Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538080
and locations. It just speaks volumes to the true value of shooting in L.A. Shooting in Chinatown was always fun, though it posed its own unique challenges, chief among them being that L.A. Chinatown is still an active community with a high number of immigrant elders, and the production didn't want to disrupt it more than we needed to. Ironically, even when shooting in Chinatown, we still needed to dress it more. L.A. Chinatown is fairly clean, and we really wanted to do it up. In my research, I'd found that a prominent feature in several Chinatowns were the wires: telephone, cable, power, you name it. As people moved in and out and technology changed, so did the number of wires. No one ever took the time to take down the old and instead would add whatever they needed, leaving a bit of history as they went. An inside Art Department joke became us constantly asking to hang more wires all around our exteriors, whether it be on location or our stage builds. "More wires, we need more wires!" Luckily, our leadman took it well. Mid-Season Genre Switch… Wait, What?! As the season progresses and Willis begins to suspect that he's trapped in a TV world, so, too, do the sets begin to change. At one point, the feeling starts to move away from Law & Order and into more of a True Detective territory, both in terms of the story and the production design. I was now looking for a more realistic look to the sets. The crew began to age the precinct, scuffing the walls, adding wear and tear. For the desks, we added layers of paperwork, receipts, trash and dust—all of the tricks that make things feel more real, including family photos and mugs, the elements you'd expect in real-life workspaces. The more meta the story gets, the more self-referential it becomes as well. The Art Department began to add clues and Easter eggs into the set designs to help serve the story. For example, viewers paying close attention might notice that when Willis discovers the secret underground tunnels in episodes 9 and 10, D F E G