'A world without end' under the Cooke 54 and ARRI Alexa lens

Director Michael Caton-Jones worked closely with filmmaker Denis Crossan to bring to the screen a recreation of the Middle Ages recreated in detail with ARRI Alexa cameras and Cooke optics.

The lenses of Cooke have been used extensively to capture a panoramic view of the Middle Ages to A world without end, the new epic eight-hour television drama series produced by Tandem Communications and Take 5 Productions in co-production with Galafilm and association with Scott Free Films.

Based on a novel by Ken Follett, the drama takes place in the fictional English town of Kingsbridge in a country immersed in the Hundred Years' War with France, and a Europe devastated by the Black Death.

Director Michael Caton-Jones worked closely with filmmaker Denis Crossan to bring a recreation of the Middle Ages to the screen, taking Pre-Raphaelite paintings as a starting point, and using his idealized vision of the Victorian era in the production aspect. The drama was filmed with cameras ARRI Alexa alongside Cooke S4 lenses, ranging from 18mm to 180mm.

playing with lights

Crossan has highlighted that "the Cooke lenses are ideal for this project. Their filmic and painterly approach in a digital medium helped me a lot. I like the qualities that you get from the Cooke lenses such as their sharpness and resolution without being harsh, and their depth and tonal warmth that have helped create that look. The light that falls on a sensor has a different image quality that can often appear harsh in areas such as faces, but with the Cooke it was one less thing to worry about."

Crossan opted for lighting that was as naturalistic as possible, staying true to light sources such as candles and torches, with some additional bounce light to enhance a fall-off effect. The anti-glare quality of the Cooke lenses proved particularly useful when working with flames in numerous sequences.

"With candles and torches everywhere, the Cooke lenses do not present any unwanted effects. In fact, on occasions with large torches they sometimes produce an elongated ellipse when moving across the frame, which I really liked," admits Crossan.

With a six-month shoot between summer and winter, with daylight and indoor lighting for night shots, Crossan had to be well prepared for any lighting eventuality. "We had planned the exterior so that we could shoot even against the backlight, so we oriented the Kingsbridge set to achieve the best options. We achieved interesting daylight inside through the windows, letting the backgrounds fall into darkness. Passing outside light into the interior was sometimes hard like some sequences in the smaller medieval house since it had small windows and it was difficult to balance the exposure with the outside."