A TV commercial production secret from author Ben Bryant

• Posted on 30th June 2015
• in Entertainment, entertainment books, Film Production, Hollywood books, Hollywood memoirs, TV Commercial Production
• by Ben

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In this excerpt from Chapter 18 of my book of

TV commercial production

stories I’ll tell you about a little known specialty peculiar to the advertising business.

“Food Stylists: These are the women (maybe by now there are men doing it) who prepare food for beauty shots of the sort one sees in Red Lobster, Outback Steakhouse and Olive Garden spots. I probably first encountered one of them when working with Tony [Ficalora] but maybe it was earlier.

“At the time they were referred to as “Home Economists” but after seeing them in action I told somebody or other that they weren’t very homey and there was nothing economical about what they did. They should have been called food stylists. A few years later when I was on another food shoot the call sheet listed “Food Stylists”. I have no way of knowing whether or not it was my offhand remark that precipitated this etymological transformation but I was happy that I had thought of it.

“Anyhow these ladies, with no exceptions I can think of, are holy terrors for an AD [Assistant Director]. I learned this the hard way by asking what I thought was a simple question. We were shooting  [I think it was a] Stouffer’s spot  and the stage had a kitchen. I went in and asked when the potatoes would be ready for camera.

“The stylist was a motherly looking matron but there was nothing motherly about her response. All hell broke loose. “They’ll be ready whenever I say they are!” or some such gently professional reply was yelled into my face. I got the hell out of there.

“Thenceforth whenever I found myself needing to deal with one of these harridans I approached softly, admired the beauty of their efforts, chatted amiably for a while and then said something along these lines: ‘We’re in no hurry at all and I realize that you need to have it perfect before bringing it to the set but, for informational purposes only, it would be useful for me to know more or less how long you think it might be before the food is ready.’

“This usually worked and sometimes I’d even be offered a morsel of some delicacy which had as yet not been treated with one of the many toxic substances which they applied to make the food look more glamorous.

Do NOT eat this Burger!

“But there is one unbreakable rule. Never ever under any circumstances eat anything on a food shoot once it’s been placed in front of a camera.”

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