'Three-Body' shot on Cooke S7/i FF

The novel “The Three-Body Problem” by Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin has achieved recognition worldwide, and the Chinese TV series adaptation of the same name which premiered on January 15 is much loved by the audiences. 

Cooke is honoured to have discussed the experience of shooting the series with cinematographer Mr. Liu Yi, CNSC (Chinese Society of Cinematographers), who selected Cooke S7/i FF lenses to bring the series to life. 

 Mr. Liu Yi has been using Cooke lenses for a long time, starting with S4/i around 2003/4. He noticed Cooke’s unique characteristics then, and how they produce delicate and sharp images. 

The scenes of the ‘Three-Body’ shot on Cooke S7/i mainly take place in the Red Coast Base. For the lead character Ye Wenjie, the Red Coast Base does not only represent the sanctuary of her youth, but also a place where she feels warmth. 

(Red Coast Base shown on the left side) 

To emphasize the warmth and visualise the environmental conditions of past decades, Mr. Liu Yi chose S7/i paired with high sensitivity cameras, while avoiding too much artificial lights that could affect the actors’ performance. 

 When shooting at Red Coast Base, there were usually only a few very dim lights, but the images captured through S7/i lenses were very clean, with minimal noise. The colour and skin tone reproduction were excellent, and accurately represented the actors’ skin tones. 

Mr. Liu Yi often shot with fully open apertures, and even the features outside of the focal plane were preserved well, effectively displaying some dark detail. The current broadcast version of the “Three-Body” needed minimal editing in post-production, which greatly helped the production team.

One of the most memorable scenes for Mr. Liu Yi was when young Ye Wenjie looked up at the glaring sun and shielded her eyes with her hand. Shooting directly into the sun could easily lead to overexposure, but the highlights and details in the scene were preserved. The reproduction of the character’s skin tone and the surrounding scenery was excellent, and the sunlight’s radiance was also outstanding.

Cooke would like to thank Mr. Liu Yi for sharing his thoughts and experience of using Cooke S7/i lenses, and we look forward to seeing his future projects delight the audiences.

You can watch the video interview with Mr. Liu Yi here (In Chinese, with English subtitles).

‘Three-body’ is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video in USA, UK and some European countries.