How to budget a Cooking Show ?

[Richard Herd]

I used to shoot a lot of food — commercial stuff — which I don’t do anymore (yay) but slow mo is important when those Asian chefs make a huge wok of fire.

[Roy Schneider]

Robert:
Most of the Food Network/Travel Channel Food shows airing in Primetime run in the 50k to 150k range. I have done several 5 to 10 minute pilots for around $10,000 to $15,000. Similar production value, less the cost of a celebrity host. This is generally shooting 2 Fs7’s and a dslr on a Gimbal and maybe a go pro or 2, add to that an Audio guy.

Roy Schneider
Executive Producer
Vintage Production Group

Long Live the Cow
Roy Schneider
Executive Producer
Vintage Production Group
516-659-4596

[Robert Bengraff]

Thank you Roy! That is very helpfuIl and the conclusion that I am coming to. Based on that I have now put together 2 budgets. One @ 15k per episode and the other with an extra Rroll camera and op and using Reds at 20k.

Now to get it greenlite!

rb

[Ned Miller]

Oh wow do I miss the business! Been retired about 4 weeks now and deleted my favorite bookmarks but decided to peek at my ole peeps on DVXuser and CC. Feel like an addict about to call his dealer. I miss Bob’s posts! It’s as if he was channelling the Chicago freelancer production scene. After all, that’s why I took early retirement: What he’s talking bout….

So Robert, the only thing I can say that’s different about cooking shows is that you often have to hire a pro food stylist because “reality sucks”, meaning, what comes out of the oven or kitchen the first time is not so visually appealing, so we often would have an identical dish being cooked under exact conditions and that would be the beauty shot. In sum, you have to hire a pro who your host likes, perhaps their assistant? Otherwise, you’d have to rely on whatever came out for the finished beauty shot, which often will suck.

Restaurant people (besides the owner) can be kinda flaky, so a hard schedule doesn’t work well with that crowd, although if your host is going to visit a local chef, he or she will be very cooperative, but otherwise, it’s hard to have our typical kind of schedule. If the folks in charge don’t know much about our biz, they may not know that we can’t just shoot the crowd if it’s for broadcast or web. I was shut down many times with the warning, “Many men here are not with their wives”, if you get my drift.

It’s easy to have two cameras running in the restaurant section but most restaurants in the back kitchen, it’s too small to have two cameras angles. I’d budget for one camera unless there are interviews where it’s cutting back and forth with the host and episodes’s chef, then you need two, and I wouldn’t go Red, I’d go documentary camera such as a C300 or FS7. After all, a cooking show is basically a documentary, right?

When dealing with restaurants for pilots or real shows, they don’t want you there during a busy period, so these things would be shot on Sunday mornings and the producer’s friends and relatives would fill out the crowd extras. And back when I was doing cooking shows, such as Dining Chicago, the back kitchen staff was not too keen on having their faces on camera, and with the new president, I bet it’s worse!

If I were to bid on something like this, and then they said that I had lost the bid to someone cheaper, it is very realistic nowadays here in Fly Over Country that it would be Bob’s scenario. Really. So don’t be down on Bob, it is the pool I was bidding against. Just got a call today about editing a sales training video they had shot on their iPhones. They sell used Rolexes for $30K. Yet they’re too cheap to hire a shooter. Although Bob may seem “over the top”, he speaks the truth. I don’t know about your market though, but I am glad to be out!

Good luck,

Ned

P.S. Sometime when I have time, I will post “Message from the Grave: A DP Tries To Retire”. Ain’t so easy! Busier now than when I was in the biz. Volunteering for worthy causes.

P.S.S. You Go Bob!! Miss ya

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com

[Bob Cole]

Hey Ned,

Good to see you back here, providing a bit of a reality check. I hope that you find a renewed pleasure and enthusiasm for the craft, through working on personal and pro bono projects.

You are not wrong about the market. The standards have never been higher… or lower.

Enjoy your new career, but keep visiting. We drones need your perspective.

Bob C