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  "path": "/modern-tv-look-flat",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-27T22:14:24.000Z",
  "site": "https://nofilmschool.com",
  "tags": [
    "Lighting",
    "Tv cinematography",
    "Color grading",
    "Cinematography advice",
    "Cinema camera",
    "Netflix lighting",
    "Cinematography",
    "Wow Them in the End",
    "The Devil Wears Prada 2",
    "www.youtube.com",
    "less natural",
    "color and light can mean something narratively",
    "we’ve already covered",
    "@beckerbraden",
    "cinematic lighting",
    "Light is story"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nThere’s no denying that TV just looks different these days. We could do a deep dive on Netflix lighting and try to diagnose the source of a visual illness that seems to have sucked all the life out of modern-day images, but we only have so much time.\n\nSo let’s check out this new video essay from Wow Them in the End, which puts a name to that nagging feeling. The original series had warmth in its overexposed sunlight punching through windows, strong backlighting, saturated skin tones with visible shadows, colorful clothes and furniture, all of it colliding in frame.\n\nThe revival has a cleaner, less alive look, and the same could be said for almost anything made or remade these days, like The Devil Wears Prada 2. People just look washed out.\n\n- YouTube www.youtube.com\n\n## More “Realistic” Cinematography Can Feel Less Natural\n\nThe video argues it’s simply a widespread aesthetic trend. The pursuit of what currently passes for “realistic” cinematography includes diffused light and muted tones and colors, and has produced images that paradoxically feel less natural, more processed, and more emotionally distant.\n\nWe’ve also only increased image resolution over the past 10 years, so images have only gotten crisper, sharper, and easier to manipulate in post. We’ve lost texture as resolution increased (older digital still had a bit of “crunch”). It’s homogenized the look a little.\n\nIf you look at the new _Malcolm in the Middle_ , it's fine. The images aren't ugly or anything. But often, the frames are missing character.\n\n## How Color Can Be Used as a Storytelling Tool\n\nThe video uses _Game of Thrones_ vs. _House of the Dragon_ as another comparison.\n\nThe early GoT seasons used color and temperature as storytelling tools. We saw Ned Stark's cold Nordic world versus the sun-baked King's Landing, which made you feel his displacement.\n\n_House of the Dragon_ collapses all of that into one muted look. Everything is gray. It’s just all gray and dark. The video describes it as a show where \"the richness and variation of that world have been unified into one dull look.”\n\nRemember that color and light can mean something narratively. Don’t neglect it.\n\n## The Problem Isn't Film vs. Digital\n\nThe film-versus-digital debate is often invoked as a convenient excuse. Things just looked better “in the old days.” But plenty of digitally shot productions still manage contrast, dimension, and color without defaulting to a safe, muted palette.\n\nThe problem isn't the fancy new camera. It's the choices being made along the way in production design, lighting, color grade, costuming, and more.\n\nAs we’ve already covered, a lot of the lighting decisions are being made in post by people who may not have the cinematographic instincts of a seasoned DP, and productions often deliberately default to flat exposure because it's easier to standardize across delivery formats, from HDR TVs to phones to projectors.\n\nJust yesterday, I saw a video from TikToker @beckerbraden who brought up the same lack of color and depth in modern creative works, and he came to the same conclusion. It’s totally possible to shoot digitally and end up with something that looks close to film. So that’s not the root cause.\n\n> @beckerbraden\n>\n> Note: In no way am I trying to disparage anyone's work with this video. I am using the side-by-side comparison of Devil Wears Prada to illustrate a point because that example has gone extremely viral in the past months. I've seen far too many videos from uneducated people who clearly don't know the first thing about cinematography to not make a video on this topic myself. And I will likely be making a follow-up breaking down one video in particular that is COMPLETELY and almost offensively incorrect. #movies #film #filmmaking #cinematography\n\nUnfortunately, he didn’t have a solution, but we've covered plenty of options for cinematic lighting, so maybe start there.\n\n## What We Should Learn\n\nLight is story. Contrast, shadow, and color temperature are how audiences feel where a character is, who they are, and what they're up against.\n\nIf you're developing your visual language as a filmmaker, study the early seasons of _Game of Thrones_ or the original _Malcolm in the Middle_. Notice how light is doing heavier narrative lifting. Then ask yourself if your cinematography is doing the same.",
  "title": "Why Does Modern TV Look So Flat?"
}