Matthew Cooke

Short story:

Film, TV and Commercial Cinematographer turned Lighting Artist. Currently Lighting Director at Respawn Entertainment, working on the Star Wars Jedi game franchise.

Long story:

In 1999 I walked into The Lounge Cinema in Leeds and told them that I wanted to be their projectionist. They were only looking to fill the position of dogsbody, but they liked my ambition and so hired me with the promise that I would get to operate the projector further down the line. My first solo projection was the film ‘Stuart Little’ and a mistake while lacing the film resulted in a cinema full of crying, terrified children and angry parents.

A few years later, after completing a degree in cultural studies, I enrolled at the London Film School to complete a masters degree, specialising in Cinematography. After making many films I graduated in 2005. Between then and 2015 I worked as a DP, shooting feature films, shorts, TVC's and promos.

My interest in CG came a later and was at first pretty casual. I was in awe at seeing the dinosaurs walking around in Jurassic Park back in 1993 and I was pretty impressed with Toy Story, but I was still more interested in practical filmmaking. It was not until 2010 that I got hooked on CG. I was blown away by the immersive graphics, sound and atmosphere created by DICE in the video game Battlefield Bad Company 2 and the fun cinematic style of Naughty Dog's Uncharted Series. I needed to discover how such things were made, so I started tinkering with various 3D apps and following as many tutorials as I could find, finally settling with Maya as my software of choice. I later discovered V-Ray, which really clicked with the cinematographer in me, as it has real-world photography in mind.

Following my initial interest in game development a whole new world of possibilities has opened up to me and a lot of it directly connects with my filmmaking background. I currently work at Respawn Entertainment, in California as Lead Lighting Artist.