Is Hawkeye Facing DC’s Common Lighting Problem?

Hawkeye’s trailer is action-packed, filled with humor and holiday spirit. The one thing it’s missing is good night lighting.

Quite a few of the scenes depict events taking place in the dark, right from Barton’s first encounter with Bishop to the young protege seemingly trying to rescue the former Avenger from a kidnapped sitch.

There is a knack to filming night scenes and low-light shots without which the scenes can appear grainy or plain low quality. You don’t want your shots to be so dark and shadowy that your audience is straining to decode what they’re seeing.

The trailer hints that we will see the Hawkeye duo prowling in the dark quite a bit. In order to really boost the impact of these scenes, the show will have to do better than the poorly lit shots seen in the trailer.

Visual tone and lighting is a common problem that DC faces. It has proved to make or break a movie/tv show — for while the lack of light worked for The Dark Knight Trilogy, DC taking forward this “formula” and replicating it in other projects was a serious blunder.

It didn’t work at a technical level, nor for the storytelling and certainly not for the viewer’s eyes.

Where DC projects ultimately fail is that they prioritize visual tone over the story. That is, attempting to use dark shots devoid of light to convey the “dark,” serious narrative of the plot… without actually making any efforts in the plot itself. 

This has led to the DC projects feeling lackluster and at times, lifeless.

In Hawkeye, the narrative tone is different — while it may have grave elements, it also seems to imbibe humor and cheer, which makes me hope that the show isn’t trying to carry its more serious scenes solely through lack of lighting. 

Plus, Hawkeye promises more fast-paced fight sequences than Loki and WandaVision did, so it would be crucial to capture these well, both, in day and night shots. The final verdict will come through once the show premiers on November 24.

What do you think? Have a look at the trailer once again to decide for yourself:

About Hawkeye

Hawkeye is an upcoming television miniseries for the Disney+ streaming service. Created by Jonathan Igla, it is based on the Marvel comic character of the same name. The show will feature Clint Barton aka. Hawkeye and newcomer Kate Bishop who will eventually become the next Hawkeye.

Cast members include Jeremy Renner who will be reprising his role as Barton, and Hailee Steinfeld will be playing Kate Bishop. Additional cast includes Vera Farmiga, Fra Fee, and Florence Pugh, who too will reprise her role from the unreleased “Black Widow”. Hawkeye is scheduled to be released in November 2021.