gizmodo.com: The decision by the city of Los Angeles last year to replace its high-pressure sodium streetlights—known for their distinctive yellow hue—with new, blue-tinted LEDs might have a profound effect on at least one local industry. All of those LEDs, with their new urban color scheme, will dramatically change how the city appears on camera, thus giving Los Angeles a brand new look in the age of digital filmmaking. As Dave Kendricken writes for No Film School, "Hollywood will never look the same."
5 comments:
Personally I like the new colors a lot more. I might be biased because I really have no emotional connection to LA or films produced in LA, but just from a practical standpoint the new lights look clearer, brighter, and overall safer. It is a great example of how the color of lighting can significantly change the feel of an environment- to me, the yellow lights make the streets look sick and terrible, as well as more unsafe. It's fascinating that changing just one thing about a city can immediately make every movie filmed there practically a historical piece. Thats something that theatre will never be able to achieve- the completely accurate and exact depiction of what a place was literally like at a certain time.
I am pleased to find Geoff Manaugh hits on a few interesting points in his article, from both pro and con sides of Los Angeles switching from high-pressure sodium streetlights to blue-tinted LEDs. I would argue the switch to blue-tinted LEDs would not necessarily make cities look better, but simply different. At least not Los Angeles, or more correctly, my memories of the many years I spent in Los Angeles, a number of those years living downtown close to where the comparison photos were taken. Based on the photo comps in the article, the sodium lights pick up more of the general haze of the city, while the LEDs give a crisp and clear look. Now, hard to say for sure, as the photos were obviously not taken at the same time, and there could have been more smog and/or cloud cover in the sodium light photo. But let us assume they were taken at the same time and compare as such. I quite like the sodium blur, unlike any city I have yet to experience. The LED look is antiseptic. Of course this is merely my opinion, admittedly based on romantic nostalgia. And truth be told, I would have to vote for the LEDs, as they are more environmentally friendly. However, why can they not be tinted yellow??? I love Manaugh’s ponder that city lighting schemes could be subject to historic preservation laws. He also brings up an interesting point with blue leading to disrupted circadian rhythms. This all makes me wonder if I would have fallen in love with Los Angeles if the city had been blue when we first met.
I like how much cleaner and brighter everything feels with the LEDs, but because I'm accustomed to the "normal" street lights. I know in my neighborhood back home, we are required to have yellow tinted lights due to the fact that there is an astronomy center with a telescope very close to us. The bright lights would create enough light pollution that it would be very difficult to see any stars. I like how the yellow reflects off of the pavement, but I do feel that in highly populated areas, it could be safer to have LEDs for street lights. How it appears on film, I do not believe that it will have as much of a dramatic impact as they expect.
From strictly a lighting perspective I think that the new LED street lights provide for a more evenly lit, easy on the eyes lighting for the street which will make it easier to see when driving and hopefully cause less accidents. As far as the environment that the lights create makes the background really shine and the road itself feel safer and more comfortable to drive on. It is interesting to see how something as simple as changing the lights on the street can alter the environment around it so greatly.
When comparing the new to the old I don't mind it. While it is a cooler temperature of light the highway looks clearer. For someone who often struggles to see everything properly because of the astigmatisms in my eyes I like where technology is pushing us. And I think it's time for a change of how we view the cities. We have been clinging on to keeping that back-in-the-good-old days still with not changing the lighting. Back-in-the-good-old-days may very well be destroying our eyesight by tiring out the muscles. We as a society are already harming our bodies enough with air and noise pollution not to mention radiation. It's time we take a step forward and switch over. And looking back this will only help historians identify this time period by seeing the switch in the city lighting if ever confused and stuck in debate.
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