It's not just modern Trek, it's happening in other TV series too. And I wish it would stop.
Are you sure you're not confusing it with Lost in Space? Or Lexx? Or Guardians of the Galaxy? Maybe Futurama?
Apparently, both seasons had the same cinematographer - Crescenzo Notarile.
IIRC, Matalas claimed the season was filmed with regular lighting and that it was something Paramount+ did that made the image look darker in S3. Though as someone who actually watched S3 broadcast on Canada's CTV Sci-Fi Channel, I can confirm the season was just for some reason filmed really darkly.
It wouldn't be the first time post-production went really dark in their cinema-grade, high dynamic range mastering suite and it looked fine on their $50,000 color-calibrated pro monitor, but between consumer-grade hardware and internet streaming compression, it turned to mud for the audience, at least until the disc came out. So... Picard season 3 on HDR 4K blu-ray when?
When they're doing their post-production work they should really try turning all the lights on and watching it on a cheap TV to see what it looks like then. Because most classic movies still look really damn good that way.
The Ready Room lighting in GEN is exquisite. Yeah, the bridge has a very, "we had to light a TV soundstage a different way to make a television picture quality set appear more cinematic," but I really like the way the Ready Room, Sickbay and Ten Forward come off looking in the movie.
I've known fx artists who absolutely check their work that way.
I'm a musician (mostly a hobbiest). After mixing and mastering on my main audio setup I definitely need to run my tune thru the crappiest car audio or dirt cheap headphones. If it sounds good on the crap equipment, it'll sound amazing on great gear. Gotta maximize the quality on the most limited setup for playback. I'm sure good vfx and editing folks do the same!
I prefer the look of the E-D bridge in GEN to how it appeared during the series. I have smart lights at home and usually have them on "soft white" and then max out the brightness at 60% or maybe 80%, but rarely full brightness.
I think it was Hamnet where they made a point of trying to film a scene as darkly as possible without entirely losing sight of people.
When people say the E-D bridge looks too dark, though, I admit I wonder what their viewing conditions are.
I think it was Hamnet where they made a point of trying to film a scene as darkly as possible without entirely losing sight of people.
When people say the E-D bridge looks too dark, though, I admit I wonder what their viewing conditions are.
I know Foo Fighers and Metallica do the same to test their new albums - cranking the mixes on the shittiest car stereo they can find.
I get what they were going for in Generations - lighting wise. I think it works in peoples quarters and the ready room, ten forward etc...
But imagine working a long shift in that darkened environment. No thanks. I'd much rather work in the evenly lit TNG bridge. On the flip side, no way would you want to work on the ST09 bridge - unless you brought some sunglasses.
But imagine working a long shift in that darkened environment. No thanks. I'd much rather work in the evenly lit TNG bridge. On the flip side, no way would you want to work on the ST09 bridge - unless you brought some sunglasses.
My biggest issue here is the colors on their uniforms, which are much darker than they were in TNG. Turn on the lights and brighten the colors!And for comparison, here's the way the set was lit for Picard, which strikes me as very flat, a common way a lot of shows and movies are shot these days. It's done for the speed of setups to avoid having to relight the set to film different angles. You just bombard it with diffused light through a reflector box.
Drives me crazy on some shows where they're working in a lab with just a couple lamps and maybe some edge lighting. It's a lab! You need light!
Back to the original topic though, I liked most of the lighting in GEN. Whenever you have sunlight coming in the windows at home, it vastly overwhelms any artificial lighting you may have in the room. I know that these are done on indoor stages, but I don't know why more productions don't try and replicate that effect. I mean, most of the time they're at a planet which is likely next to a star, you should have very bright light coming in those windows.
People did it during the TNG series years as well. We see the night shift settings in Data's Day...
So....Generations is set at night?
Can you canonically prove it isn't?
I'm reminded of a story in "The Worst Band in the World. The Story of 10cc", where Eric Stewart, who produced most of 10cc's records, said that when it came to mixing and final mastering of the albums, he mixed them for 90% of the customers who had the shitty car or home set up and not the 10% who had the high end equipment.
It's always night in space.
Unless you're near a sun.
Which they are. That's why the rooms with windows are sun-lit.
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