“Collateral” A sensual night in LA captured in groundbreaking digital photography

“Night Fabric” created during the transition period of digital cinema

Now, in order to "capture the essence of LA nighttime," as Michael Mann put it, 80 percent of the film was shot with high-resolution digital cameras, a breakthrough for a major film in 2004. It seems that they decided that it was impossible to realistically capture what the human eye can see at night with conventional 35mm film.

It is well known that the first major Hollywood film to be shot entirely digitally (HD24P) was Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002/director: George Lucas), but at the time, with the rapid development of high definition, digital cameras were just beginning to take hold in the film industry as a form that differed from the traditional low-resolution "video shooting."

Michael Mann is very sensitive to hardware evolution and new equipment. In the movie "Collateral," Vincent mentions "Darwin's Law" several times, and the practice of survival of the fittest in response to changes in the environment is probably one of the main reasons why he has been able to continue as a hit maker for so many years.

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The main camera used in "Collateral" was the Thomson-Grass Valley "VIPER" film stream camera, which had just been released at the time (with some original modifications). This was shot in "film stream mode," which allowed the nighttime location scenery to be captured in vivid colors without lighting. This was combined with footage shot on 20% film. The film's elegant and sensual "night fabric" seems to have been created with delicate ingenuity, which was only possible during the transitional period of digital cinema.

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