Food-ad tricks

Food-ad tricks from Zillions, Consumer Reports for kids.

One of my cousins was a photographer and cinematographer who for many years produced commercials and industrials. I remember him regaling me with many of his tricks of the trade, including the following gems. For a potato chip commercial, he emptied out the bags, picked a handful of the best-looking chips, filled the bag 3/4 full with cotton balls, stuck the good chips on top and filmed those few pouring invitingly into the bowl. For a delicious, fresh-cooked Thanksgiving dinner, he used an ice-cold pre-cooked bird, coated in Kitchen Bouquet, and right before each take his wife blew cigarette smoke up the turkey's butt -- the smoke curled out deliciously as if the bird had just been brought steaming to the table (which was decorated with lots of plastic fruit, by the way). I had the advantage of spending many formative years with this cousin, who really educated me on the many ways in which the camera ALWAYS lies.

In a former life I was privy to the trade secrets of a major international chocolate conglomerate. (Thank gods I reincarnated!) As it happens, I have some memories of that earlier, baser, incarnation (as a worm, IIRC). Tonight, I am prepared to share these memories in the interests of Knowledge, or at least, Truth in Advertising.

In my reverie, dim impressions arise: robotic women in sterile gowns systematically place miniscule chocolate heaps on carefully engineered, yet unsuspecting, cylinders of dough. Emerging from precisely calibrated ovens, outlying examples of product are swiftly discarded. A vision of the ideal representative arises. Heroic music is piped in. . .you get my drift.

Yet hope endures -- to my surprise and delight!

This is a true story: One day my 4 year-old daughter was watching a commmercial. She turned to me and said: "You know, Mom, they make it sound like, if you don't have this [product], it's the worst thing that could happen-- like you REALLY, REALLY NEED it." And she started to laugh!

In a nutshell, kids know the score. The real challenge begins when we acknowledge this and start from there.

I think that Zillions overstates the case a bit. I've been on quite a few food shoots - both still and video/film, and while I'm sure some of these things do go on, I don't think they're as ubiquitous as the site seems to suggest.

While I've heard of, and have been sugggested to use the Crisco-and-powdered-sugar stand-in for ice cream, I've never been involved with a production that used it - for two reasons: 1) it's not that tough to scoop real ice cream and then superchill it with dry ice to keep it firm enough for shooting; and 2) can you imagine the acting chops that would be required to come up with a decent bite-and-smile shot if the actor was actually consuming Crisco and powdered sugar?

However, sorting through several boxes of strawberries to find the best-looking one or two for garnish is probably standard operating procedure.

I was on one ice cream shoot where the food stylist wasn't very good at scooping, and his scoops didn't properly show a fudge ripple, which was an important part of the flavor being shown, so he (yes, that was unusual, too, since it seems most food stylists are women) just painted in the fudge stripe. I thought that was borderline, but it did make the product look like it should have, had he been able to do a decent scooping job.

I did an ad for Reddi-Wip once, which involved the entire background of the ad being luscious swirls of whipped cream. They had some problems with melting and separating and so on, and I suggested using Gillette shaving cream or something more stable and non-temperature dependent to represent it, but the client insisted on using the real product, that that was a point of honor and legality for them.

I agree that some of these are probably folklore or at least quite rare-- when did you last see a milkshake in an ad, anyway?

can you imagine the acting chops that would be required to come up with a decent bite-and-smile shot if the actor was actually consuming Crisco and powdered sugar?

We know who WON'T be doing an ad like that. Giada!

nr706 wrote:However, sorting through several boxes of strawberries to find the best-looking one or two for garnish is probably standard operating procedure.

I'm sure that food-photography tricks are nothing compared to fashion-photography tricks.

Zillions wrote:Can they do that? Food-ad tricks are not considered false advertising — as long as the food they're actually selling you is real. (The hair-tonic milk couldn't be in a milk ad, and the athlete's-foot-sprayed peach couldn't be in a fruit ad. But they both could be in a cereal ad!)

And there are no rules at all about what can be in a food photo illustrating a recipe in a cookbook or magazine. But most publications don't go to such lengths. For one thing, elaborate food styling is expensive.