POINTS EAST
New Jersey Owner Revives Cooke Optics
By ERIC RUDOLPH
American Cinematographer Journal, June 2000
What do the recent high-profile films Erin Brockovich, The Cider House Rules, The Ninth Gate, The Beach and Angela's Ashes have in common? All were shot with the Cooke S4 series of prime lenses, which have won the hearts and minds of leading cinematographers worldwide since they were introduced two years ago.
However, the S4 series came perilously close to never seeing the light of day. By the early 1990s, Cooke, the venerable British company that made some of the very first (and many of the most popular) motion-picture lenses, had been allowed to wither and almost die by its corporate parent, Rank Organization, PLC.
According to Les Zellan, the New Jersey-based chairman of Cooke Optics, Ltd., Cooke lenses were born in Leicester, England in 1893, when Taylor, Taylor and Hobson purchased what Zellan calls the "revolutionary" Cooke Triplet lens design, patent and company name from T. Cooke & Sons, a telescope manufacturer. Taylor, Taylor, and Hobson had its first big success with the motion-picture lenses in the late 1920s, when the Cooke Speed Panchro Series 1 debuted at about the same time as the talkies.
In 1946, Taylor, Taylor, and Hobson was purchased by Rank Organization PLC, under which Cooke prospered during the 1960s and 1970s as a maker of film and video zoom lenses. However, the lens-manufacturing company soon became a sideshow to Rank's resorts and casinos businesses, and it was in real trouble as the 1990s began. Steve Walsh, a 37-year veteran of the Cooke glass-cutting operation, recently told The Wall Street Journal that "the place was so run-down that seagull feathers would float down through the holes in the roof. We came very close to shutting down."
When Zellan, a former theatrical-lighting director/teacher turned film-equipment importer/distributor, heard about the perilous state of affairs, he put together a syndicate of investors to buy Cooke. However, he ended up about $1.25 million short. Seeking the rest of the financing from British banks, Zellan landed in the London office of The Bank of Scotland. Charles Wighton, the bank's associate director of corporate banking, agreed to meet with Zellan, but says he didn't expect much. However, after Zellan put two big motion-picture lenses on Wighton's desk, the 30-minute meeting stretched out for more than two hours. "We were surprised that an American, or anyone overseas, had so much knowledge of Cooke," Wighton told The Wall Street Journal. He added that Zellan "had a clear knowledge of the market and a clear vision of the company."
Zellan got the loan, and he assumed ownership of Cooke Optics Ltd., in July of 1998. His first project was to erect a new 21,000-square-foot manufacturing plant outside of Leicester; he runs the company by commuting there from Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, where he owns an optics firm. His second project was completing the new series of Cooke prime lenses, which had been under development since 1993. The creation of the S4s took longer than planned, but the resulting lenses have been garnering rave reviews from some of the world's most accomplished cinematographers, and are in high demand. "The back-order situation is a problem, but it is a good problem," Zellan says happily. "The S4 lenses are producing images that people like."
He cites Angela's Ashes (photographed by Michael Seresin, BSC; see AC Jan. '00) and The Beach (photographed by Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC; see AC Feb. '00) as films that show off the S4s to great advantage. Zellan attests that "the S4s especially shine in Angela's Ashes, because the interiors were shot nearly wide open with our wide-angle lenses, which perform especially well at full aperture. There are a lot of verticals in that film, and the wide-angle S4s exhibit very low to zero distortion."
Leading cinematographers who have purchased complete S4 sets (14mm, 18mm, 25mm, 32mm, 40mm, 50mm, 75mm and 100mm, all T2) include Oliver Stapleton, BSC (A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Cider House Rules), and Ed Lachman, ASC (Selena, The Limey, Erin Brockovich). Stapleton says he is very pleased with his early decision to purchased a set of the new Cookes. "I ordered the S4s two years before the first one came out," he says. "I just had a hunch that I would love them, and I was right. The S4s have sharpness without excessive contrast, and their color characteristics are neutral, well-matched and smooth. The focusing is superb, and after using them almost constantly for nearly two years, we've had no mechanical problems at all. I use the S4s for all my non-anamorphic films and for Super 35, as they were designed to cover the full aperture."
Stapleton confirms that the S4s work well wide open. "The lenses really do perform as well at T2 as at T5.6, so the 18mm night wide shot really is a cracker!" He adds that using the S4s for all of his non-anamorphic films helps him do more accurate testing, and also allows him to concentrate even more on the creative aspects of his work. "There are so many variables in cinematography that having a base to start from makes testing more precise," he observes. "I like to always use the same camera and lenses, and I use the stocks, filters and lighting to control the image. By eliminating the use of different lenses, I'm free to put my energy into the other aspects of my job."
Stapleton's positive experience with the S4s has led him to expect improvements in Cooke's highly regarded zoom lenses. "The challenge now is for Cooke to come up with a faster 5:1 zoom, and a 10:1 that is as good as the Primo 11:1 or the Angenieux HR," he concludes.
Others who are singing the praises of the S4s include camera assistants, according to Zellan. He explains that the older lenses were difficult for assistants because they were small and the markings were tiny, adding that the S4s are larger and have big, clear markings.
The S4s do not employ traditional, multiple-thread focusing, but rather use a cam system (like that found in Cooke zoom lenses) that moves the optical unit back and forth in the lens casing. (The optical unit is sealed inside the housing and does not rotate or pump.) "The cam system allows for nearly linear focusing; it evens out the disparity of the long distances between focusing points at the close-focus positions and the much smaller distances at the middle-to-infinity end," Zellan notes. "The self-contained optical unit also helps to keep dirt and moisture out of the glass." He attributes much of the series' success to Cooke's chief optical designer, Mark Gerchman, and the expert team of craftsmen who assemble the lenses.
The S4s are also designed to spend more time on the set and less time on the maintenance bench. "It takes only an hour to strip down, lubricate and reassemble a Cooke S4," Zellan says. "That can take a day with other leading prime lenses. A rental house can service an entire set of S4s in a day. Downtime is greatly reduced, so the rental houses and cinematographers are happy.
"Developing this unique, simple construction approach cost us an extra year in development," he concludes. "We could have skipped that part and still made a great set of lenses, but they would not have been as elegant."
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