The Cinematography of ‘Interior Chinatown’ Cries (Dick) Wolf

Cinematographer Tari Segal tells IndieWire about the bold lighting and camera choices needed to create the different worlds that Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) must navigate.

“Interior Chinatown” doesn’t just exist in just one heightened world — the Hulu series plays with myriad film and TV genre conventions. And because there are so many different modes in which the show operates, the stylization of each has to be bigger, bolder, and more distinct. 

From the cool Steadicam walk-and-talks of a broadcast police procedural to the more anamorphic-lensed thriller-mystery to throwback ‘70s Bruce Lee vibes to the very specific demands of commercial product placement, cinematographer Tari Segal had to do it all — and on a TV prep schedule. 

It’s one thing to get script pages that say when the “hero” cops stride in to take control of the narrative from Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) and detective Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet), the lighting changes to Dick Wolf specifications, while the composition snaps into focus to make Detectives Green (Lisa Gilroy) and Turner (Sullivan Jones) the center of attention. Segal, along with fellow cinematographer Mike Berlucchi, actually had to execute that. 

They did so by finessing the show’s transitions between what became shorthanded as “Willis’ World” and every other genre he encounters in his quest to uncover what happened to his brother (Chris Pang).

 “Especially when you’re on location, there are challenges with lighting cues within shots, and because we wanted to stay true to the studio mode, Steadicam of the cop world, sometimes there were moments when we would shoot them both ways and then go back and cover them in handheld so we could do that shift,” Segal told IndieWire. 

The little touches make the shifts in and out of “Cop World” feel all the more like the unsubtle sledgehammer it’s supposed to be. Likewise, there’s an arc to how the viewer sees Willis and Lana over the course of the 10 episodes. Lana has her own world at the beginning, too. Segal wanted to bring a little film noir flair and a little extra shadow when she arrives ,seemingly cool and in control. This is dispelled by the time she and Willis are pounding energy drinks in the police archives, looking at tape of Willis’ brother, of course, but Segal was excited to give everything in “Interior Chinatown” something of a cinematic arc. 

“We were just constantly encouraged to think out of the box and push. There was never any [feedback of] ‘Oh my God. That’s too far,’” Segal said. “In fact, we did reshoot some things because we thought we didn’t go far enough on making it obvious that we were doing these lighting gags.” 

As much as Segal and Berlucchi turned specific genres or filmmaker “looks” into satire, they also learned from them. The meticulous attention to detail on the Chinatown apartment sets didn’t just mirror the moody atmosphere of a Wong Kar-Wai film; the to-scale smallness of the apartments demanded Segal shoot pieces of it like a Wong Kar-Wai film. At least a little bit. 

“One of the big references was a lot of early Wong Kar-Wai, like ‘Fallen Angels,’ and they shot a lot of stuff on location for those movies. This really felt like shooting on location,” Segal said. “One of the things you notice when you’re studying those films is the use of wide lenses. So for Willis’ world, we were on a 25 most of the time — one of the ways we got around the small spaces was because of the wide lenses.” 

But the most demanding episode on all Segal’s cameras and all the lenses in “Interior Chinatown” was Episode 8, “Ad Guy.” Segal needed to prep looks for a battery of increasingly unhinged ads that Willis finds himself moving between. And all of the details had to be right, down to a day when Segal and her team did product shots for the watch commercial. “I had half a day with the macro lens, and we were shooting the watching on that rotating thing. We had to shoot all the elements for the commercials to feel like they were full-on done,” Segal said. “Normally, people get weeks to prep a single commercial and here we are, having to prep five of them in like eight days.” 

But the quick turnaround led to quick, bold, fun ideas. “We wanted to shoot Fatty [Ronny Chieng] selling his sauce, and Willis breaks in at the middle in the vein of those early MTV-style shows,” Segal said. “We had a zoom, and we’re angling the camera like it’s an old game show or something. It was so much fun.” 

That succession of strong, distinctive styles is a huge part of the comedy of “Ad Guy” and “Interior Chinatown” generally. “Having that kind of freedom to be a bit avant-garde with the approach made every episode exciting and unique. No two were approached the same way,” Segal said.

All 10 episodes of “Interior Chinatown” are streaming on Hulu.