After Michael Mann set out to direct Collateral, the story’s setting moved from New York to Los Angeles. This decision was in part motivated by the unique visual presence of the city — especially the way it looked at night. Mann shot a majority of the film in HD (this was 2004), feeling the format better captured the city’s night lighting. Even the film’s protagonist taxi needed a custom coat to pick up different sheens depending on the type of artificial lighting the cab passed beneath. That city, at least as it appears in Collateral and countless other films, will never be the same again. L.A. has made a vast change-over to LED street lights, with New York City not far behind…Mann chose to shoot HD because of how the format rendered the story’s setting. Considering that Collateral takes place over the course of a single night, its portrayal of LA’s nocturnal landscape is integral to the film. Due to the city’s recent retrofit of over 140,000 street lights, that nocturnal landscape has changed forever.
—Dave Kendricken, writing at NoFilmSchool, on how the city of Los Angeles’s decision to switch to LED lighting will forever alter the way its streets appear on film.
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