PBS Food's Original Fare Gets a New Look with the Cooke Varotal/i FF Zoom Lens
Brie Clayton July 27, 2022
0 Comments
Doc-style TV series returns restyled from pandemic hiatus
The recently introduced Cooke Optics Varotal/i FF 30-95mm zoom lens played a key role in the re-introduction of Original Fare.
Since 2013, Original Fare has been a staple on PBS Food, one of the US public broadcast service's web streaming channels - as well as being distributed internationally by TVF to China, Thailand, New Zealand, Belarus, and Eastern Europe. But for the last two years, the pandemic has had this internationally produced show on hiatus.
With the return of international production, Kelly Cox, the show's creator, executive producer, director and former host wanted to re-invent Original Fare for its comeback. Original Fare zig-zags the globe to uncover where the ingredients people use truly originate from. She has plucked tea with the women in fields of Sri Lanka, dove for invasive lion fish off the coast of Barbados, and hunted seal on the icebergs of Newfoundland.
Sarah Whelden, the show's award-winning director of photography, was brought on to help spearhead the show's shift in approach. Cox was particularly drawn to Whelden's story-first collaborative approach. While they didn't know each other beforehand, they did move within the same circles, which is how they teamed up.
This would be the same show featuring food from around the world, but a different show in how we would film it, explains Whelden. Kelly was looking for help in redefining the creative vision finding the balance between planned intentional shots and unplanned documentary freedom for the subjects. She wanted to step away from the previous season's aesthetics, with a big part being that the show wouldn't have an on-camera host, and would instead let the subjects be who they are and speak for themselves.
For a production that's international in scope, Whelden knew that she needed two things: As small a camera package as we could get because of the traveling and the ability to zoom. We didn't have the resources to manage a whole prime and zoom kit - so the zoom would have to stand-in' for the primes.
Although not required for distribution, the re-styled Original Fare would be shot in 4K. I love the ALEXA look, and the Mini LF was perfect, explained Whelden. Shooting in 4K made sense considering the production standards we would be up against on other platforms. My only concern at the time was a lack of lensing options in the full frame space, especially zoom lenses.
But Whelden ran into a problem: When we started planning, I didn't know about the Varotal, and the other full frame zooms just weren't doing it for me. I've used Cooke's before - the Speed Panchro/is, S4s, and miniS4s - as well as many other lenses from other companies, but those zooms from those other companies what I needed was just not there. I wanted something that both worked creatively, and was still relatively lightweight and mobile.
BECine, the boutique camera rental house in Los Angeles, would come to Whelden's rescue. They are wonderful, just so lovely, and they knew I wasn't happy. As it turned out, they told me that the Cooke Varotal zoom had just come in. That's all I needed to hear. I put the Varotal 30-95 on the camera, put a person in front of the lens, and it was perfect. The look was what I wanted and expected from Cooke, with the focal length range I needed and the Varotal size and weight is very manageable. Then I created my own show LUTs in LA, which I refined on the ground
The destination in May of 2022 for the new Original Fare was the Drimnin Estate on the Morvern coast of Scotland, with an episode that would focus half on the culture of the region and half on Nc'nean Distillery, Scotland's first net zero whiskey- which happens to be organic and bottled in the UK's first 100% recycled clear glass bottle.
With the Varotal 30-95 zoom as a prime stand-in, Whelden wouldn't have to worry about the time needed to change lenses. We actually only did three zoom shots in the episode itself. Most of the show is static long takes and a few moments with camera movement on the tripod head. I was very excited to have a single lens that would cover everything needed. There wasn't a time that I wished we had something wider or longer. My 1st AC Asia Brown was able to leave the lens on the camera in the camera coffin until the end of the trip.
For each setup, Whelden would play with the lens and find the best zoom for prime stand-in focal length and camera placement. For me, it always falls on those numbers that you would use as a prime: 32 and 40, plus we had one shot that used the entire range during a zoom. But I would never live above 50.
For a modest budget production, how did the Varotal 30-95 zoom perform as a prime lens stand-in for Whelden? First, you want the audience to feel like they are in the world of these people, so there's nothing super wide or extreme telephoto. The lens range was perfect for covering the whole show. I knew that it was wide enough for the small spaces we were in 30 gets you there on a full frame sensor. Any wider becomes more of an effect and less naturalistic and immersive.
Whelden also found one other significant feature of the Varotal, its breathing, or more precisely, lack of breathing. I didn't want focus pulling to be an effect, especially when sitting on a shot for two minutes. The last thing you want is for a focus pull to take you out of the experience. Add that lack of breathing, no chromatic aberration and minimal distortion on the wide end, you get a really clean lens. Plus, it's a Cooke lens, so you get a natural aesthetic, not a clinically sharp focus. With Cooke,
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
PBS Food's Original Fare Gets a New Look with the Cooke Varotal/i FF Zoom Lens 
