From American Horror Story to Stranger Things to Euphoria to Game of Thrones, some TV shows are tough to watch because of its dark subject matter — while others aren’t the easiest to enjoy due to dark lighting.
Certain programs have become known for being harder to see and cinematographers have weighed in on whether the issue is on the viewer or the content itself.
“I don’t know why there’s this trend now to shoot extremely dark, but I think — I’m not going to name names — there are two sides to it,” Shasta Spahn, who has worked on American Horror Stories, told Vulture in November 2023. “There’s a version where people know what their exposure and balance is and they know how to make a scene look a certain way that has darkness technically. And then there’s the other side of it where people don’t know what they’re doing. They’re making it look really dark.”
Spahn cited several examples on the filmmaker’s side, adding, “They have no light in the actor’s eyes. They have no separation between the foreground and the background, and it’s unskilled and looks horrible. … Night scenes can be done and are done so beautifully, but they’re also done so poorly.”
Meanwhile Lyn Moncrief, who brought movies such as Five Nights at Freddy’s to life, questioned whether “larger TVs” were to blame.
“They tend to have a 16:9 format. We’re no longer in this 4:3 television analog era where the distinctions between television and movies, at least in terms of composition and aspect ratios, are so extreme. Pre-2000, that aspect ratio was forced upon you when shooting TV,” Moncrief noted. “You’re seeing a lot more projects, and they’re shooting 2.39:1 with letterboxing and things of that nature that used to always be a fight to have. That cinematic influence has had a direct effect on streaming shows, whereas in the past, that was not the case.”
House of the Dragon cinematographer Pepe Avila del Pino had his own take on the subject. He specifically called out “overprocessed color correction” that became too common with everyone’s favorite TV shows.
“The blacks are not blacks. And there’s a standardized look. A lot of TV starts to look the same, and that has to do with many things. One of them is the technology we all have now, like the use of LED lights, which are faster and more practical,” Del Pino explained. “The cameras are faster too and the lenses are more sensitive to light. All those reasons tend to push the workflow day-to-day on set with TV on a very rushed schedule, usually.”
He continued: “I think it’s more a consequence of the tools being used, rather than an artistic vision. There’ve been a lot of people making TV very fast in the past few years. Things are pre-produced, produced, and then distributed to postproduction, and then sent back to the streamers in a very short time span. All these factors lend themselves to these low light levels and an overly color-corrected look onscreen.”
Keep scrolling to see examples of certain shows known for being too visually dark:
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