Category: HDTV…for reals.
So we shot an hours worth of footage for my video production class yesterday at Eastern Standard.
Expect to see the finished 5-6 minute piece soon.
Until then, please enjoy these pics, taken with my new macro lens!
-Andrew
This was posted over on the eGullet forums by the user "project", and I thought it was worthy of reposting.
Net, so far, in practice, in the US, if it passes through a
motion picture camera, then nearly always it has to be from
the I Love Lucy crowd. Yes, in Jurassic Park,
Spielberg got the DNA science okay, but he is a rare
exception.News? The same. Food? The same. Sports? The same.
Science? The same. That crowd has only a hammer and
sees nearly everything as a nail. E.g., science programs are
nearly never about the science but all about the drama
that can be contrived — geology becomes the violence of
volcanoes, the weather becomes the threat of hurricanes,
tornadoes, and global warming, ecology and nature become the
rape of nature by evil humans, planetary motion becomes the
risk of a "global killer" asteroid, rocket engineering becomes
"Will they all be killed in a big explosion?", etc.Endless, pointless, useless, worthless,
dra ra ra ra ra ra-ra ra ra-ra ma ma ma ma-ma ma-ma ma-ma
Sickening.
This week’s episode features the new restaurant 15 East, personal chef Jennifer Lynn and the new kids food store, Kidfresh. Lemme know what you think — these guys (both the network and the spots featured) are doing some interesting stuff.
Set your DVRs and Tivo’s and VCRs and brains….braaaaains!
Err, sorry; got carried away.
Holla. It’s Swizzle. I’m a BU student, and a good friend of the
Gentleman Gourmand. I’m bloggin baby! When Andrew told me that Chris
Cognac asked him to appear on an episode of “The Hungry Detective” I
was in disbelief. Fantasies about living a ballin’ entourage-style
life swirled around in my brain; we’d soon be getting drinks with Tony
Bourdain, then hitting the clubs with Giada and Rachel. Ahh…
Hey! We need to shoot the scene first! Then I can become Andrew’s
spiritual advisor when he’s a huge Food Network star. I mean, why do
you think Snoop keeps Bishop Don Magic Juan around? Andrew knows what
I’m sayin… Andrew?
The location that I was on-screen for was the segment filmed at Mary
Chung’s. Now, let me tell you an interesting tidbit about Mary Chung’s:
it seems that it was the very first restaurant in the world to be on
the internet. If this is accurate: http://boston.openguides.org/?Mary_Chung’s
"A major hangout for MIT geeks, and thus the first restaurant with a
Usenet newsgroup, alt.fan.mary-chungs," then Mary Chung’s was most
likely the first dining establishment in cyberspace.
the proprietor (not pictured) is an amazing woman. In one of my recent visits, I was
so overcome with elation by the food, I stopped her as she was walking
by. I told her, "Mary, your food is so good…" (I was at a loss for
words, and looked her right in the eyes). "…so good." She stopped and
gave me her full attention (something a restaurant
owner/server/hostess/chef rarely gives), and said softly and almost
bashfully, "I know… I know. Thank you." She gave me one last look,
and whisked off to take care of a ringing phone.
This summer I worked as a production assistant (PA) for O’Malley Productions on the new FoodNetwork show, The Hungry Detective with Chris Cognac. I met Chris on eGullet, and knew him as the Culinary Detective. I found out about the show and the schedule, and asked if I could show up and observe. They ended up asking me to help them out, and I was delighted to do so. I worked with them in Boston, and hope to do more work with them in the future. After they left town, I went to Denver and while relaxing in the mountains, had a chance to ponder long and hard about what I had just gone through.
After
much deliberation, I came to the conclusion that the best thing I can compare to
filming a TV show would be to a catered gala with chefs from different
restaurants. Each chef comes into a kitchen they’ve probably never seen
before, using equipment they are generally, but not specifically
familiar with. This parallel was evident from the first day at JP
Licks. While the cameramen certainly had used the same type (and
perhaps even the same model) cameras before, one of them had a bad
audio input — potentially as disastrous as an oven without a pilot
light. An easy problem to fix, but one that unaddressed could lead to catastrophic failure.
Andrew Baber is a 
