How LED lighting changes the way cities look on film

As major cities like New York and Los Angeles make the switch over to LED lighting, the change is having a somewhat unexpected impact — changing the way these cities look in movies. As Dave Kendricken explains in No Film School, nighttime LA looks completely different under LED lights than it does with traditional streetlamps. The golden hue seen in movies like Michael Mann’s Collateral no longer exists. “It’s visually apparent that filmmakers exposing by the existing street lighting of Los Angeles will be picking up very different imagery, even in many of the same locations, as they might have before,” he explains. Check out the article in full to get into the nitty gritty of how lighting can change a city’s look.