Hao (Hunter) Deng is a Chinese cinematographer based in Los Angeles, with extensive experience and a strong track record in short-form and vertical storytelling. Over the past few years, he has taken on roles across camera and lighting departments, with a focus on shaping concise, emotionally-driven visuals within limited formats. His work includes The CEO’s Contract Wife—one of North America’s earliest vertical mini-series, now with over 80 million views—and We Will Love Again, a ReelShort hit that has reached over 100 million viewers. He also shot Peeling Off, a horizontal-format horror short officially selected for the Garden State Film Festival 2025. Across these projects, Hunter continues to explore how image, rhythm, and spatial composition influence viewer experience. As short-form content grows in both format and audience, he is steadily building a body of work that reflects the evolving language of visual storytelling.
We sat down with Hunter to discuss his approach to cinematography, the challenges and freedoms of working in vertical format, and how short dramas are reshaping visual storytelling.
What was your upbringing like, and how did it influence your creative path?
I was a daydreaming art student as a kid, always sketching fantasy scenes with a cinematic feel. Later, my dad gave me a digital camera, and it felt like I had discovered a whole new world. I carried it everywhere, constantly shooting and reviewing, trying to capture the images I had in my mind. I remember closing my eyes and seeing scenes play out like film shots—there was a natural instinct that made me want to make movies. In high school, I became obsessed with Akira Kurosawa. Films like Kagemusha, Rashomon, and Ran completely changed how I understood visual storytelling. They showed me that cinema could be profound, poetic, and emotionally powerful.
How did your educational and early experiences shape your approach to filmmaking?
While studying in Beijing and later at CalArts, I was introduced to video art, which helped me develop a more intuitive and abstract relationship with images. I began to understand that cinematography isn’t just a storytelling tool—it can also carry emotion on its own. I’ve always been drawn to motion blur and the atmospheric feeling in the movement of a shot. Later, at Chapman University, my mentor Johnny E. Jensen (ASC) helped me build a solid technical foundation. His classes were very hands-on and focused on real-world experience. I also worked frequently on set during that time, taking part in every department from camera to lighting. These experiences shaped me into a DP who balances both technique and aesthetics.
Where do you usually find inspiration for your visual storytelling?
A lot of my visual ideas come from everyday emotions and images that surface from the subconscious. Since I was a kid, I’ve had a habit of closing my eyes and seeing fully formed scenes appear in my mind—it’s a kind of inner projection that still guides me today. I also draw inspiration from painting, photography books, and even music—sometimes it’s a color combination, sometimes a melody that stirs a certain mood. I’m especially drawn to fleeting light: the glow of dusk, reflections after rain, fogged-up windows. Those moments often become the starting point for how I design a scene.
At the same time, I try to stay grounded in real-world references. I often analyze framing, color, and atmosphere on ShotDeck, and I regularly study films from different countries to see how they express emotion through visuals. During my early years of learning, in-depth conversations with mentors also helped me understand how to balance personal expression with storytelling needs. All of these overlapping influences have shaped how I approach visual language—somewhere between intuition and structure.
What was your first experience with vertical storytelling?
I first worked with vertical format in July 2022 while shooting CEO’s Contract Wife, one of the earliest vertical dramas in North America. I was the entire camera department—operating, pulling focus, and lighting all on my own. We shot the entire season in just over two weeks. It was exhausting and challenging, but incredibly eye-opening.
Vertical storytelling isn’t just about cropping a widescreen image—it has its own rhythm, visual focus, and spatial logic. That experience made me realize that conveying emotional shifts in such a narrow frame requires sharper instincts and tighter control. The show ended up hitting 90 million views, which really confirmed for me the creative potential of this format.
How do you rethink framing when working in 9:16?
Framing in 9:16 forces me to completely rethink spatial composition. It reduces the impact of traditional horizontal visuals, but opens up new possibilities for vertical storytelling.
I often use centered compositions to highlight a character’s loneliness or sense of pressure. Staging also leans heavily on depth—hallways, stairs, and doorframes help create vertical layers. The format is especially effective for showing the scale between characters and their environments, so I frequently shoot from low angles to amplify presence or tension.
With vertical frames, every bit of negative space becomes more noticeable, and every shot has to deliver emotion directly. It pushes me to design visuals more decisively and say more with less.
Why do you think We Will Love Again connected with so many viewers?
I think the reason We Will Love Again resonated so widely is because its visual language was clear and emotionally charged—it distilled complex feelings into instantly readable images.
For the romantic scenes, I chose a bright and clean look to convey purity and simplicity. That lighting setup was intentional—it was my visual interpretation of “idealized love.” In the more intense scenes, like the fireplace kiss, I used firelight and shadows to express desire and tension.
I leaned into bold visual choices because short dramas move quickly—you have to build emotional intensity in a short time. That clarity and visual focus helped the series reach over 100 million views, and reinforced my belief in using concentrated, high-impact imagery.
What makes short dramas creatively exciting for you?
What excites me most about short dramas is their intensity. They’re like emotional concentrates—no space for filler, every scene must hit, and every frame must get to the heart of things.
From a cinematography perspective, it’s a pure exercise. I need to establish relationships, communicate emotional shifts, and make visual style decisions all within a tight timeframe. That kind of pressure actually gives me more creative freedom to go bold—with color, lighting contrasts, or extreme control of camera rhythm.
At the same time, the pace of short drama production demands high executional ability. With many scenes and very limited time, I need to light, frame, and adapt quickly while staying stylistically consistent. It’s trained my instincts and helped me grow into a more decisive, capable cinematographer.
What did Peeling Off allow you to explore that commercial work didn’t?
Peeling Off was a creative release for me. After doing a lot of romance-centered short dramas, this thriller gave me a chance to step outside that emotional pattern and rediscover the raw visual pleasure of storytelling.
The visuals are cooler-toned, with harsher contrast. I used that look to build psychological tension and a sense of unease. For cinematographers, thrillers are incredibly satisfying—they allow you to speak through images, not just dialogue. Tension comes from framing, rhythm, and lighting.
I even camped in a park for two days to find the perfect natural light moment for one of the exterior shots. That level of immersion—no commercial metrics, no emotional template—reminded me how much I love crafting images for their own sake.
How has the North American short drama scene evolved in the past few years?
The short drama scene in North America has changed dramatically. At first, it wasn’t taken seriously by the mainstream. But as platforms and audiences evolved, it moved from the margins to the spotlight—and developed its own pacing and aesthetic.
I’ve seen it shift from mostly romantic CEO stories to now experimenting with thriller, mystery, workplace, and even fantasy genres. The market still leans toward certain formulas, but viewers are increasingly open to new styles and tones.
Creative constraints have also pushed innovation. Vertical format, fast pacing, and emotion-first storytelling all demand that cinematographers hit their beats quickly and powerfully. As a visual storyteller, I see myself not only adapting to this trend—but helping push it forward. It’s a young format full of potential, and I want to help shape its future.
What kinds of stories or formats are you hoping to explore next?
I’ve always been drawn to stories where the lines between reality and imagination are blurred. Moving forward, I want to explore more thrillers, mysteries, and narratives with a slightly surreal tone—stories where the visuals carry heavier emotional weight. I’m particularly interested in that feeling when a story ends, but something unresolved continues to stir inside the audience. That emotional aftertaste is something I’m always chasing.
I also hope to gradually move from ultra-short formats into mid-length or even longer-form projects, where there’s more room to let the pacing settle and the visuals breathe. I want to experiment with slower, more visually intense pieces—whether they’re nonlinear, quietly fragmented, or shaped like a psychological maze.
At the same time, I’ve been thinking more about how to bring my cultural perspective as an Asian filmmaker into the frame. Not necessarily through language or identity labels, but through a way of seeing—how I observe solitude, family, or the feeling of migration. I want to express these emotional landscapes through light, framing, and space, in ways that quietly surround the viewer without needing to be spelled out.
Text By Rowan Hale