The name of Miguel Sapochnik was the last to appear on screen during the presentation of the third Game of Thrones and knew that he was waiting for us a real show. The director of “Hardhome” and “The battle of the bastards” we had prepared the first great banquet of the last six episodes of the series: “The long night” (“The Long Night”), long-awaited confrontation between living and dead who will define the fate of Poniente.Manos trembling they invaded the screen and gave beginning to a perfect flat sequence in which we witnessed the final preparations in Winterfell before the arrival of the King of the night and his undead army. Some cuts then appears for the first time that deep and infinite darkness in which all set the look with a mixture of terror and uncertainty of those who are against its possible end. As Melisandre said repeatedly: “the night is dark and is full of terrors”. Unfortunately what we not warned the Priestess was that one of those terrors was not to distinguish clearly what was going on in the battle more long, large and expensive series and one of the most impressive events in the history of television (but more important).
Jon, long cry and ADO | Image: HBO
The third episode of the final season of Game of Thrones may have liked more or less, but in which all viewers agree is that the battle of Winterfell was incomprehensible, dark and fuzzy chaos that forced many to change the config on the fly light of their TVs to reach maximum brightness. The dark, fast editing and sudden camera movements made it impossible to understand what was happening. “Did die Jamie in the taking of a second? No. continues fighting. It must have been an extra. They killed Sir Jorah! No, there it is in retreat! Well, at least now they come to the fire. A storm of snow and ash? “Really?” It became the most important character of the episode thanks to his sword of fire that lit up all around and let us see a little of the action almost unwittingly Beric Dondarrion. It is clear that the director tried to convey the sense of helplessness of a horror movie (as he himself accept), in which the enemy is lethal, no stops for nothing and lives in the shadows. However, the enemy will be death itself but the real horror was facing a battle of epic proportions and not be able to differentiate Podrick of Brienne.
Beric, my only hero in this mess | Image: HBO
But what happened? Why the same director who gave us two great mass conflict failed in the most important moment? Sapochnik actually did what he always does: keep the focus on the important characters with rapid camera movements and immerse us in combat and the geography of the place making consistent cuts to other areas. But both “The battle of the bastards” and “Hardhome” were fighting day, while “The long night”, as its name implies, did not have the sunlight to illuminate the field of battle. Game of Thrones is a series filmed largely with natural light for the realism of the setting. That is not a problem when two characters are in a catacomb exchanging sharp lines of dialogue but Yes when there is constant action lasting almost forty minutes. In particular because in the episode last night cinematographer Fabian Wagner wanted to “evolve” that style and film the battle of “classical” form (i.e. without additional lighting), as told to the portal Vanity Fair in an interview prior to issuance. Wagner wanted to “evolve the lighting” so that the “narrative of the light” accompany the narrative of the characters – referring to the moments in which Melisandre, Daenerys and Jon lit the battle – field. Not elaborate moments, explained, the team was able to give a sense of scale but without abandoning the segmentation of the conflict in small battles that had the necessary emotional impact.
Lyanna “David” Mormont to loading a giant | Image: HBO
The problem is that when an artistic decision that is sum that many people consume the material with the streaming service or conventional cable video compression, different qualities of panel and configuration of image, and some light environmental (few people sit down to do a series at home with the dark room as in a movie theater), the problems are the order of the day. In fact many users claim to have seen the episode again after you download it illegally in a superior quality to that offered the service for which you are paying. For his part, speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Miguel Sapochnik explained Friday that the episode was thought of as a time of horror and survival, as if from a mixture of the battle of Helm completo Deep in “The Lord of the Rings: the two towers” and “assault on” “the precinct 13 were.”[Helm’s Deep] It is a sequence of forty minutes in which there are actually three different battles in three different locations that are connected,”said the director. “That was the greatest thing I could find to be contemporary.”
Ironically there is a well-known story about Andrew Lesnie, director of photography of the trilogy of “The Lord of the rings”, in which, during a conversation with Sean Astin (Sam), the actor asks where it comes from the light in a scene in particular because I felt It was not realistic to what Lesnie responds: “of the place where the music comes.” Lesnie, who died some years ago at the age of 59, understood that the recreation of a concept is important, but when is at the service of the story. A conflict of the dimensions of the battle of Winterfell makes no sense if the Viewer cannot distinguish the events or characters, because it has no way of getting emotionally involved if you don’t know what is going on – or who. Perhaps the darkness helped to reduce the budget of the creation of this endless horde of zombies, or the production thought the episode with the ideal conditions of projection (a completely dark environment and a latest generation with perfect calibration panel). There are a lot of theories going around on the internet, but the reality is that many of us are going to have to see the episode finally understand all the scenes.
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