Leicester’s Cooke Optics has been busy pointing out that ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’, ‘American Gangster’, and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ – all recognised for multiple awards by the ASC, BAFTA, and AMPAS – were all shot using Cooke S4 Prime lenses.
Nominated for the year’s Best Film and Cinematography awards by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), ‘American Gangster’ was shot by director of photography Harris Savides, ASC. ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ also gained a BAFTA Cinematography award nomination for director of photography Oliver Wood. A film nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’, has also earned cinematography award accolades by numerous film critics’ societies for director of photography Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC.
Deakins, who has used Cooke lenses on a number of notable films, including ‘Jarhead’, noted: “I did a great deal of low light work on ‘Jesse James’ and was working wide open for much of the film. The train robbery shots are where the Cooke lenses really shine. We shot so much with practical lamp sources and we never had any flare problems. Even the front lamp on the oncoming train – a 5K par lamp right into the lens-never caused a problem. The entire approach of the train was shot with that light and some atmosphere in the air. The Cookes really allowed me to achieve that. They showed detail where there seemed to be only blackness. They’re a great advance in terms of resolution and clarity.”
