Iain Neil, chief optics advisor of Cooke Optics, has received the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for his "substantial, extensive and innovative lens designs which have had lasting impact in motion picture cinematography.”
In October 1948, Jesse Brown became the first African American to complete the U.S. Navy’s flight training program and received his Naval Aviator Badge. The feature Devotion, directed by J.D. Dillard and based on the bestselling book by Adam Makos, recounts the true story of Brown’s distinguished service, focusing on the year 1950, at the onset of the Korean War, when he and his fellow pilots in Fighter Squadron 32 deployed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Leyte, first to the Mediterranean Sea and then to the East Sea, off the coast of North Korea.
The Leitz Hugo cine lenses from Ernst Leitz Wetzlar have begun delivery with two sets arriving at rental houses in France and Sweden. Stockholm-based Ljud & Bildmedia received a set from Camera Nordic. The second set went to equipment rental RVZ in France.
The film God’s Crooked Lines, based on the 1979 novel by James F. Donelan, follows Alice Gould, a private investigator who enters a psychiatric hospital by simulating paranoia to solve a crime. But a big turn of events will question her sanity and whether she is really telling the truth. The cast includes Bárbara Lennie (Magical Girl, The Mess You Leave Behind) and Eduard Fernández (Everybody Knows, El Niño).
For Panic! At the Disco’s music videos for its new album Viva Las Vengeance, cinematographer Eric Bader and director Brendan Walter took up the task creating unique videos that would make up the different acts of this rock opera. With 12 songs on the album and a tight deadline for the videos, Bader and Brendan trimmed the project to a more manageable six videos.
Am I Being Unreasonable?, the much-anticipated comedy-thriller series co-written by and starring BAFTA award-winner Daisy May Cooper and Selin Hizli, belies its low budget with a cinematic look. Shot by Slater Slater Ling, BSC, and directed by Johnny Campbell, the series is set in a small country village where Nic (Cooper) is lonely, bored in her marriage and haunted by a huge secret. One of the biggest challenges was to move away from a standard low-budget comedy look.
Cinematographer Tat Radcliffe, BSC, chose the Cooke S7/i prime lens range paired with a Sony Venice to shoot the much-anticipated Netflix film adaptation of Matilda the Musical. Although it was important to stay true to the spirit of the stage show the team had to calibrate any sense of artificial stage.
For award-winning cinematographer Aaron McLisky, ACS, and for Academy Award winning director, co-writer, and leading actor Russell Crowe, shooting the psychological thriller Poker Face came down to two things: achieving a modern look that maintained a painterly quality as well as choosing the right aspect ratio to capture the ensemble cast in a single frame. One other challenge on the set was having a director who was also the leading actor.
Cooke Optics has released a 19-40mm wide zoom in its Varotal/I FF range, which joins the 30-95mm medium and 85-215mm long zooms that were launched at the end of 2021. The 19-40mm zoom completes the Varotal/i FF series, enabling Cooke to offer broad focal length coverage for most production needs.
Cooke Optics is planning to launch a new zoom lens at EnergaCamerImages 2002 November 12-19 in Totun, Poland and is offering cinematographers the chance to try that, the new Varotal/i FF and S8/i FF ranges, and a selection of other lenses.
