GoT S08E03 - Cinematography

Started by Luther, April 30, 2019, 04:32:29 PM

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Luther

I thought it would be appropriate to open a discussion here about this. So, this episode was probably the biggest in television history (cost and people), but also attracted a lot of criticism about its cinematography choices. What is your opinion?
At first, I thought:
1- They chose a very dark set and color grading to reduce costs in post-production, as it is easier to "hide" details in shadows (the fast cuts also helps in this point)
2 - To maintain realism. In medieval times people didn't have electric lights, let's remember that
3- That choice was coherent with the story line. The "darkest" moment is in a nigh battle and, at the end, the sun rises (hope)

One thing that called my attention was the rolling speed:




I understand using 23,976 fps, as they needed to use NTSC standard. But why not use 180 degree in scenes with no slow-motion instead of 172.8? Also, why use 90 degree in scenes with 23,976? Those inconsistent values are not common practice. Might be to create a euphoric movement (just like in "Saving Private Ryan")...
And why not get a faster set of lenses? They seem to be using Alexa with Cooke S4 (source: imdb), but I personally think this was an error from their part. Using Primos (f/1.8) or even Summilux-C (f/1.4) they would be able to get +1-2 stop and reduce the ISO to 800, getting more dynamic range to work with and less noise.

The color grading was very strange too. Apart from the near crushed shadows, the pallete was heavily bi-chromatic (teal-orange). This made the blood artificial. Take a look on one shot from the BtS and one from the final show:






A part from these points and the bad screenwriting, the show was good. In special CGI nailed it.
Images from the Behind the Scenes:


timbytheriver

172.8 was indeed a used shutter angle in actual film cameras. If you shoot at 24fps in PAL land (50Hz mains current) it ensures flicker-free shooting with HMI lights that have either dodgy/magnetic/old ballasts – or even fluorescents. If you are shooting at 25fps you shoot 180 deg and you will avoid the flicker also.
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Luther

Quote from: timbytheriver on April 30, 2019, 05:00:02 PM
172.8 was indeed a used shutter angle in actual film cameras. If you shoot at 24fps in PAL land (50Hz mains current) it ensures flicker-free shooting with HMI lights that have either dodgy/magnetic/old ballasts – or even fluorescents. If you are shooting at 25fps you shoot 180 deg and you will avoid the flicker also.

Oh, that's interesting. Didn't know that. Makes sense, since they recorded in Ireland.

lostfeliz

I noticed that in many of the battle shots that lasted a fraction of a second there was a lack of motion blur. I liked the effect it created, like the heart pounding flicker of adrenaline. I watched it a second time last night after all the bickering about how dark it was. I had issues with it dragging in spots, practical spatial problems, and some inconsistencies in white walker densities, but never with the final color grade. I thought the battle scenes were well edited. It had an interesting flow between many short series of shots. Way better than many battle scenes I've seen by people like Peter Jackson.