“Game of Thrones can never be too dark,” according to the showrunners

Game of Thrones was a beautiful show. There’s no contesting that. From the special effects to the gorgeous location shots to the dynamic battles, the series knew its way around a camera.

According to Game of Thrones cinematographer Sam McCurdy, that came down to the producers trusting in the abilities of the crew. “They actually give us complete freedom to do whatever we wanted,” he told Cinema 5D. “I swear that’s what drives everybody, especially on Game of Thrones…to make it the show that it was, because you were given the freedom to make it as good as you wanted…No director was ever told how to direct, no cinematographer was ever told how to light.”

Or at least, that was McCurdy’s experience working on “Blackwater,” the classic season 2 episode where Stannis Baratheon tried to sack King’s Landing. That episode came fairly early on in the show’s run, before it had blown up into a proper phenomenon, but the philosophy of letting talented people be talented was already in effect. “I don’t think even, at the time, they knew that they wanted to do with it,” McCurdy said. “It was a huge episode, and we were kind of given free free rein to go out and make it. They just kinda went, ‘Yeah, go out and make it as big as you can,’ and we said, ‘Alright!'”

"For something like Game of Thrones…I think we had 10 days to shoot just over an hour’s worth of television. So yes, the schedule’s insane, but as long as you go in knowing what you want to do, as long as you go in well-prepped and ready knowing that if somebody changes their mind, you can adapt to it, I think that’s really important to managing the television schedule."

That said, McCurdy does remember showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss giving him one pointer: “The only words of advice they had for me was, ‘Game of Thrones can never be too dark.'”

If you remember the episode “The Long Night” from the final season of the show, that piece of advice probably perked your ears up. As memorable as the final battle between the living and the dead was, the episode got a lot of flak for being dark to the point where it was actually hard to see what was happening. So maybe there was a point where the show could get too dark after all, even if the series took six more seasons to get there.

That said, both McCurdy and interviewer Nino Leitner loved the look of the episode, calling it “daring,” “incredible” and “amazing,” so mileage may vary. “I think what Game of Thrones did and what [cinematographer] Fabrian Wagner did in particular with that episode was he pushed it as far as he could, and I loved it, and I know so many other people that loved it. For the one or two people that didn’t, meh.”

Personally, I appreciated that Game of Thrones took such a big swing on the look of “The Long Night” — I really do think it was a cool idea to make it look as dark as possible to reflect the bleakness of the battle — but I don’t think it quite worked in practice, or at least not all of the time. But again, it’s a subjective thing.

If you’re interested, McCurdy has lots more interesting stuff to say, especially if you’re interested in the art of cinematography or breaking into the film industry:

Enjoy!

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels