Cooke Optics will present some never-before-seen lenses from its S7/i, Panchro/i Classic and Anamorphic/i Full Frame Plus ranges on Stand C6333 at NAB 2019 in Las Vegas from April 8-11. The award-winning lens manufacturer will also showcase new developments for /i3, the latest version of its /i Technology metadata system that provides detailed lens data to VFX and post-production teams.
The new Anamorphic/i Full Frame Plus range has been designed to meet the growing appetite for large format production, while offering the popular anamorphic characteristics including flare and oval bokeh. The 40mm, 50mm, 75mm and 100mm focal lengths are in production, scheduled to start shipping in limited quantities from April 2019, and will be available for demonstration on Stand C6333. The additional lenses in the full range–32mm, 135mm and 180mm as well as a surprise or two–should be shipping by the end of the year. This range is also available with Cooke’s SF ‘Special Flair’ coating, which enables an exaggerated flare that gives yet more choice to cinematographers.
The complete set of Panchro/i Classic lenses is also scheduled to start shipping by NAB 2019, including the recently announced 65mm Macro lens–a 2-1 Macro–which also covers full frame, and the 21mm, 27mm, 135mm and 152mm designed to cover the S/35 image area. Visitors to Stand C6333 will see these lenses for the first time outside Europe.
In addition, the 18mm, 27mm and 180mm lenses from the S7/i full frame spherical range will be featured on the Cooke stand and will be going into production over the coming months.
“The manufacturing team in our Leicester factory continues to work flat out to round out these nascent lens ranges, which are all made entirely by hand,” said Les Zellan, chairman, Cooke Optics. “With nine lens ranges in the Cooke family, we have certainly set ourselves a challenge to meet the ever increasing demand, but we are proud to offer cinematographers such a wide choice of looks that help them tell their stories.”
Cooke will also present /i3 (/i Cubed), the latest version of its /i Technology metadata system that provides detailed lens data to VFX and post-production teams. /i3 firmware now provides distortion mapping – not just a theoretical measurement of spherical lenses of a particular focal length, but of the specific lens in use. Sony is currently working to integrate /i3 into the Sony Venice large format camera.
Cooke lenses will also be present at a number of camera manufacturer and reseller stands at the show.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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