Hi everyone! Mr. JOC here. Ever wonder about the behind the scene magic for food shows on TV and how the talent always look perfectly lit and the food super delicious? We got a glimpse of how it all happens during our visit to Seefood Media studio in New York City. I’ll share a few tips on DSLR video setting as well towards the end of the post.
During our visit to New York City over the Christmas holidays, one of the highlights of the trip was being able to visit our friends Jamie and Saukok of Seefood Media. We were really excited since Nami had just started Just One Cookbook YouTube Channel and had a ton of questions about food videography. Who better to answer our questions than our own James Beard Award-winning video production friends.
A bit of background on our friendship. Long before Jamie and I both settled down and got married, he used to live in San Francisco and we had met through our mutual friend Leonard. Loving food brought us together and I learned a great deal about ingredients, food preparation, and how to create good food from the many hours we spent in Jamie’s kitchen. Those days were an amazing gastric ecstasy experience for me (thank you Nami for allowing my stomach to continue enjoying the same happiness).
From Jamie, I learned how to make stock from scratch with fresh ingredients and many other fundamentals cooking skills. During that time, Jamie was always hosting parties for his friends and I became a frequent beneficiary of his delicious creations. White truffle rice, Kobe beef burgers, seared foie gras, and slow-roasted beef tenderloin just to name a few memorable dishes. I was a bit surprised when Jamie left the technology industry to get his master’s degree in Food Studies because he loved gadgets and technology. Now with Seefood Media, he gets to combine his passion for high tech and his love for food.
As Nami started her Just One Cookbook YouTube channel, it was an unfamiliar undertaking since neither Nami nor myself had any experience with video. To get started, we got our inspiration from watching hundreds of Upwave videos Jamie and Saukok had produced, which is nominated as a finalist this year for James Beard Award Video WebCast! I’ve included one of our favorite ones below.
Bahn Mi Lettuce Wraps from SeeFood Media on Vimeo.
When we arrived at the Seefood Media studio, it was quite cool being in the same space where Rachel ray, Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse, and other amazing chefs have been. Jamie and Saukok patiently answered all of Nami and my endless questions about kitchen setup, countertop material, cabinet set up, and how to create a space that is optimized for food videography. The promo video below for SeeFood Media is a great glimpse into the amazing work they do.
We got an exclusive tour of the 3 existing kitchens and how they are optimized for shooting. My personal favorite was kitchen B with the movable islands (see Floor Plans below). How cool is that? We drooled at the incredible prop collection and kitchen gadgets room, 8 Kitchen Aid blenders in all different colors… do I need to say more? Besides the existing kitchens, we also got a sneak peek into their future plans to build even more studio space.
Thank you Jamie, Saukok, and Chewbarka (their cute dog!) for hosting us in your amazing studio and we look forward to seeing a live shoot there soon.
Now, a few DSLR tips for those of you that are thinking about starting food videography with DSLR.
1. Make sure your Auto Lighting Optimizer is turned off and ISO is set to manual. This will prevent your shot from being over or underexposed based on the brightness of your object.
2. Always shoot on manual mode, unless you have Canon 70D which is able to auto-focus in movie mode.
3. Change your picture style setting by lowering the contrast, saturation, and sharpness. This will make your objects look more natural.
I find the above clip by Philip Bloom really helpful with DSLR setting and wished I was aware of the information when I first started.
Happy shooting!
Full Disclosure: Just One Cookbook has not been compensated by Seefood Media and all images courtesy of Seefood Media.
So fun! I’ve worked with Jamie and SeeFood Media before and they are spectacular! Loved reading about your trip to their beautiful studios!
I wish that I was there to watch you in action! I need to go back there again and learn how they shoot the real show! I miss your video ~~~ *hint hint* 😉
Very cool post, love that you finally joined the youtube world!!
wonderful pictures
I`m jealous of all this video equipment! This looks amazing!
This is a ton of information thank you so much. What an amazing tour!
I did not know that there are so many settings to adjust in a DSLR. I just use my P&S one for videos and was thinking of starting shooting with the Nikon DSLR. This is so helpful thanks.
What an incredible experience! Looks like you got to have fun and learned so much, Nami. Thanks for sharing!
This is a foodie’s dream, and now it can come true. I love this post and I look forward to more of your videos 🙂
It’s lovely how you both work together. I think the video content on your blog is fantastic. Like you’ve said, there’s a lot to consider but it’s not beyond the realm of any blogger xx
I’m not sure if the 70D has some specific feature improvement over the 60D (which I have – it can also focus in video mode), but I’d recommend always keeping it in manual focus, or better yet just not changing the focus at all during shooting. If you need to do a shot which requires a refocus, just change the shot and fade out/in between the scenes.
If you’re using the in-built camera microphone (not such a good idea anyway) then you’ll get a horrible sound of the focus motor. Even with Canon USM lenses it will still be audible, and even if you’re laying over audio post-production then the focusing will look funky in the video, since there will be a second or so of horrible blurriness while the camera is refocusing!
Hi Charles,
The 70D has Dual Pixel CMOS AF as a new feature. I don’t have a 70D myself but our friend has one and I was quite impressed when I played around with it. It autofocus by itself during movie mode and with the STM lens there was barely any noise.
Here’s a good youtube clip on the auto-focus as well as the STM noise… or the lack of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv8Fr1T03GA
http://nofilmschool.com/2013/07/canon-70d-announced-video-autofocus/
These are great tips Mr JOC! It’s always good to learn from the experts 🙂
Great tips! And what a wonderful studio! And this is the home of Bobby Flay and CO? 良い演技ですね。
A cool glimpse into tv kitchens, a really great opportunity. And great tips for food movie shooting.
Wow!! To follow a dream……thank you Mr JOC for sharing these invaluable tips with us. You write as well as Nami does. You two make an amazing team. Seefood studio is dream come true.
Wow! What a fun experience! I have never shot video before…but now I want to try! Thank you for sharing!