Organic Chef

bewillia

bewillia

Well-known member
very short film we did about an atlanta chef who has a small and very delicious restaurant that specializes in local, organic, mostly vegetarian food.

gh13 with pancake 20mm and 55mm fd lenses. would love to hear your thoughts.

 
Wow, great looking shots! I've been working on a similar doc series (on the GH13) here in Toronto about the importance of fresh local food. Hopefully will have it out and posted within the next couple weeks.

Did you shoot AVCHD or MJPG?
 
Very Nice! The whole thing worked for me...I can't even nitpick.
I also think it's the perfect length and got the point across...and longer & you would have lost me.
(He's not the most dynamic speaker, glad you left the smile in at the end)
 
Very nice and professional; however, a couple of things hit me, maybe just me, the wrong way. I would lose the beginning shot of the guy walking towards the camera. It's too long and doesn't represent food very well. Also, I'd edit out the last shots of the floor being cleaned as that too is not a very appetising appearance. Every thing else, the mood, the low-light, the hippy earth loving esthetic, all of that hits the message just right for me.
 
I love how you used the natural lighting for this. Especial the shots inside the dining area are very organic and interesting.
 
I really like this piece, great job!

I am not sure if anyone else noticed this, but I found that at some points when the restaurant owner was speaking the soundtrack got in the way a bit and it was harder to understand what he was saying (Example: 1:58). The soundtrack is great, it is just that he is in the middle of a sentence and the keys are played over top. Could be just me though...
 
thanks everyone for the feedback. really great feedback.

ragnar - i understand your point. we had the exterior sidewalk shots bookending the piece to establish the neighborhood that the restaurant is in. trying to do something a little different and simple/minimal at the same time. give the viewer a moment to settle down. also, i feel like it quickly establishes that we aren't watching a typical restaurant promotional video. do you think every shot should represent food somehow? i think i agree with you about the mopping stuff, but i just really like the way those shots feel.

alignment - some of the audio is h4n. some is actually just camera audio. would have liked to have gotten better audio for this, but the shooting just didn't work out that way. typically i like having a sound guy with a boom mic right on everything. makes a big difference.

mojo43 - thanks for that. i think i will change the soundtrack up a little.
 
I didn't mind showing the neighborhood, the surroundings, him walking home after closing up, all good. I just feel that first shot is too long. Do these run on TV? That's why I favor tightening it up a bit. The hot steamy slop bucket is a nice shot, with its nice shadows and play of steam rising from the bucket, but doesn't belong in a restaurant commercial. Is there a nice marquee above the establishment showing the name. Either way, you know what you are doing and it looks very professional despite my two cents worth.
 
beautiful! love the compositions and message! lovely warm sounds, great soulful honest piece!
good to see these days :smile: look forward to seeing more

the horizon line on shot 1m56s i felt looked a little odd with it being slightly squint.
 
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After looking at this piece a few times I don't mind the long take of the opening shot. It's sort of a juxtaposition of a neighborhood that doesn't match what the restaurant is serving, healthy organic food. It forces us to see a man who may need to eat more of what the good chef is cooking on the inside.

What was a little unsettling for me was the opening graphics - the orange colored font. I know that it's supposed to resemble the restaurants window lettering, the title I can live with but the filmmaker credits, smack dab in the middle of the screen, seems like and old industrial educational film they made us watch back in grammar school waaayyyy back in the 70's.

As for the mop bucket shots - they are beautiful to look at and I feel add a lot to the story. It tells me that the chef is paying attention to little details not only in what goes into his menu items and plate presentation, but also the appearance and cleanliness of his dining area. The guy is using boiling hot water to clean his floors. I don't know about you, but I do take in consideration a restaurants initial appearance. Because if the management doesn't care how clean the front of the house(dining area) is for all of its customers to see, how clean do you think they keep the kitchen where they prepare the food?

Over all I feel that this is a very successful profile on the chef/restaurant. I'm left with many different good feels - I don't know if I want to use my flier miles and travel down to Atlanta to seek out this eatery or cash it all in to start my own restaurant. Better yet, it inspires me to be a better filmmaker storyteller who is now feeling very hungry for something amazing to eat(and craving more stories from ProperMedium!)

Bon appetite!
 
PixelWrangler said:
After looking at this piece a few times I don't mind the long take of the opening shot. It's sort of a juxtaposition of a neighborhood that doesn't match what the restaurant is serving, healthy organic food. It forces us to see a man who may need to eat more of what the good chef is cooking on the inside.

What was a little unsettling for me was the opening graphics - the orange colored font. I know that it's supposed to resemble the restaurants window lettering, the title I can live with but the filmmaker credits, smack dab in the middle of the screen, seems like and old industrial educational film they made us watch back in grammar school waaayyyy back in the 70's.

As for the mop bucket shots - they are beautiful to look at and I feel add a lot to the story. It tells me that the chef is paying attention to little details not only in what goes into his menu items and plate presentation, but also the appearance and cleanliness of his dining area. The guy is using boiling hot water to clean his floors. I don't know about you, but I do take in consideration a restaurants initial appearance. Because if the management doesn't care how clean the front of the house(dining area) is for all of its customers to see, how clean do you think they keep the kitchen where they prepare the food?

Over all I feel that this is a very successful profile on the chef/restaurant. I'm left with many different good feels - I don't know if I want to use my flier miles and travel down to Atlanta to seek out this eatery or cash it all in to start my own restaurant. Better yet, it inspires me to be a better filmmaker storyteller who is now feeling very hungry for something amazing to eat(and craving more stories from ProperMedium!)

Bon appetite!
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+1 Most agreed!! word for word- you got it!
 
why did you choose to expose those interior shots (looking towards the front windows) for the outside lighting so that everything inside was so dark? i found it odd and it made the place feel dark and not appealing or inviting to me. why didn't you expose for the inside and just let the outside highlights clip?

also, a lot of the outdoor shots look overexposed....very soft and desaturated, especially compared to all your well-exposed interior shots.

was this all intentional? if so, why?
 
Looks intentional, I think its cool because it obscures the faces eating and is "a road less traveled" in exposure, works for me and overall fits the tone of the film.
 
really appreciating these comments and observations. this kind of input is very valuable to everyone.

ragnar - this isn't going to be on television. just online. i'm not sure there is a form in television that this could possibly fit into. especially with a 2 1/2 minute duration.

PixelWrangler - thanks for all the comments. i know what you mean about the credits. ended up changing that a little bit (perhaps you're referring to the updated version anyway). it does have a vintage feel to it with that color. i'm going to think about that. i was also impressed by the fact that they mop the floor with boiling water. thanks for all your comments.

terra1 - thanks for the comments. you are right about the horizon line. whole thing needs to rotate clockwise a bit.

averan - we have been doing a lot of shooting with natural light only recently. this was all natural light. i never would have exposed that way before we hacked the gh1 (or shot just with natural light), but since the hack i've really been enjoying the shadows more. i guess blown-out window would have looked ok too. i've gotten 50/50 feedback on that one. some people love the silhouette look and some people think it looks bad. i personally like the way it feels, and the fact that we're not looking at people's faces. as for the outdoor stuff being overexposed, it was all shot with an old canon 55mm FD lens, which is a little bit soft (i think of it as nice and soft), and pretty flat. combine that with atlanta summer haze, and it does look a little washed out. i like the way it looks though... and thus opted to not crush the blacks.

thanks again guys for all the comments. all extremely helpful.
 
i think the underexposed interior shots are absolutely perfect and agree with others in that the shots are consistent with the "style" of the short. I disagree, however, that the haze in the exterior shots is correct IMO. I would have used a polarizer to really pop the outdoor colors (at least what colors were there being surrounded by concrete :) ) to remain consistent with the lovely interior colors (when showcased). And I wouldn't attribute the washed out look to your FD 55mm since that is going to happen with any lens, multi coated or not, since that is the nature of uncontrolled daylight reflections wreaking havoc on film or sensors (doesn't matter).
 
Just watched it again and I think you improved the graphics - Again beautiful work. Was this done for the chef/owner for a marketing piece or are you focusing on individuals that you meet and know? If the chef is your client what do you charge for a video like this?
 
ajcourtney said:
i think the underexposed interior shots are absolutely perfect and agree with others in that the shots are consistent with the "style" of the short. I disagree, however, that the haze in the exterior shots is correct IMO. I would have used a polarizer to really pop the outdoor colors (at least what colors were there being surrounded by concrete :) ) to remain consistent with the lovely interior colors (when showcased). And I wouldn't attribute the washed out look to your FD 55mm since that is going to happen with any lens, multi coated or not, since that is the nature of uncontrolled daylight reflections wreaking havoc on film or sensors (doesn't matter).
Click to expand...

point taken ajcourtney. a polarizer would have helped immensely. for the record though, this particular FD lens produces a significantly flatter image than any of our others. i'm not saying that the haze is "correct," just that i like it.
 
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