Game of Thrones Prequel Will Avoid Overly Dark Cinematography Says DP

Seven months after A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms wrapped its first season, Westeros returned to the scale that defines it. House of the Dragon’s third season just concluded on HBO with another battle, and another massive season will arrive in 2028.

Watching dragons and armies fight for control of Westeros is compelling, but the smaller saga from seven months ago remains a high point for expanded universe storytelling.

Cinematographer Gustav Danielsson spoke to Polygon following his Emmy nomination for season 1. He explained that the production always intended to show what Westeros could look like outside of epic fantasy. The team wanted to think smaller and rely on the outdoors, shooting up to 90% of the series outside around Northern Ireland. They traded elaborate studio environments for forests, mountains, and mud. Belfast weather provided challenges, but Danielsson believes the variability helped him and director Owen Harris achieve naturalism within the Game of Thrones universe.

“Nothing has to be consistent [in GoT] in terms of what HBO asks for,” Danielsson says of the visual relationship to the larger Westeros franchise. “Of course, I’ve seen it all before and it kind of relates to it in a way, but it’s its own piece, its own universe.”

Achieving naturalism on a massive fantasy series requires immense labor. A scene that appears to unfold in one continuous moment takes days to construct with horses, extras, lighting rigs, and multiple units. The battle sequence in episode 5 took at least two weeks to shoot. The filmmakers wanted an early dawn look, which required mist machines, wind, and supplemental visual effects to cooperate.

The practical hurdles included the fake blood, which was made with sugar and attracted wasps. “You can actually see a few wasps in the final product,” Danielsson says with a laugh. Rather than removing every insect, the production sometimes embraced them. “You can almost smell it when you have something flying around like that.”

The creative team also inherited one of the oldest anxieties in Westeros: darkness.

Following viewer complaints about the original series’ lighting, which was likely tied to home theater setups, HBO worried that Seven Kingdoms would look too dark. Danielsson notes there was significant concern early on when executives thought images leaned too far into shadow. However, he, Harris, and showrunner Ira Parker wanted a genuinely dark world that mirrored the experience of being outside at night rather than the artificially illuminated nighttime common in fantasy television.

“It’s never pitch black because your eyes adapt and you start seeing stuff,” he says. “So that’s the kind of night you want. You want to see stuff. You want to be dark, but you want to see stuff.”

Danielsson and colorist Tim Drewett built a filmic look for the digital cameras to maintain that balance. On set, Danielsson toggled between the finished look and the raw digital negative to ensure shadow detail remained intact. Digital Imaging Technician Cel Bothwell Fitzpatrick also warned him when shots grew too dark.

HBO tested the footage using a room filled with televisions configured to approximate various home viewing setups. “We checked it out,” Danielsson says with a laugh, “and it’s definitely not too dark.”

Westeros is a world lit by candles and the sun, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was built from the land. Reflecting on the project, Danielsson views it as a success that presented a different Westeros rather than a bigger or brighter one.

Source: Polygon