A few seconds of darkness is fine. For example - the character wakes up and turns on the light. But the current trend is that sometimes entire scenes are too dark.
A few seconds of darkness is fine. For example - the character wakes up and turns on the light. But the current trend is that sometimes entire scenes are too dark.
I noticed recently while watching some older Xfiles that there are a lot of dark scenes but they all still look really crisp and good. Is that something to do with film or what?
Shooting on film doesn't hurt. The output method is still digital though and that's usually more important along with the digitizing method. Chances are though the difference was on set. Lighting a dark scene can be really really fucking hard, cameras don't do dark good, they tend to require light. It's usually very strategic lighting and then colour correction and maybe some general darkening of the frame in post. Basically it means the people making the X Files were really good at shooting dark scenes.
Back in the day when TV and movie workers were a kinda seperate thing your TV guys who would have to light for 26 episodes a season got really good at doing some pretty impressive stuff on very little time and money. They also can refine a method over several seasons using similar sets and actors etc. X Files has a lot of day for night and dark soundstage scenes, they probably had a LOT of practice after a couple seasons.
I had written a reply thanking you for your thoughtful answer but apparently my shoddy internet ate it, so imagine a reply like that here.
I think I've noticed that effect in soap operas honestly. Bring able to consistently iterate on a method until you perfect it.
Soap operas are usually shot on video which is a whole other can of worms.