A year or so ago, my partner and I began to notice that when night scenes in television shows were too dark for us. Not dark in the mood sense but in the light sense. We would see absolutely nothing for minutes at a time. I mean maybe the whites of the person’s eyes and that is it. At first, I thought it was an isolated incident. The production budget was too small to cover the electric bill. But this year we began to notice that night scenes in a number of high budget television shows (Ozark, Midnight Mass, Archieve 81, Chapelwaite) would plunge us into complete darkness. The screen would be black with only the sound to keep the story going as we strained to see what was going on in the shadows.

I noticed that this problem is restricted to movies and television shows made in the past few years. Old movies are lit in such a way that I know that the scene is happening at night while also allowing me to see the action in the movie. I find this is preferable to me asking my partner, “What are they doing now? Can you see whatever it is that is scaring the shit out of the actor?” I am guessing that the problem is that modern cameras are so sophisticated that directors want the authenticity of the actual darkness to set the mood they are trying to create. They think that everyone can see all the dark details on the screen. I can’t. But I sure would like to.