As The Chi enters its final season, its visual language evolves to reflect the emotional weight of saying goodbye—embracing a colder, more cinematic aesthetic while remaining grounded in the authenticity that has defined the series from the beginning.

Director of Photography Ana M. Amortegui, ADFC discusses her collaboration with Picture Shop Toronto Senior Colorist Paul Allia, from developing the season's distinctive look to using color, contrast, and texture to support the story's emotional arc.

The Chi has a very distinct visual identity. What was your approach to evolving the look for this season while maintaining continuity with the series' established aesthetic?

Coming into the final season, I felt a real responsibility to honor everything the show had built over the years while also giving this last chapter something of its own. Together with Deondray and Quincy Gossfield and Fernando Arguelles, ASC, we created the visual look and style for the show. We were saying goodbye to these characters during the coldest winter they had ever lived through. So the evolution was emotional first and technical second. We moved the palette into a cooler, more monochromatic world, with a subtle desaturation that gave everything a grittier realism. Our references were Conclave and Boyz N the Hood, that meeting point between naturalism and something more composed and intentional. We also shifted the aspect ratio slightly to 2:10, opening it up to feel more cinematic, letting Chicago become a character again, all that towering concrete hanging over everyone. The continuity lived in the truthfulness of the light and the way we stayed close to the characters. The evolution lived in the cold, the scope, and the restraint.

How did you approach lighting and exposure to balance the show's naturalistic feel with its more cinematic moments?

For me it always starts with what is motivated and true. The Chi has always had so much honesty to it, natural and motivated light illuminating everyday life, a stoop, a haircut, a kitchen, and I never wanted to lose that. So my base was always real. But this season we leaned into contrast to find the cinematic moments. One of the most important things for us was that the world needed to feel cold, so the windows always read cool and blue while the practical light inside stayed warm, and fire was always on. That push and pull between the cold coming in from outside and the warmth living inside the room gave me a contrast in color and temperature that did so much of the emotional work. For the heightened moments, especially our crime and noir beats, I used concentrated pools of light and let the backgrounds fall off into darkness, borrowing from Conclave. I also used a lot more color in those moments and those environments, there was a clear difference between the good and the bad. Exposure was about protecting the shadows and letting them stay rich and intentional rather than filling everything in. The naturalism keeps you believing it, and the contrast is what makes you feel it.

Were there any specific camera systems, lenses, filtration, or LUTs that played a key role in achieving the look this season?

Yes, and this was such an important part of the season for me. We shot on the Alexa 35, which gave us the latitude to hold both the cool exteriors and those warm interiors in the same frame without losing the shadows. We paired it with Panaspeed lenses, which have a beautiful character that felt right for where we were taking the show, a little soul, a little texture, never clinical. For filtration I lived in Tiffen's Black Fog, working across a range from a 1/8 all the way up to a full 1 depending on how much I wanted to bloom the highlights and take the edge off the digital cleanliness. That filtration was a big part of how I got that gritty, slightly aged realism our look was asking for. On the LUT side, I came in with LUTs I had built on previous projects that I loved, but those were designed for the Venice color space, so Paul and Picture Shop helped me translate them properly into the Alexa color space so they would shine on the 35. That translation was really its own craft, and it set the foundation for the whole season.

How early did you collaborate with Senior Colorist Paul Allia, and what conversations helped establish the visual direction before grading began?

Were there particular scenes or sequences where color became an especially important storytelling tool? Paul came in early, which mattered so much to me, because the look of this season was never something we wanted to fix in the grade. We wanted it built in from the start and then protected and elevated by him. Our first real conversations were about translating my Venice LUTs into the Alexa color space so we were speaking the same language before we ever rolled a frame. From there we talked a lot about the coldness of the world, how far we could push the windows into blue while keeping skin alive and warm inside the room. Color became a genuine storytelling tool in so many places. Tiff's world was a big one, her home draped in icy hues and blues to reflect how much of herself she was losing as she stepped into being the Queenpin, so the color literally tracked her interior state. I think Episode 802 had the biggest variety of locations so a lot of color came with it, it had a big club scene where I combined amber, red and cyan, the Chop Shop was established which was a very important set, and Smokie's for the first time needed to look colder, in wintertime. Every episode had color as an important part of the storytelling. I would start with some of the base LUTs but then with Paul we would stylize them and make them unique for every scene. One of the biggest collaboration we did was for the finale, which needed its own identity entirely, a warmth and a richness of color we had deliberately held back all season so that when it arrived it felt like release.

How did the grade help preserve texture and detail across different lighting environments, from bright exteriors to intimate nighttime interiors?

This is where the partnership with Paul really showed itself, because we were asking the image to hold a lot. We had cold bright exteriors, all that concrete and winter light, and then these intimate interiors lit with warm practicals and firelight, sometimes cutting between them in the same scene. The Alexa 35 gave us the dynamic range to capture all of it, and the Black Fog gave the highlights a softness so nothing ever felt harsh or clipped. In the grade, Paul was very careful to protect the texture in the shadows so our nighttime interiors stayed rich and full of detail instead of going muddy, and to keep the cold exteriors from feeling thin or clinical. We wanted grit, but grit with depth. The desaturation the season called for could have flattened things if we were not careful, so a lot of the work was about holding onto contrast and micro detail, the texture of a face, a wall, a coat, so the world always felt tactile and real no matter the environment. I have been working with Paul for many years now, he knows my style, what I love, we dont have to talk much, he knows me as a DP really well, which helps me create without limits. If there was something specific that I needed I would let him know, send him references, we always work together to create the most beautiful image.

Were there any specific color palette, skin tone, or contrast considerations that were particularly important to you, and how did Paul help bring those intentions to the screen?

Skin tone was everything to me, and I have to say, African American skin is a dream to light. It can take any color you bring to it, it holds light so beautifully, and as long as you are giving it a great exposure it will always look good. That is the truth of it. I was also so lucky to have the most beautiful cast, every one of them gorgeous to light, and because their skin took the light and the color with no problem at all, I got to be really creative with my palette. I lit them very differently from scene to scene, they were not always warm, sometimes they lived in cooler or more unexpected color, and it always came back gorgeous. That freedom was a gift. What stayed constant was the contrast between the cold of the world and the life in the people. The windows could go blue, the exteriors could go cold and gritty, but the faces always had to feel alive and true. This is where Paul was so wonderful. No matter what color I put on their faces, he made sure it sat perfectly against the background, that everything lived together and looked beautiful. As we pulled saturation out of the world for that colder, monochromatic feel, he protected skin so it never got sacrificed with it, staying rich and dimensional across every complexion in our ensemble. He understood the intention right away, and he brought exactly that to the screen.

How would you describe Paul's collaborative approach throughout the grading process? What aspects of his work helped elevate the final image?

Paul is the kind of collaborator you dream of having in the room. He has close to twenty years behind him, and that to any DP is very important. I feel beyond lucky to have had him on this because this show was very important to me, this show deserved the best from me and Paul was key so I could dream and create and achieve visuals that made justice to this beautiful story of “The Chi” He gets to know what your vision is and then strives to deliver it precisely as you intended it. That is rare and it is everything to a cinematographer. He listens, he understands intention, and he brings his own artistry to it without ever overriding what you set out to do on set. What I appreciated most was that he treated my photography with real care, protecting the choices I made with the camera, the lenses, and the filtration instead of grading over them. He knows the heart and passion I put into my frames and he takes them and elevates them. When I came to him with my Venice LUTs, he did not just convert them, he made sure they truly worked in the Alexa color space so the foundation was solid. And when we needed to create something brand new for the finale, he was right there with me building it from a camera test. He elevated the final image by holding onto texture and detail others might have let go, by keeping skin honest through all our desaturation, and by understanding that every choice was in service of the story. Working with him made the whole season better, and I am so grateful for how much he cared, so grateful for our working relationship throughout these years and everything we have created together, but also for our friendship, I am very grateful for Paul.

Looking back on the finished season, is there a sequence or episode that best represents what you and Paul were able to achieve together creatively and technically?

I feel really proud of the show and the work Paul and I did together. I think Episode 802 was one of my favorites because of the variety of looks in the episode itself. The club was a huge setup, lots of color to deal with, and Paul made it all perfect thanks to his artistry and his sensibility. Working with so much color was never a worry for me, I knew he had me, and I love every frame of 802. The finale is another one for me. All season we had been living in this cold, desaturated, monochromatic world, that coldest winter, blue windows, shadows falling off into darkness. The finale needed to be the opposite of all of it, a moment of warmth and color and release that we had intentionally saved so it would land with real emotional weight. Because it was so unique and so special, and used color in a way we had deliberately held back the entire season, I did a camera test specifically for it, and Paul and I built a brand new LUT just for that episode. It was its own world, created from scratch, and it carried everything, the goodbye, the love, the sense of these characters finally arriving somewhere after such a long cold journey. Technically it was the most bespoke work we did together, and creatively it is the sequence I am most proud of, because you can feel the whole season turn in that moment. That is what Paul and I built together, and it is a beautiful note to end the series on.

‍