Feb 04, 2014 11:19 AM EST
LED Lighting in LA Means Movies Will Never Look the Same Again

The famous yellow streets of Los Angeles don't have that signature hue any longer, something that will affect the area's most iconic industry: the movies.

The city's street lights were swapped out for LED fixtures last year, resulting in a new color scheme that makes L.A. look entirely different on camera, Gizmodo reported.

The LED retrofitting was the largest project of its kind, and city officials estimate that L.A. will save around $7 million in electricity savings and $2.5 million in avoided maintenance costs each year, according to Forbes.

The switch is reportedly already saving the city money, but it also means another change: Films shot in Hollywood's stomping grounds will never look the same again.

Using the 2004 Tom Cruise vehicle "Collateral" as an example, Dave Kendricken detailed the effects of the new lighting on the film blog No Film School.

"That city, at least as it appears in 'Collateral' and countless other films, will never be the same again," he wrote.

 "In a sense, every night exterior L.A.-shot film previous to this change is rendered a sort of anthropological artifact, an historical document of obsolete urban infrastructure."

When director Michael Mann took on the "Collateral" project, the story's setting moved from New York to L.A., a decision influenced by Mann's "well-known urban aesthetic," Gizmodo reported.

The plot of the film, which takes place during a single night, made the location especially important. But L.A.'s new LED lighting system means "that nocturnal landscape has changed forever."

The street lighting now only preserved in films shot prior to the change can't be recreated in post-production either.

The color effects of LED would be difficult to cover up, Kendricken wrote.

"More simply, you can't really put colors back in that weren't there to begin with, even by gelling such a light source or color correcting in post," he explained.

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