I shot this with head chef Peppe Fontana and sound engineer Graham C Williams. They were an absolute pleasure to work with and, just in case anyone's wondering, the pizza tasted amazing! I could get used to doubling up the talent and the catering department.

cooking with Peppe DVC/UWOL 2011 on Vimeo

We were going for something that felt fast paced and upbeat like a lot of contemporary cookery shows.

All done in one take with a couple of brief pauses to reposition equipment. Shot with an NEX-5 w/ e-mount 16mm pancake lens, Sony VG10 w/ Helios 58mm lens, three HD Sony Handycams, one with wide angle lens and an XH-A1. We used a head mic and a few different shotgun/omni mics run into a mixing desk for the sound.

Edited in FCP 6 and graded w/Magic Bullet. Music taken from Soundtrack Pro library and used as per purchase agreement.

I'm hungry now.......that looked to good...

Nice camera work. You really could follow all the steps as the pizza gets made. The mussels were alive? Didn't know that. Reminds me of the first time I saw lobsters boiling. I couldn't eat any.
Very well shot, educational video. I'm like Chris, it made me hungry.

Count me in as hungry too! I liked all the camera angles. Especially the high wide one. It was cut at a brisk pace which really helped it move along. There were a few edits that moved a little too quick for me actually.

This is good, strong piece.

Nice solid entry Henry; probably this one could be made into a genuine web series the easiest of all the entries we have seen so far.

Interesting to note that you filmed it all in one go using multiple cameras; if I had tried to do a cooking show I'm sure I would have tried to set up each scene separately (at the expense of increasing the workload and antagonizing the chef)!

As it is you capture the spontaneity of the chef in his element, and working at his own pace. Nice one!

Henry, now I'm hungry!
I agree with Simon, this one could easily be turned into a series. Go for it!

Thanks so much everyone for taking the time to watch and leave feedback. It's much appreciated and I'm really glad you liked the video.

Chris, Dick, Jeremy, Trond - you have no idea how hungry I was making this video. It was a rather early morning shoot as it was a working kitchen and we had a couple of hours to set up, shoot the vid and break everything down again before their day started - I'd foolishly missed breakfast and only got more famished as we went through each stage of the pizza's preparation. It had been completely consumed within five seconds of the final shot going in the can!

Simon, Jeremy, Dick, we were actually running all six cameras throughout - I did a best guess estimate of where they'd need to be in the various different areas before we started, set them up, pressed record and then adjusted on the fly. The ceiling wide was my little NEX-5 mounted on an SLR gorillapod hanging off the ceiling with a 16mm lens. It's a nice backup and also helps add context to the action - use it a lot for the same purpose when undertaking paid work, although it never stops being odd setting focus on an upside down image!

The biggest challenge with this project was in post where I had to shorten down a 10 minute sequence whilst preserving all the information. Took a couple of days but I think it worked okay in the end. We came in a whole frame under the time limit!

Trond and Simon, It'd be a lot of fun to do a series of webisodes in the same vein but I'm not sure my waistline would stand it! Definitely food for thought though. Will have to give this some consideration...

Henry

This was a good solution of the task. It is nearly impossible to understand how you managed operating all the cameras alone. I like the result.

Thanks Finn-Erik!

I'm kind of used to juggling cameras as I film a lot of one time events this way - for me at least it's mostly about making sure you have decent overlapping coverage so if one camera needs repositioning/adjusting mid shot a couple of others will pick up the slack. It still gives me a headache sometimes though!

Henry

Hi Henry

I will definitely try this out - your chef Peppe explains the process of making a genuine Italian pizza very clearly and is quite inspiring. The props and process are well organized and the instructions are easy to follow.

I must say your cooking show has an interesting and rather different style and ambiance to most with its deep shadows and de-saturated colour due to the minimal spot lighting and creative camera angles. The flames bursting out of the gas cooker seem to accentuate this rather dark, shadowy look. While it is interesting, I experienced a little difficulty with this as there is not enough light to see exactly what the chef is doing and I must confess I found the cast shadows a little distracting.

Good, clear sound here is a big plus. I think this was well done.

Hi Marj,

Many thanks for your comments. I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. Peppe (the chef) and Graham (sound) really did both do an excellent job, especially considering it was Peppe's first time on camera.

RE: the look of the piece I don't think the grade was particularly dark - I'll have to check it on a couple of different monitors to see if there's any variation. Good to know for next time.

Henry

Very nice, Henry! You've proven what I've been thinking for some time now, that cooking shows don't all have to be lit the same and don't have to be in the same kitchen! I've considered doing a "for fun" series featuring local cooks in their own home kitchens. This is inspiration. Of course, not many people I know have cooking areas like that. :) Great camera placement. And with the panning I noticed on at least one shot it made it feel like you had a large crew.

Thanks, Lorinda! You should so do one yourself - they're great fun to shoot and edit, plus you get to eat the lovely food afterwards :)

It's a shame I don't have the reverse angle of me and Graham (the sound engineer) running round like madmen on tiptoes between cameras/mics as we were filming. Would make for quite entertaining viewing!

Henry

Great job, thanks for sharing.

Me personally, I would prefer the better lighting, it would highlight the foods better and keep shadows from destracting. A brighter work area would highlight the food and give greater clarity and meaning and provide cleaner video. I would also add some very close shots and maybe a few stills, but that is just my opinion. I would also prefer a LAV mic over the facial mic, I just always have, I feel the mic near the face to be distracting even for sports announcers.

but that is just my opinion, and I am nothing special.

Thanks for watching and taking the time to provide feedback, Don. Really glad you liked it.

Unfortunately the kind of shooting scenario you're talking about would have been incompatible with the one take, multiple camera format we wanted to use unless we had a much larger crew and a lot more prep time.

We didn't use a lav mic because we would have got audio interference when Peppe (the chef) was kneading dough etc...

Good stuff Henry.... I'm liking what the VG20 can do, and this tempts me even more.

I'm getting back to this board late, so most have already said what I wanted to say, about the production quality and mouthwatering subject. Well done, especially in juggling all the footage and wrapping it together. I guess whittling down 10 minutes was a feat -- I wonder how you would have done to force it all into, say, 2:30?

Thanks for the positive feedback Marc :) The VG's are pretty good cam's within their limitations.

In answer to your question "I wonder how you would have done to force it all into, say, 2:30?" I think the correct answer is probably "badly" ;)