'Purple Hearts' (Netflix), shot with Cooke Optics' S7/i Full Frame

Director of photography Matt Sakatani Roe has captured the story of the independent film for Netflix Purple Hearts with the objectives Cooke Optics S7/i FF Prime.

Purple Hearts, directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, tells the story of Cassie (Sofia Carson) and Luke (Nicholas Galitzine), who couldn't be more different. Despite those many differences, Cassie, a struggling singer-songwriter, and Luke, a troubled Marine, agree to marry solely for military benefits. However, when tragedy strikes, the line between the real and the pretended begins to blur.

To shoot this emotional story, which became the Number Seven on Netflix's Most Popular Movies List just 28 days after its debut, Roe was clear from the start that the lenses Cooke were to be his reference choice: "Cooke lenses have been my go-to lenses since I started doing narrative projects. They were with me on my first TV show, my first major studio film production, and most of the narratives I've shot. It's because of the way Cooke lenses reproduce tones and have this three-dimensional plane. With a close focus range, faces only project depth, blur drops. (…) And whether it's full-frame, S35 or anamorphic, the Cooke 65mm is my favourite focal length."

For Purple Hearts, Rosenbaum and Roe wanted the cameras to be "with" the characters, as Roe notes: "We wanted the cameras to be subjective, to feel the depth of the space, as if the camera work was done with the characters. That told us what targets we wanted to have, and after doing my target testing, the S7s just stood out."

S7/i FF Prime in Purple Hearts

After the testing of the objectives in Keslow Camera in Los Angeles, Roe had the camera and lens rental house supply him with a set of lenses Cooke S7/i FF Prime which consisted of the 18mm, 21mm, 25mm, 27mm, 32mm, 40mm, 50mm, 65mm, 75mm, 100mm, and 135mm for two (and sometimes three) cameras Sony Venice that rolled at full frame, 17:9 X-OCN ST (standard quality of the original camera negative of extended tonal range) with a Matt 2:1. In addition, Roe used his personal outfit Cooke Panchro/i Classic FF 18mm, 25mm, 32mm, 40mm, 50mm, 75mm and 100mm for the B unit of the film, and I would dub with the 100mm of both lens ranges when necessary.

Roe designed a plan that allowed it to capture with its lighting the anxiety and the mixture of emotions of the characters. "When we meet Cassie and Luke in the first act, there's a very mixed lighting: blues and reds that create the color purple. I wanted the characters to be in this mixed artificial environment. Then we move on to more continuous full-spectrum lighting, so that at the end of the film they are bathed in a more normal light, with the sunlight always peeking through, but not mixing the light, to help understand the conflicting sides of the protagonists. For example, in an apartment (which takes up almost 40 pages of the script), the blinds are closed and the characters are emotionally hidden from their personal light. Sunlight enters the picture as their relationship evolves, with the help of full-spectrum sunlight."

Looking back, Roe feels very"proud" of Purple Hearts: "This indie film now appears alongside projects between $100 million and $300 million on the list of most popular films thanks to the great people and all the hard work everyone has put into this project. I'm proud of the color arc and the conflicting full-spectrum sunlight fonts as the characters progress through the story."

In the future, the cinematographer would like to use the lenses Cooke Varotal/i FF Zoom: "I didn't get a chance to work with the new Cooke zooms on Purple Hearts, but both the 85-215mm and 30-95mm will be on my A and B cameras for my next job. I really want to do it."

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