Treat. Yo. Self. video

Paul_3019

made a holiday video card this year featuring a steak tartare that was inspired by the one here on chef steps.

check it out and enjoy!

https://vimeo.com/115145697

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Comments

mike.minasian

Awesome vid!

lachygroom

That's awesome! I'd love to hear more about how you made the video.

HammeredChef_DEFINITELY_does_NOT_work_at_22134

me too!

Paul_3019

well, a lot went into making the video. I work as a cinematographer, and my wife is an editor, so I could tell you about techniques for photographing food or editing and sound design. I could also tell you about the food styling, which I don't do professionally, but had a lot of fun doing for this. what do you want to know??

lachygroom

I'd love to see what your set up was to film the thing—gear wise. Any techniques or reading too?

Chris_Young_80640

Paul, that's really awesome. Love the soundtrack (with cooking noises) and, of course, the humor.

Paul_3019

I shot the video in my apartment with a super high definition camera (red epic) that I had rented for a job the following day. I'll admit though, you can achieve similar results with a much more affordable camera. I had 3 lenses that I used primarily, all zeiss prime lenses. A 35, 50, and 50 macro. There are several benefits to shooting with a prime lens (sharper image, can open to a wider f stop) but the most beneficial for food photography is that they allow you to focus very close to the lens. The pickles and herbs were shot just inches from the camera.

You can achieve this type of lighting with just a soft natural window... but we shot entirely at night, so we had to bring in our own artificial lights. We had a daylight balanced light bouncing off of a wall and then through another piece of diffusion to make a very soft and flattering light. But again... food almost always looks better in real, natural, indirect daylight. We just needed consistency.

As far as food styling goes, some shots were easier than others. The pickles were super simple (all we needed was a jar of pickles), but the burger took several minutes to build, and then only looked good for a few minutes. The first burger I made, the patty was only half the size of the bun, which explains why when you first see the burger, you just see half of it. It took us more than a dozen takes before we got a good hit on the quail egg. Food styling is just so hard. I've worked on a few tabletop commercials, and the stylists really are the most important people on set. You can make a person look a lot better with lighting and camera tricks and diffusion, but there's very little you can do to make food look better.

My wife did all the editing and the awesome sound design on her own. We don't record sound when we're shooting because it's usually more important to talk and communicate, plus the microphone can leave reflections, so we re-recorded all of our sounds in the next few days. The most fun was to come up with the sound of a pickle coming out of brine (I said it should sound like your ears are ON the pickle).

Paul_3019

Thanks so much Chris! I've always loved cooking, but chefsteps has really changed the way I think in the kitchen. Thanks for creating this awesome community.

Andrea_Feldman_46226

That was so great! I hope Kitty appreciated the special holiday treat...

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Outstanding!!!