‘Game of Thrones’ Cinematographer Fabian Wagner Defends Dimly Lit Battle Of Winterfell

Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thrones was one fans around the world were rushing to see. In the final season of HBO’s hit series, Sunday’s episode ran a whopping 96 minutes and portrayed the epic Battle of Winterfell fans have been waiting for. But apparently, some fans couldn’t even see it.

On Sunday, a number of fans took to social media to complain about the lighting in the episode, bemoaning the fact that the lighting was too dark and made it too difficult to make out what was happening during the battle scene. Many were very upset and called out Thrones cinematographer Fabian Wagner for his choice.

But in an interview with Wired on Tuesday, Wagner defended his lighting choices. “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.” What’s more, Wagner said he wanted the lighting during the battle to reflect the characters’ journeys, the shift from darkness to light representing the shift from loss to victory.

But still others have complained that Wagner took it a little too far. While watching the episode on Sunday, Rolling Stone editor David Fear tweeted, “seriously though, did the Ghost of Gordon Willis shoot tonight’s #GameOfThrones premiere?” a reference to the late director who was famous for shooting in the dark. In an article the following morning, IndieWire also questioned Wagner’s decision and posted a series of screenshots showing how hard it was to see the episode.

But Wagner doesn’t think he’s to blame for that issue.

“A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly,” he said. “A lot of people also, unfortunately, watch it on small iPads, which in no way can do justice to a show like that anyway… Game of Thrones is a cinematic show and therefore you have to watch it like you’re at a cinema: in a darkened room. If you watch a night scene in a brightly-lit room then that won’t help you see the image properly.”

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