectionist on a professional sound system."
Condal explained that despite making the series on great equipment in "the perfect environment", different distributors will slightly change how House of the Dragon looks when airing it to audiences.
"Some air it in 4k, some in 10 EP, some over-crank the brightness, some under-crank the brightness, some make the sound different.
"You’re also releasing it to 10s of millions of different television sets that are all different technology, calibrated differently and set up differently in different viewing environments. It’s almost impossible to account for all those variables when you’re making the television show."
The showrunner added that while he is aware of fan complaints, he believes House of the Dragon looked "phenomenal" when it was released and is "great" on his own television set.
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House of the Dragon airs on Sky Atlantic and is available on NOW – find out more about how to sign up for Sky TV. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what's on tonight.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
