House of the Dragon boss explains why some fans found episodes too dark

By Patrick Cremona

Published: Monday, 24 October 2022 at 12:00 am

The first season of House of the Dragon has come to a dramatic end – and it’s safe to say that the Game of Thrones prequel has gone down as one of the most talked-about shows of the year.

But while most of the conversations around the series have been overwhelmingly positive, there have also been one or two complaints from fans.

One of the areas of concern has been related to how dark certain scenes have looked – with many viewers taking issue with the fact that the lighting of key sequences has made it rather difficult to work out what’s going on.

And now, showrunner Ryan Condal has addressed this problem in an interview with Deadline, explaining that the issue likely has its roots in the television sets that the show is being viewed on, rather than specific problems with how the scenes were shot.

“The difference between making television and making movies is when you make a movie, you calibrate the thing that you’re making, the master file, for this idealized movie theatre experience,” he said.

“You know it’s going to go into a professionally-calibrated environment, run by a professional projectionist on a professional sound system.”