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effect on the screen was a soft glow on the actors. In a shot like Figure 1.6 , we might simply take it for granted that the light coming through the windows and the glow of the dashboard panel are all that shines on the characters. Such dim illumination on their faces allows the lights visible through the windows to be brighter than they are, helping to keeping the city “as much of a character in the story as Vincent and Max were.”
     
    1.4 One of the ELD panels specially made for illuminating the cab interior.
     
     
     
    1.5 Several such panels attached to the back of a seat to shine on Tom Cruise as Vincent.
     
     
     
    1.6 The dim glow created by such lighting on the two main characters.
     
     
    Here’s a case where an artistic decision led to new technology. The filmmakers could have said, “We have various types of lights available. Which one would work best in the cab?” Instead, they realized that the type of dim illumination they wanted could not be achieved by existing lighting units. It was a problem, and one that the team went to considerable lengths to solve by ordering a new type of light made.
Seamless Editing
    As a thriller,
Collateral
contains several dynamic action scenes, including a spectacular car crash. The plan was for a cab going nearly 60 miles per hour to flip and then bounce and roll several times before coming to rest on its top. At that speed, the vehicle would have traveled hundreds of feet. The filmmakers had options about how to portray the crash onscreen. They could have put the camera in a single spot and had it swivel as the car rolled past, keeping it in the frame from the beginning of the accident to the end. That would have been a good idea if the scene showed us the crash through the eyes of an onlooker whose head turns to watch it. But there is no character looking on.
    The filmmakers wanted to generate excitement by showing several shots of the car rolling, each taken from a different point along the trajectory of the crash. One possible approach would have been to have multiple cabs and execute numerous similar crashes, each time filmed by a single camera that would be moved between crashes from place to place to record the action from a new vantage. Such a procedure would have been very expensive, however, and no two crashes would have taken place in exactly the same way. Splicing together shots from each crash might have created discrepancies in the car’s position, resulting in poor “matches on action,” as we’ll term this technique in Chapter 5 .
    Instead, the team settled on a technique commonly used for big action scenes. Multiple cameras were placed along the route of the crash, all filming at once ( 1.7 ). The economic benefits were that only one car had to be crashed and the high expense of keeping many crew members working on retakes was reduced. Artistically, the resulting shots allowed the editing team considerable flexibility to choose portions of any of the shots and splice them together to match the action of the car precisely ( 1.8 , 1.9 ). The result is an exciting series of shots, each taken from farther along the path of the crash and keeping the cab in clear view.
     
    1.7 On location after the execution of the car crash in
Collateral,
director Michael Mann surveys digital monitors displaying shots taken by multiple cameras covering the action.
     
     
     
    1.8 A seamless continuation of the cab’s movement results as a shot taken from one camera shows the car flipping over, its hood flapping wildly, followed by a cut to …
     
     
     
    1.9 … another shot, taken from a camera placed on the ground and continuing the same movement, now with the vehicle hurtling directly toward the viewer. This particular camera was placed in a very thick metal case.
     
     
Music in Movements
    Composers are fond of saying that their music for a film should serve the story so well that the audience doesn’t notice it. For
Collateral,
Mann needed help from James