“The visual style of “Homicide” is striking too; it has the edginess but not the grubbiness of “Hill Street,” with Wayne Ewing’s hand-held camera work bringing you into the midst of the action as if he were “covering” a story as much as telling one.  Abrupt editing adds to the gritty authenticity.” 

“Levinson and Ewing experimented with jump cutting the documentary footage and then shot tests with actors to explore and refine the style, which Ewing characterizes as “cinema verite’ that knows where it’s going, although he admits that he is never sure where he will end up when the scene is over.  The actors love the technique, comparing it to dancing with the camera.”

Their (Levinson and Fontana) masterstroke here was not to just try and emulate the documentary look, but to hire documentary director and cameraman Wayne Ewing (Free Lisl, Benched: The Corporate Takeover of the Judiciary, The Last Campaign) as director of photography. Ewing's contribution is crucial to Homicide's still-unique look and feel – the post-NYPD Blue twitchy camera technique that has become an almost obligatory component of film and television dramas has no place here, where the camerawork is as tight and fluid as it would be on a straight documentary. It adds an urgency and immediacy to dramatic scenes in a way that involves the audience as participants in the drama rather than as cinematically distanced observers…”

“The show is shot tightly with a single camera mounted on photography director Wayne Ewing’s shoulder.  Ewing gets in the actors’ faces in ways never seen before on TV drama, proving that “talking heads” are anything but dull.” 

“…excellent photography by Wayne Ewing…”