HuffPost UK previously wrote about how Netflix’s sound can be a little heavy for music and a little light for conversations if you don’t check your settings correctly.
But there’s one issue that adjusting the set won’t solve, and it’s not related to one streamer in particular. Movies are generally getting darker.
If you, like me, squint to see the screen both at home and in the movie theater, you may wonder why movie studios would make such a call.
Luckily, cinematographer, director, and colorist Devan Scott has the answer. Apparently it has nothing to do with the brightness of the set.
what happened?
First, Scott explains, we need to define “dark.” Each pixel in an image has a brightness value that he describes as an IRE level, he explains, where “0 is black, 50 is medium gray, and 100 is white.”
Next is exposure, which measures how much light reaches the camera’s sensor. He says this is often due to “dark” movies.
You can play around with both of these values in post-production if you want, he says. This means that even “underexposed” shots can be made to look brighter if needed. Rather, he says, color grading affects the perceived brightness of an image.
He says the amount of light on set has little to do with how dark something looks, but rather how the light is used and how editors process the footage after shooting. added that it is important.
So why choose darkness?
Well, partly because we can, explains Scott.
New technology now allows you to highlight, shade, and grade shades of white and black in ways you couldn’t before. This is a fun opportunity for people like cinematographer Fabian Wagner. He said of the infamous Game of Thrones battle episode: There’s something to see. ”
It could just be the aesthetic preference of the director or cinematographer, and just like fashion, trends are reflected in movies.
But on top of that, we increasingly watch movies and TV on our phones, on TVs, in well-lit rooms, and on screens that aren’t designed to be optimal for watching TV and movies. Even the best cinematography “can’t compete with the sun,” Scott said.
So what was supposed to be a moody scene in a movie can look completely incomprehensible on a mobile phone screen, for example. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the director or cinematographer was wrong. Technology has grown significantly on the production side, but not as much on the consumer side.
We may have to squint until the artist’s vision is displayed in a better way on a real-world level…
