10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About The Walking Dead

10. "It's An Ugly Show"

The Walking Dead Rick Grimes
AMC

Unlike most other shows on the air, The Walking Dead has always stood out thanks to its unique visual design. Opting for a grittier aesthetic to properly reflect the rough post-apocalyptic wasteland the characters occupy, the programme is photographed on 16mm film rather than with crisp HD digital cameras, giving it a grainy look that, while distinctive, can be a little ugly at times.

Still, although that purposefully rough image doesn't look great when it's blown up on a big-screen TV, the show's cinematography has always been hauntingly beautiful. The director of photography for the first couple of seasons, David Boyd, gave the action a cinematic look despite the low-quality film stock making everything appear as though it had been stamped on, before Michael E. Satrazemis took the reigns to give the show a more expressionistic, darker visual style from season 4 onwards.

For the most part the visuals are supposed to be as natural as possible in order to properly depict a stark, believable dystopia, but that hasn't stopped the show from looking stunning at times, most recently exemplified in the fire-and-brimstone orange and blue used throughout the mid-season finale.

Advertisement
Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.