'GOT' cinematographer defends 'dark' Battle of Winterfell scenes

Fabian Wagner, the man behind the lens for the third episode of "Game of Thrones", has explained the much-criticised dimly-lit cinematography of 'The Long Night', which focused on the Battle of Winterfell.

The chapter was billed to have the most action and bloodshed after two consecutive slogging, build-up episodes, now that the White Walkers and wights were a stone's throw away from the gates of the northern stronghold and it was every bit that.

But after the episode aired, many fans complained that they could not see anything due to abysmally low lighting during the majority of battle sequences. In an interview with Wired UK, Wagner defended the episode and instead blamed the settings of the viewers' TV sets.

"A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don't know how to tune their TVs properly. A lot of people also, unfortunately, watch it on small iPads, which in no way can do justice to a show like that anyway... "If you watch a night scene in a brightly lit room then that won't help you see the image properly," he said. Wagner has previously done cinematography for the fan-favourite "Battle of Bastards" episode of the HBO series. He said it was a conscious decision to limit the use of lighting on the nighttime battlefield.

"The showrunners decided that this had to be a dark episode. 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," Wagner said. "Another look would have been wrong. Everything we wanted people to see is there," he added.

Also Read: 'GoT' Season 8 fan theory: Is Bran Stark the Night King?

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